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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: God and suffering
Message-ID: <807@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 14:26:11 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.807
Posted: Fri Nov  1 14:26:11 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 14:58:04 EST
References: <389@decwrl.UUCP> <2203@sdcc6.UUCP> <351@pyuxn.UUCP> <2213@sdcc6.UUCP> <803@cybvax0.UUCP> <162@pluto.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 40
Xref: linus net.religion:7726 net.religion.christian:1517
Summary: 

In article <162@pluto.UUCP> warren@pluto.UUCP (Warren Burstein) writes:
> Mike Huybensz writes a lengthy response to Rick Frey, and I think the last
> line sums it up:
> 
> > Mystic bullshit.
> 
> Pardon me, but what else, to your way of thinking, might you expect
> to find on net.religion?

Intelligent, comparative analysis based on clearly stated facts and premises.

The majority of Rick's article consisted of the kind of high-quality argument
I enjoy.  His last few paragraphs (if I recall correctly) degenerated
from that standard to typical vague (or coded) sect-specific pronouncements.
In other words, mystic bullshit.

Let me explain my opinion of bullshit a little better though.  I'm an
entomologist on the side.  To lots of organisms, bullshit is literally and
figuratively manna from heaven.  But if I want to learn about nutrition,
I don't start with the nutritive makeup of manure.  And for my own tastes,
I like things that are not pre-digested.  :-)

If you want to understand the effect and nature of mystic bullshit, watch
the recent movie version of 1984, especially the scene where the people are
screaming "sex crimes" and then burst into tearful reverence as the image
of the leader appears.  That conditioning is the purpose of church singing,
chanting, repetition of dogmas, etc.  It is a method of channeling thought
into authority-approved, pre-defined pathways.  It is the substitution of
meaningless reflex for thought.

It's very difficult to see this pattern in your own life.  Start first with
observing it in others, gradually closer to home.  It's an omnipresent part
of human life, and none of us are immune.  The best we can do is to
recognize it, and gradually unshackle our thinking from the accumulated
years of indoctrination.  I've been working on it for at least 15 years,
and still I feel powerful, automatic, emotional responses to a whole range
of symbolisms of many different ways that I've been exposed to.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh