[extropy-chat] grow closer to god--through the mail!!

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> At 08:33 AM 11/30/2004 -0800, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> > > Mike's arguments in favor of god
> >
> >I've never said I'm "in favor" of god.
> >Please apologize and commit yourself to actually read my posts in
> >the future.
> 
> Eh? An `argument in favor of' does not mean `endorsing the position 
> proclaimed by' or `liking a lot'. It means `supporting that side of
> the argument', as in this dictionary definition of *pro*:
> 
> 1. An argument or consideration in favor of something: weighing the
> pros and cons. 2. One who supports a proposal or takes the
> affirmative side in a debate.
> ADVERB: In favor; affirmatively: arguing pro and con.
> 
> No apology called for, as far as I can see, unless Mike's
> hyper-subtle intention was to *ridicule* the traditional idea of
> a god.

My intention is to point out that I don't know enough to know one way
or the other, and neither do you or anybody else, so atheism is as much
a religion as any other belief based on faith/lack of facts. Some
self-proclaimed atheists, like yourself, have a knee-jerk reaction to
such a statement, that is entirely emotional, not based on any rational
basis of logic. You are so emotionally tied to being allergic to
religion and convinced that jumping to the opposite extreme solves your
allergy, but all you've done is change your drug of preference from an
upper to a downer. You haven't solved your core problem of being an
addict, in the metaphorical sense.

What I am 'in favor' of is freedom of concience, which is the core
issue of freedom of religion. Atheists get their skirts up in a bunch
about religion in general being evil or anti-freedom, or pro-ignorance,
when it just isn't so. The problem is that *organized* judeo-christian
religions see a benefit in making people believe that socially virtuous
behavior needs to be legislated, but no more than marxian religions
teach their followers that economically egalitarian behavior needs to
be legislated, or atheist religion tells its followers that denial of
the existence of a creator needs to be legislated.

The offensive behavior is the legislating against the freedom of
concience of the individual to freely choose to commit virtuous
behavior of their own free will. Doesn't matter who it is by that is
compelling virtue.

Freedom of concience is the strongest power an individual has against
government, because government (at least here in the US) has absolutely
no power over regulating what you think. Controlling what information
you have access to regulates what you wind up thinking about that
information.

Using government, in the schools, in controlling which facts kids are
exposed to (by removing the Declaration of Independence, by removing
facts about why Thanksgiving was really celebrated, etc.), atheists are
compelling thought through government to support their own unfounded
faith, no differently than if the Catholic Church got to teach its
version of history in the public schools.

=====
Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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