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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: This is Religion
Message-ID: <457@spar.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Aug-85 09:04:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.457
Posted: Fri Aug  9 09:04:45 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 06:32:13 EDT
References: <258@frog.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 79

Read these carefully, and watch...

>        1)  Religion is partly idiocy.
>        2)  Faith (an idiotic part) is the essence of
>            religion.  (Faith is the practice of claiming
>            truth without evidence.  I am not concerned
>            with other meanings of the word, like "trust".)
>        3)  Arguments from faith are destructive of
>            net.philosophy .
>        4)  Therefore it is important to exclude religious
>            arguments from net.philosophy .
>        5)  Arguments not from faith are not religious.
>        6)  Therefore there is no religious interest in
>            net.philosophy (although some religious people
>            might have an interest).
>        7)  Therefore there is no excuse for cross-posting
>            between net.philosophy and net.religion .
>        8)  Religion used to dominate philosophy.  That
>            domination was disastrous.
>        9)  Religion stopped dominating philosophy centuries
>            ago.
>        10) It is still possible for philosophy to be
>            crushed by the religious boot, if people don't
>            take preventive care.

Now examine this interaction between me and Rich Rosen:

ME>Who said science should be shackled?
RR>YOU did, by insisting that certain things are "not in the realm" 
   of science..

    ..or this one:

ME>.. you are apparently dedicated to the beliefs below:
ME>        The universe of science is All That Is.
ME>        Science will somehow be able to describe everything.
RR>Here we go again with science-hating. The universe of things that are are 
RR>the things that are.  That's my position.  

    There are many more. 

    These are all examples of totally compulsive, unphilosophical, a priori
    thought that not only assume the notions of what is, and what is
    knowable, and so on, but which demonstrate a self-righteous indignation
    that ANYBODY MIGHT EVEN DOUBT OR QUESTION SUCH MATTERS.

    Is this not religion?

    Rich, you have wasted this newsgroup for many months by brutally
    reasserting a single meaningless statement:

	    "free will does not exist"

    What does that mean?  Nothing, as far as I can tell, since you simply
    have reasserted YOUR definitions, YOUR assumptions, YOUR truth so
    numbingly, repeatedly, unthinkingly, like a ritual, a chant, a 
    religious mantra, that the network might believe the true word.

    And is it philosophical speculation to gloss over peoples' careful 
    arguments with wild and unjustifiable accusations of..

	..Wishful Thinking?

    Rich, the only thing I wish for is that you might think more.

    Why should anyone engaging in philosophical inquiry want the statement
    `free will exists' to be true?  Making a rigorous definition of a
    subjective, legal, and philosophical term is a challenging problem, but
    who cares if your definitions yield falsity?

    YOU ARE THE ONE WHO SO DESPERATELY WANTS SOMETHING NOT TO EXIST.

    That is not philosophy.

    That is religion.

    YOUR RELIGION.

-michael