From: Jonathan Davis (jonathan.davis@lineone.net)
Date: Tue Sep 02 2003 - 04:51:42 MDT
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of
Hermit
Sent: 01 September 2003 16:46
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: Re:virus: Fred Reed on Religion...
[Hermit] Summary, a quasi apologist screed. Dissection follows.
[Fred] We live in a wantonly irreligious age-at least at the level of public
discourse.
[Hermit] To be irreligious is not "wanton" it is rational. To introduce
religion into public discourse is wanton, as any such introduction offends
anyone who disagrees with the speaker. Given that this is an irreligious
age, and growing more so (hooray) the offense is growing.
[Jonathan] He did not say being irreligious is being "wanton", he said we
live in a "wantonly irreligious age-at least at the level of public
discourse". In short he says we are irreligious and we don't seem to care
(wanton).
[Fred] In America the courts, the schools, and the government seek to
cleanse the country of religion.
[Hermit] The American Founders said, for excellent reason, having more to do
with stopping religious wars than supporting atheism, that government could
have nothing to do with religion - and vice versa. As government has
intruded into more and more areas, so these areas have had to divest
themselves of religion, to remain constitutionally supportable.
[Jonathan] I agree. But Fred Has a point, there appears to be concerted
effort attack religion wherever it may be found, regardless of the wider
preferences of the communities involved. Whilst we may support one side of
this battle, there is no doubt that a battle is underway.
[Fred] More accurately, they seek to cleanse it of Christianity.
[Hermit] I'm not sure where Fred obtained his data, but if it is accurate,
perhaps it has something to do with the particularly virulent proselytizing
engaged in by the tens-of thousands of religions in America which identify
themselves with Christianity, but not with each other.
[Jonathan] I think Fred is alluding to public kow towing to Islamic and
Jewish interest groups
[Fred] We are told, never directly but by relentless implication, that
religious faith is something one in decency ought to do behind closed
doors-an embarrassment, worse than public bowling though not quite as bad as
having a venereal disease.
[Hermit] Far worse than an STD, as it tends to infect all aspects of the
lives of those infected with it.
[Jonathan] We know this is true of all ideologies and risks being true of
CoVism.
[Fred] Which is odd.
[Hermit] Why?
[Jonathan] Read on...
[Fred] I do not offer myself as one intimate with the gods, and on grounds
of reason would be hard pressed to choose between the views of Hindus and
those of Buddhists. I note however that over millennia people of
extraordinary intellect and thoughtfulness have taken religion seriously. A
quite remarkable arrogance is needed feel oneself mentally superior to
Augustine, Aquinas, Isaac Newton, and C.S. Lewis. I'm not up to it.
[Hermit] And there is nothing to say that over the millenia, hundreds of
millions of fools have been wrong. Given that we do not believe as the
ancients did, and class their religions as myth, the question Fred should be
asking himself as why we see our myths as being different? Is it not
"remarkably arrogant" to assume that "Augustine, Aquinas, Isaac Newton, and
C.S. Lewis" were wiser in matters of religion than Salon, Plato, Socrates,
Hippocrates, Democrites, Diogenes, Epicurus, Zenon, Archimedes and many
hundreds of others recognised for founding schools of science and
philosophy? Or as Mark Twain, a far better author - and perhaps wiser man,
than CS Lewis put it, "The so-called Christian nations are the most
enlightened and progressive ... but in spite of their religion, not because
of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of
Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was
regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against
Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by
bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in
architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born."
[Jonathan] It is difficult to be arrogant about one set of thinkers over
another. Fred's is a personal measure against a set of greats, not a set of
greats versus another set of greats. He simply, humbly states that he - Fred
Reed - considers it arrogant to dismiss as morons such thinkers as
Augustine, Aquinas, Isaac Newton, and C.S. Lewis. I agree with him. I am not
vehemently against religion, I simply don't believe it. Fred's point is
simple: Some brilliant men have made religion central to their lives so
perhaps there is something to it.
[Hermit] And again, how about current scientists and philosophers? Some 90%
of the senior scientists in the world today are undoubtedly "up to it", as
almost all people with a scientific education reject the idea of Deism. If
Fred actually had to defend the words of those he cites as wise, that I
suspect that he might recognise the weakness of his arguments. Surely it
doesn't take genius to reject religion, only common sense.
[Jonathan] Fred rejects Deism too. None of this removes the fact that
religion in it's various guises has and does command enormous respect from
billions and the brilliant. They may be wrong, but then again so may we.
Could he defend Augustine:
SNIP
(All quotations bar Augustine on Mathematicians [which is from "De genesi ad
litteram, Book II"] are courtesy of Positive Atheism
(http://www.positiveatheism.org/))
[Jonathan] You are examining Augustine nearly 2000 years out of context.
There a clangers in the works of almost every thinker over a certain age. As
Democritus points out "Our sins are more easily remembered than our good
deeds". So it is with our words. Plato, Socrates, Hippocrates, Democrites,
Diogenes, Epicurus, Zenon and Archimedes are all pre-monotheistic thinkers
several of whom probably gave serious credence to the idea that a troop of
gods ruled a flat earth from a mountain top.
[Fred] Of course arrogance comes in forms both personal and temporal. People
tend to regard their own time as wiser and more knowing than all preceding
times, and the people of earlier ages as quaint and vaguely primitive. Thus
many who do not know how a television works will feel superior to Newton,
because he didn't know how a television works. (Here is a fascinating
concept: Arrogance by proximity to a television.)
[Hermit] Science tells us that it is through disproving of old fallacious
ideas that we progress. And we have disporoved an awful lot of fallacious
ideas in the last few hundred years. So yes. We are wiser and more knowing.
Is Fred really arguing that ages when sick people went to see priests and
then died, who believed women inferior, and considered slavery natural was
somehow wiser and more knowing than today?
[Jonathan] No, he is suggesting that in our turn we may be judged harshly.
The whole essay is an appeal to constraint and humility over hubris and
chauvinism.
[Fred] It will be said that we have learned much since the time of Newton,
and that this knowledge renders us wiser on matters spiritual. We do have
better plastics. Yet still we die, and have no idea what it means.
[Hermit] Fred is, as usual, wrong. Death simply means that the illusion that
we are intelligent self-conscious creatures, produced by our neurons, is
over.
[Jonathan] You may be wrong Hermit. The evidence is with you now, but, maybe
- just maybe - you are utterly wrong. Once upon a time the evidence was with
Ptolemy too.
[Fred] We do not know where we came from, and no amount of pious mummery
about Big Bangs and black holes changes that at all.
[Hermit] More proximally, my mother and father fucked. This lead to a long
sequence of events, which culminated in my presence. Using genetic analysis,
we are able to trace back the fact that our parents, and their parents, and
their grandparents and so on, did the same for hundreds of thousands of
generations. And before that, with other simpler creatures - drom the
chimpanzee, with whom we share 99% of our DNA, to the cabbage, with whom we
share 28% of our DNA the path is clear. And yes, we can go back to the Big
Bang, one small step at a time. The fact that Fred seems to have missed out
on some essential education is no reason for him to assert that others don't
know things, because he didn't pay attention in class, or that his schooling
was deficient.
[Jonathan] You seem to have completely missed his point. We are pretty
certain we know how humanity evolved on Earth, and the human reproductive
system. Where Earth and the rest of the universe came from, we do not know.
Ultimately Fred is completely right.
[Fred] We do not know why we are here.
[Hermit] As above. Unless Fred imagines that he was left under a gooseberry
bush by the fairies, I'd suggest that he is here because his parents fucked
one another.
[Jonathan] Your insults cannot evade a central truth in his claim - we have
no sound idea what underlies existence itself. "But where did that come
from" echoes off into infinity.
[Fred] We have intimations of what we should do, but no assurance.
[Hermit] I wonder if Fred knew what he meant here? Unless he is talking
about "morality" - in which case we know exactly where it originates -
1. In the first stage, starting at about age ten, people avoid breaking
moral rules to avoid punishment.
2. In the second stage, people follow moral rules only when it is to
their advantage.
3. In the third stage, starting about age 17, people try to live up to
what is expected of them in small social groups, such as families.
4. In the fourth stage, people fulfill the expectations of larger social
groups, such as obeying laws that keep society together.
5. In the fifth and sixth stages, starting at about age 24, people are
guided by both absolute and relative moral principles; they follow these for
altruistic reasons, though, and not because of what they might gain
individually (the final two stages are differentiated in that the fifth is
based on adherence to democractic processes and rule of law, the sixth
allows for the possibility of civil disobedience in the interests of
changing laws). (From http://virus.lucifer.com/wiki/KohlbergLawrence).
[Jonathan] A brilliant and illuminating digression. Bye the way, what Wiki
did you use for the Virian wiki? It is superb. And whilst I am at it, thanks
for all the content you have been inputting. I have thoroughly enjoyed
reading the Wiki.
[Fred] These are the questions that religion addresses and that science
pretends do not exist.
[Hermit] We know that Religion has made assertions about origins. All of
which have been proven wrong by science. We know that Religion has made
assertions about morality. All of which have been proven wrong by reason and
research. We know which areas of the brain are active when people have
"religious experiences", and we know how to invoke these artifacts of brain
mechanics and how to prevent them and so, in some instances cure religious
neurosis and hallucination. What is it that Fred imagines that religion
addresses - and science says does not exist? We need more details.
[Jonathan] Indeed, it would be great to get a more in-depth answer.
[Fred] For all our transistors we know no more about these matters than did
Heraclitus, and think about them less.
[Hermit] While Fred seems to be lamentably ignorant, why does he imagine
that the rest of the world suffers from his disablities? Surely he can speak
authoritatively only for himself? And is Fred unaware of the fact that
Heraclitus would call him an infidel and an atheist? Would Fred agree with
this assessment? If not, where does Fred get the arrogance to make
assertions about his beliefs being superior to those of Heraclitus?
[Jonathan] Fred is manifestly not ignorant, neither is he disabled.
Furthermore, he is obviously speaking for himself. His point is simple -
despite enormous progress in the sciences, fundamental questions remain
unanswered. He sees this area of uncertainty as religions niche. I don't
think he would give a damn about Heraclitus' opinion of him high or low.
Bye the way, are you are co-opting Fred's rhetoric to use against him
("arrogance")?
[Fred] Many today assuredly do know of the questions, and do think about
them. One merely doesn't bring them up at a cocktail party, as they are held
to be disreputable.
[Hermit] Perhaps the people who frequent cocktail parties are not the right
teachers? After all, "Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent,
then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then
altogether, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last
step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without
stumbling." Lord Byron
[Jonathan] Fred's aside is furiously battered by an earnest Hermit! My only
complaint about your posts is that they are very long (too long for a
dullard like me). Excising passages like the one above would pare down your
prose and condense your brilliance.
[Fred] Yet I often meet a, to me, curious sort of fellow who simply cannot
comprehend what religion might be about. He is puzzled as distinct from
contemptuous or haughty.
[Hermit] A rare creature, I'm sure. As Twain put it, "Most people are
bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the
passages that bother me are those I do understand." I think it can safely be
said that this goes for most atheists.
[Jonathan] I am just such a creature.
[Fred] He genuinely sees no different between religious faith and believing
that the earth is flat. He is like a congenitally deaf man watching a
symphony orchestra: With all the good will in the world he doesn't see the
profit in all that sawing with bows and blowing into things.
[Hermit] Perhaps Fred borrowed his diatribe from somebody else? Or perhaps
he is not very different from those of Twain's day. Certainly, I cannot
think of a better response than another Twain quotation. "One of the proofs
of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed in it. They
have also believed the world was flat."
[Jonathan] It is slightly unfortunate that Fred seems to be hinting that it
is the atheist observer who is somehow disabled, rather than the orchestra.
If I were to have written that I would have reversed the disability. It is
the incomprehension of a man with sound ears watching people dance to music
in their heads.
[Fred] This fellow is very different from the common atheist, who is
bitter,proud of his advanced thinking, and inclined toward a (somewhat
adolescent) hostility to a world that isn't up to his standard. This is
tiresome and predictable, but doesn't offend me.
[Hermit] I wonder where Fred gets his idea of atheists as "bitter" people?
No source is cited.
[Jonathan] Oddly, not every opinion is cited elsewhere. You have
consistently treated this opinion piece as though it were an academic
treatise. This is of course unfair. I think this violates the principle of
charity ( http://www.ukpoliticsmisc.org.uk/usenet_evidence/argument.html#5)
. There is a spiteful sort of atheist who is sneering and hostile. I have
met such people here. I find that attitude unhelpful and ultimately
self-defeating. I disagree that such people are common atheists though. I
find they are the extremists - those wounded by religion - rather than those
who have arrived at their beliefs through patient thought or sound instinct.
[Hermit] Perhaps he met one at a cocktail party and started preaching to
her. No, surely most atheists are sufficiently sensible not to bother with
cocktail parties. Certainly all the humorists I have met with whom I have
discussed religion, have been atheists. Perhaps Fred suspects that humorists
are "bitter" people too.
[Jonathan] This atheist attends cocktail parties. Can I have a citation
please to confirm that most atheists are sufficiently sensible not to bother
with cocktail parties. Do you speak for all atheists suddenly? [Recognise
this line of attack?]
[Fred] Less forgivably, he often wants to run on about logical positivism.
(I'm reminded of Orwell's comment about "the sort of atheist who doesn't so
much disbelieve in God as personally dislike him." Quote approximate.)
[Hermit] And given the character of the Judeo-Christian's gods and their
followers, with whom most in America have the most experience, perhaps the
dislike is readily understood by one less bigoted than Fred.
[Jonathan] Fred is not bigoted. Why are you defaming him? Are you defaming
him? I find these personal attack spoil your work and I sincerely wish you
would leave them out.
[Fred] Critics of religion say, correctly, that horrible crimes are
committed in the name of religion. So are they in the name of communism,
anti-communism, Manifest Destiny, Zionism, nationalism, and national
security. Horrible crimes are what people do. They are not the heart of the
thing.
[Hermit] Agreed. Then again, science (nor even "logical positivism") does
not claim to make people and "better than they ought to be.
[Jonathan] He does not claim that they do.
[Fred] The following seems to me to be true regarding religion and the
sciences: Either one believes that there is an afterlife, or one believes
that there is not an afterlife, or one isn't sure-which means that one
believes that there may be an afterlife.
[Hermit] Fred has the wrong end of the rope. The question is whether there
is any truth in the idea that there is an afterlife. And to determine
whether there is any truth, one requires a means of judging it. Having seen
a fair number of deaths, I can assure Fred that after brain activity ceases,
there is no life. So on the one hand we have some evidence that
dead-is-dead. I can accept that. On the other hand, we have Fred. Fred
appears to think that he should disregard this evidence and "believe" that
there is an "afterlife" or perhaps that we should disregard the evidence on
the one hand, and the lack of any evidence on the other, and say we can't
determine the matter. That may be fine and well for Fred. But he really
should not try to argue that he is being rational - or that the person who
prefers evidence over belief - is somehow a believer because Fred has the
arrogance to assert that this is the case.
[Jonathan] You a mashing up a straw man. Fred said "The following seems to
me to be true regarding religion and the sciences: Either *one* believes
that there is an afterlife, or one believes that there is not an afterlife,
or one isn't sure-which means that one believes that there may be an
afterlife". He is right, one believe, does not believe or is not sure. That
is simply true.
You then set about writing a long paragraph imputing motives and beliefs
whilst paraphrasing liberally - all without basis. Fred sated a simple
fact. Do you think the following is false:
"Either one believes that there is an afterlife, or one believes that there
is not an afterlife, or one isn't sure-which means that one believes that
there may be an afterlife"
Yes or no?
[Fred] If there is an afterlife, then there is an aspect of existence about
which we know nothing and which may, or may not, influence this world. In
this case the sciences, while interesting and useful, are merely a partial
explanation of things. Thus to believe in the absolute explanatory power of
the sciences one must be an atheist-to exclude competition. Note that
atheists as much as the faithful believe what they cannot establish.
[Hermit] This is a poor restatement of Pascal's Wager, begs the question by
ignorting the evidence that there is no afterlife (and that it takes belief
in the face of the evidence against it to make this assumption) and is
simply disproved by showing that if there is a "rational afterlife" which
influences this world in such a way as to make this world purely rational,
then the atheists are right, and the faithful wrong and Fred's if-then
fails. And if there is no afterlife, then of course religion, uninteresting
and totally unuseful, providing no explanation for anything is wrong. And it
is only Fred's lack of logical competence, bigotted perspective and
assertive arrogance which can lead him to make such statements about
atheists as he does here.
[Jonathan] All I see here is more straw man bashing and personal attacks. He
wrote "Note that atheists as much as the faithful believe what they cannot
establish." This is axiomatically true.
[Fred] Here is the chief defect of scientists (I mean those who take the
sciences as an ideology rather than as a discipline): an unwillingness to
admit that there is anything outside their realm. But there is. You cannot
squeeze consciousness, beauty, affection, or Good and Evil from physics any
more than you can derive momentum from the postulates of geometry: No mass,
no momentum. A moral scientist is thus a contradiction in terms. (Logically
speaking: in practice they compartmentalize and are perfectly good people.)
[Hermit] Having asserted that scientists are "perfectly good people", I
wonder what it is about Fred's strawman that is the "chief defect of
scientists."
[Jonathan] He says so right there.
[Hermit] Certainly, speaking as a scientist, I've never suggested that a
"moral scientist" would be a sensible animal.
[Jonathan] Who are you to speak for all scientists? Did you take a survey?
[Recognise this line or "argument"?]
[Hermit] A scientist, any scientist, merely applies the only process known
to result in progress. To speak of a kind of scientist as if they were
different from any other is a contradiction in terms. Rather like saying
that "Christian Science" or "Creation Science" actually are some kind of
science simply because they name themselves as such. Speaking from a
rational perspective, the problem with the faithful is that are not
generally competent to compartamentalize - and thus are not perfectly good
people.
[Jonathan] Can you support this assertion with some research, argument or
authority? Did you take a survey?
[Hermit] Certainly, when your neighbor tells you that you are going to burn
in hell forever because you actually use your senses to gather evidence and
your brain to reject the irrational, there is a tendency to think that as
the hell is your neighbor's invention, that you want no part of it.
[Jonathan] For what it is worth, I have never ever met a Christian who has
claimed I would burn in hell. Some Muslims in Hyde Park have observed that I
have some dire things to suffer in the afterlife, but never Christians. What
are we, the CoV, turning our guns on our strongest enemies and competitors -
Islam and Consumerism - rather than "beating the stain where the dead horse
[of Christianity] used to be"?
[Fred] Thus we have the spectacle of the scientist who is horrified by the
latest hatchet murder but can give no scientific reason why. A murder after
all is merely the dislocation of certain physical masses (the victim's head,
for example) followed by elaborate chemical reactions. Horror cannot be
derived from physics. It comes from somewhere else.
[Hermit] Really? Who appointed Fred to speak for "scientists"?
[Jonathan] Ha! Who appointed you to speak for scientists earlier? He makes
no claim to speak for scientists, he simply illustrates his point with the
help of a fictional scientists.
[Hermit] Or did he take a survey? I think he should provide the evidence for
this assertion.
[Jonathan] Whereas we are discussing one of Fred's columns without his
knowledge, it is hard for him to grant this request. You on the other had
are participating in this discussion so can happily furnish us with your
evidence for your assertion on behalf of classes of people made above.
[Hermit] I'd suggest that science is not limited to "physics", that I don't
think that just because Fred seems to imagine that it is is any reason to do
so
[Jonathan] This is another dollop of bunk. The ma has never even
approaching claimed anything of the sort. You appear to be resorting to
abuse in the absence of substantial argument against the man's claims.
[Hermit] and that I'd suggest that evolutionary psychology readily provides
all of the explanation needed to explain "horror" at a rather gruesome
murder. Far more to the point, the question in my mind is whether Fred is
suggesting that there is any explanation for this phenomena outside of
evolutionary psychology. After all, he makes an assertion, presumably
intending for it to support whatever it is he is attempting to say, but his
failure to address "compared to what" simply leaves this paragraph dangling
without visible means of support.
[Jonathan] The paragraph does draw comparisons, it makes a claim.
[Fred] Similarly, those who believe in religions often do not really quite
believe. Interesting to me is the extent to which those who think themselves
Christians have subordinated God to physics. For example, I have often read
some timid theologian saying that manna was actually a sticky secretion
deriving from certain insects, and that the crossing of the Red Sea was
really done in a shallow place when the wind blew the water out.
[Hermit] And there are archeologists who take the consensus position that
Moses was purely a mythical invention and that the bronze age Jews and their
rather unpleasant hill gods were not particularly significant on a regional
basis until far later - and thus there is no more need to attempt to
"explain away" these writings than there is to explain the legends about
Perseus.
[Jonathan] So you agree, good.
[Hermit] Against this, there are bible sometime-literalists who assert that
rabbits eat the cud, bats are birds and grasshoppers walk around on four
legs. I recommend The Skeptic's Annotated Bible[url] as a source of more
fascinating information about this rather putrid collection of rather poorly
written nonsense. I'd go so far as to suggest that the reason that the
babble is respected at all is because so few of those advocating it have
actually read it.
[Jonathan] Indeed.
[Fred] Perhaps so; I wasn't there. Yet these arguments amount to saying that
God is all-powerful, provided that he behaves consistently with physical
principles and the prevailing weather. The sciences take precedence.
[Hermit] Yes, well. If Fred wishes to take a non-scientific perspective and
assert that back when the bible was written that the Sun did rotate around
the flat stationary Earth, and that it could be shifted around in the sky to
suit Jewish convenience, by a god who was defeated by something as trivial
as iron wheels, then I'm sure that no amount of argument is going to make
Fred change his mind. But I do have a bridge to sell him. (Joshua, Kings,
Chronicles, Job, Psalms, Isaiah etc).
[Jonathan] I think Fred's last sentence was not meant ironically.
[Fred] Now, people who seek (and therefore find) an overarching explanation
of everything always avoid looking at the logical warts and lacunae in their
systems. This is equally true of Christians, liberals, conservatives,
Marxists, evolutionists, and believers in the universal explanatory power of
the sciences. Any ideology can probably be described as a systematic way of
misunderstanding the world.
[Hermit] It seems fairly evident that Fred believes (in the face of the
evidence) that science is an ideology, rather than an evolving methodology.
[Jonathan] It seems fairly evident that Fred is cautioning that science
degraded to dogma does become ideology. Science
[Hermit] But then, it seems that Fred may believe rather a lot of strange
things, for which we should likely blame his society or his parents. Not
least that it is apparently important to him to repeatedly assert that
following the sciences requires belief. I recommend our FAQ,
[url=http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=31;action=display;threadid
=11535]"Faith and truth in science "
(http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/) to his attention.
[Jonathan] Fred is superb writer and there is no evidence that he believes
in strange things at all. I liked this essay and I am slightly alarmed that
he is castigated - despite apparently being one of us - for having
insufficient zeal in his condemnation of all things religious.
[Fred] That being said, at worst the religions of the earth are gropings
toward something people feel but cannot put a finger on, toward something
more at the heart of life than the hoped-for raise, trendy restaurants, and
the next and grander automobile. And few things are as stultifying and
superficial as the man not so much agnostic (this I can understand) as
simply inattentive, whose life is focused on getting into a better country
club. Good questions are better than bad answers. And the sciences, though
not intended to be, have become the opiate of the masses.
[Hermit] Was Fred under the impression that this was a conclusion?
[Jonathan] Err...it was the conclusion.
[Hermit] While I can understand that his confusion of "hoped-for raise,
trendy restaurants, and the next and grander automobile" with "the
sciences",
[Jonathan] I am not sure why as there is no such confusion.
[Hermit] I can't understand how he gets from there to "bad answers."
[Jonathan] I do. Keep trying.
[Hermit] Indeed, rather like religion, Fred doesn't appear to provide any
answers at all - and thinking on it, while he made a lot of stumbling
assertions, I'm not sure he asked any questions at all. Perhaps he is on
another kind of opiate altogether?
[Jonathan] From which opiatic teat do you suck, Hermit? In the essay Fred
asked tough, insightful questions with humility. You have given verbose
answers soiled with abuse and scorn. It is almost as if Fred were addressing
you with his essay. I think you know it, hence the response.
[Hermit] But why, oh why, did Jonathan Davis see fit to post this lacunic
frothing here?
[Jonathan] See above. Expect more.
Final note: I am grateful for your - as always - superb response. But I do
not think this short essay is worth any more of our time. Feel free to
respond, but please note that I will almost certainly not have time to
respect you with a decent response myself.
People like Fred Reed - highly intelligent, articulate, down to earth - are
exactly the sort of people I want to attract to our Church. After all, we,
like Fred Reed respect religion - we are one! We understand the limbic
impulses, the yearning for order, the love of wonder and the need for
belonging. We have answers. We have explanations. We meet and satisfy those
human needs. For those people "groping[] toward something [they] feel but
cannot put a finger on", we can guide fingers to the truth
Let us not confuse friend and foe and let us not adopt the certainties and
arrogance of our competitors - however we might feel we deserve them.
Kind regards
Jonathan
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