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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Russell Wallace wrote:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR> </DIV>
<DIV>On 1/29/06, <B class=gmail_sendername>Brett Paatsch</B> <<A
href="mailto:bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au">bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au</A>>
wrote:<BR></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The only atheists that have done significant
harm that I am aware of have only been able to do so because large numbers
of people put faith in them.</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT
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size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR>Well yes, but you can expand
on that: the only people of any persuasion who've done significant good _or_
harm outside technical areas, have been able to do so because large numbers of
people put faith in them.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>No I couldn't, in good conscience, expand on
that like that. [I nearly said in "good faith" instead of in good
conscience. ]</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I think science, and more fundamentally, reasoning,
and those that practice them *have* done significant good because some others
have also been able to put aside faith and belief. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>You say people of any "persuasion". I can be
persuaded by reason if I am willing to question my assumptions
and think about other arguments but how is someone persuaded to faith ?
</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>To me "faith-based thinking" rings like a
contradiction in terms. To me faith-based thinking looks the same in its
consequences as non-thought but perhaps</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>you have a different </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>understanding of the word faith. </FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
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size=2></FONT><BR>*shrug* I'm not the one who introduced the term "faith-based
thinking"; I'm happy to just say "faith".</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Okay. For me faith (or belief) and reasoning are
almost opposites. For you is faith (or belief) ever reasoning?
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Can you offer any examples where faith-based
thinking is progressive, humanistic, extropic, or in any way a net
benefit to people in its consequences?</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
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size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR>Pretty much the entirety of
political, social and moral progress from the days when slavery and genocide
were the normal way of doing things. Yes, in principle you can logically argue
that a liberal society (in the classical sense) has this and that benefit, but
you have to want those benefits in the first place, and the arguments depend
on intellectual tools that weren't available to the likes of Jesus, Martin
Luther, George Washington, Gandhi or their followers; nor would they have had
any force if they were - nobody actually makes political decisions based on
abstruse logical arguments. All the good those people and the ones who
believed in them did, was motivated by and based on
faith.<BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>All your above relates to the past as is shown by
your last sentence "WAS motivated by and based on faith". I asked
about IS not WAS. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Can you offer an example where faith per se IS
CURRENTLY progressive, humansitic, extropic, or in any way a net benefit to
people in its consequences?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If you are a person of faith or with faith
(whatever that means to you), perhaps a personal example would be easier.
Perhaps you could point out where you would decide sometime
on </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>faith and act on that decision such
that you would think that would have been a better thing for you to
have done. Better as opposed to deciding on some other basis than faith and
then acting. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I think all decisions based on faith are morally
wrong (or rather non decisions, or abrogations of responsibility to
intellectually engage, or use one's conscience) but perhaps you can show me
I'm wrong with a single example. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Brett Paatsch</FONT></DIV>
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