Re: virus: Re:"Brights" more destructive than good / WSJ attacks atheism

From: Ant (antallan@mac.com)
Date: Mon Oct 13 2003 - 13:39:52 MDT

  • Next message: Kharin: "virus: Re:"Brights" more destructive than good / WSJ attacks atheism"

    Kalkor is spot on that we should have an "inclusive" descriptor (what
    we are, what we do believe) rather than an "exclusive" one (what we're
    not, what we don't believe).

    I'll leave atheism to someone else, but agnostic, in a broad sense,
    means "one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or
    the nonexistence of God or a god". [www.m-w.com]

    So what are we of the CoV, we brights, we unchurched committed to? Is
    there one tenet that is common to all of us? Surely it is a commitment
    to reason?

    So we're reasonables...

    On Monday, October 13, 2003, at 09:52 PM, Jake Sapiens wrote:

    >
    >> [Original Message]
    >> From: David Lucifer <david@lucifer.com>
    >> To: <virus@lucifer.com>
    >> Date: 10/13/2003 10:36:55 AM
    >> Subject: virus: Re:"Brights" more destructive than good / WSJ attacks
    > atheism
    >>
    >>
    >> [Keith] I don't self-identify as a "bright" but I can see their point
    >> in
    > trying to
    >> get away from derogatory labels the way other groups have done.
    >>
    >> [Lucifer] Just out of curiosity, what are the reasons that the brights
    > here do not self-identify with the brights?
    >
    > [Jake] I suppose I would be considered a bright. But I would imagine
    > that
    > some brights would not self-identify as such, because to be a bright
    > as I
    > understand it is not just to hold a particular position about God
    > thingies
    > (agnostic/atheist), but to adopt a strategy to deal with the issue in
    > relation to the rest of one's life and other issues important. Yes I
    > am an
    > atheist, but my way simply isn't the same crusade that Madelyn Murry
    > O'Hare
    > signed up for.
    >
    > I also think in light of my understanding and acceptance of memetics,
    > that
    > the cognitive stickiness of supernatural mythology means to me that a
    > certain amount of social adherence to religion will follow as
    > naturally as
    > global warming follows from surplus greenhouse gas emissions. In other
    > words, I don't really ever start off from the assumption that theists
    > believe as they do due to some deficit of mental activity. I think
    > many
    > openly self-identified atheists will often implicitly assume this, and
    > some
    > perhaps even explicitly. For this reason, I frequently refrain from
    > publicly "joining forces" with these kinds of atheists.
    >
    > -Jake
    >
    >>
    >> ----
    >> This message was posted by David Lucifer to the Virus 2003 board on
    > Church of Virus BBS.
    >>
    > <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/
    > index.php?board=54;action=display;threadid=295
    > 08>
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    >
    > --- Jake Sapiens
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