Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxn.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxn!rlr
From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Humanism and the myth of Neutrality
Message-ID: <737@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Jun-84 14:51:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.737
Posted: Mon Jun 11 14:51:02 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 12-Jun-84 00:49:46 EDT
References: <730@pyuxn.UUCP> <762@pucc-h>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 67

> Are you assuming that fear and blind faith are the only reasons to follow any
> religious dogma?  (Never ASSUME....)

I'm not assuming.  I've already asked for factual evidence for your system of
beliefs.  The only reasons left for believing in such a system are fear and
blind faith without reason, in the absence of such evidence.

> It might be mentioned that a major
> effect of Christ in lives is indeed to free people to do what's right -- but
> to make them the opposite of zombies.  It is when people are still "slaves to
> sin" that they are, to some extent, zombies -- i.e. committing actions not by
> choice, but by compulsion.  (We will not discuss whether this compulsion is
> from within the person or from external demonic forces; I believe both.)

I agree completely with Jeff that being what he calls a "slave to sin"  (what
I would call a slave to physical biochemical compulsions) is roughly equivalent
to being a zombie.  One of those physical biochemical compulsions is the
emotional need to believe in a parent figure watching over one's life.  The
good emotional feeling resulting from this can be beneficial to one's
(apparent) well being.  I think we've already been through the arguments about
"freedom to do what's right", and the fallacy behind that line of thought.

> A good reason to get precepts out of books of wisdom is that these books were
> written by people with a fair amount of experience of life, who had probably
> lived longer than you now have, and who had made a lot of the same mistakes
> you might make; so you can learn from them and have some basis on which to
> make your choices.  Anyway, I would say that it makes more sense to formulate
> rules for a society of imperfect people by using wisdom, rather than
> rationality -- the particular aspect of wisdom in this case being
> understanding whole people, not just concentrating on the mind.

A bad reason to get precepts out of books of wisdom is precisely because these
people may have thought up some rational things (occasionally), but they failed
to explain the reasoning behind their thinking, and as I've already mentioned,
if there's no clear cut reason why a law exists, it's worthless.  Unless you
want to formulate a society that looks like those silly caveman post-nuclear
societies in futuristic post-holocaust SF.  ("Hark!  This sign on the road
left by the ancients says "NO LEFT TURN".  Thus none of us may turn left at
any time.  Praise the Holy Highway Department, the ancient lords who gave us
our laws!")  (Hey, I'm sure some of you out there would LOVE such a society;
we'd all be free to do what's right...)  It makes more sense to formulate rules
for a society of imperfect people by using rationality rather than wisdom.
Rationality means that you design laws and give reasons for their existence.
("No murder, because a precept of our society is that interfering with the
rights of another human, especially the right to live, is wrong.  Now, what
about rules about who can have sex with whom?  Do we need any?  No?  Fine.
Next topic...")  Wisdom is just a bunch of words in a book that YOU happen to
agree with (like the empty words of Lewis or McDowell).  One person's wisdom
is another person's jokebook.

> ... but since then I
> have been (gradually) coming to see that many things the Bible says do indeed
> make good rational sense.

Just because there are some things in the book that make sense doesn't mean
that the whole book should be used a pattern for living, nor does it mean that
the book is divinely authored.  They had to build a society back then, too,
and at least SOME of the precepts in just about every society are bound to have
some degree of rationality behind them.  ("If we say that murder is OK, then
we won't have much of a society in a few years, and we'll be wiped out by the
Boozillians from the mountain region.  If we want our community to survive,
let's agree that among us we live in peace, and set up some sort of arbiter to
determine things..."  So much for C.S. Lewis' need to see such things as
external to humanity.)
-- 
Now I've lost my train of thought. I'll have to catch the bus of thought.
			Rich Rosen    pyuxn!rlr