From: Bill Roh (billroh@churchofvirus.com)
Date: Fri Jan 25 2002 - 13:10:41 MST
For the record David - I didn't think you were obnoxious - just pulling
the the strings of thought to see where they lead. May you find that
they lead where you did not expect.
Be patient... things sort out.
Bill
I don't always think I am right. But sometimes I am. Did you mean that
"Some people always think they are right"?
> Approved: intermix
> From: "David Hill" <dhill@spee-dee.com>
> To: <virus@lucifer.com>Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:41:26 -0600
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> In-reply-to: <F179kq6YZpdR3tDIC6S0000bf9b@hotmail.com>
> Subject: RE: virus: On the failure of 'Pascal's Wager' and the
> non-existence of Agnosticism.
>
>
> Where does he find the time....
>
> I liken Hermit to a viper. Best not to play around his nest or you
> might
> get bit.
>
> Actually I am pleased to be so labeled (obnoxious) by him as it places
> us
> squarely on opposing sides.
>
> I accept the claim that I made solipsist assertions. And I regret a
> recent
> kneejerk post of mine, but I have to type fast during my available
> babble
> time.
>
> But on entry to this list, I found mostly the same distasteful
> venomous
> attacks (Hermitlike) and people diving out of the church because of
> the
> nastiness. I don't think Hermit likes an attack on his underlying
> premises
> because he is so happy with his ability to propound on all issues
> great and
> small that he finds large amounts of time to indulge himself. I have
> no
> such ability and cannot spare the time because I have other things to
> do. I
> can only bitch and moan on break. But rhetoric is only one skill,
> admittedly one which can be displayed in chat. I suspect that Hermit
> spends
> so much time on his intellectual pursuits that he cannot weld, machine
> or
> fly. I believe in my heart that I am a better soft tissue surgeon
> than he.
>
> I would prefer to discuss what I originally thought was the CoV
> purpose.
> The existance and interaction of self replicating informational
> systems.
> And expand the concept to include society, religion and the pattern
> Hermit
> shows so well: Everybody thinks they are right.
>
> Hey Hermie, who's WE anyway.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On
> Behalf
> Of L' Ermit
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 8:45 AM
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> Subject: virus: On the failure of 'Pascal's Wager' and the
> non-existence
> of Agnosticism.
>
>
> [Hermit] We knew that David Hill was obnoxious ["RE: virus: RE: He who
> makes
> the rules wins", David Hill, Wed 2002-01-23 12:32]. Now, for those who
> had
> not already guessed it, David Hill confirms that he is stupid as well,
> based
> on the following and certain solipsistic assertions.
>
> <quote>
> ["RE: virus: Kirk: Standing my ground",David Hill,Thu 2002-01-24
> 12:27]
> [David Hill]
> God exists, and believe-> win big
> God exists, and don't believe -> lose big
> God doesn't exist and either believe or don't -> no difference.
> </quote>
>
> [Hermit] There are a lot of questions that David Hill seems to be
> missing.
> Like, "Which of the millions of gods that man has invented do you want
> to be
> the real 'God'?" Many of the gods we have invented to date are
> "jealous."
> Pick the wrong bunch and, according to their adherents, you are
> fucked. As
> there will always be more gods that you cannot pick than gods you can
> pick,
> your chances of a win are minimal anyway.
>
> [Hermit] Given David Hill's use of the late Judaic formulation of a
> singular
> "God," we can assume that the god he is suggesting is the Judaic
> Mountain
> God, "Jaweh" or "Baal", and that David Hill is granting the idea that
> investing belief in this unpleasant entity may lead to a "win big"
> potential. Yet even this supposed god's own supporters acknowledge
> that
> their "god" is unfair, vindictive and a liar. Thus there may not be
> (probably isn't, as there is no evidence for it) any reward at the end
> of
> the rainbow.
>
> [Hermit] The evil that belief (whether in gods, one's ancestors or
> something
> else) does, is visible throughout the history of mankind. So the
> supposition
> that there is unmitigated gain, or "no loss" believing in gods is
> unsupportable.
>
> [Hermit] Meantime, to choose a god, any god, means choosing the
> irrational,
> which means that you "lose big", right here and right now, in the only
> life
> we know. That evolution was in vain, having developed the capacity to
> be
> rational, that we choose to reject it. Against this is simply the
> supposition that choosing some god, any god, can yield some "wins." An
> idea,
> which probably not accidently, can never be validated. Can anything
> else we
> do to ourselves be more brain challenged than this?
>
> [Hermit] An Atheist is simply somebody who places no <i>belief<i> in
> gods.
> Any gods. This applies to all atheists. If you vest belief in gods,
> any
> gods, you are not an atheist.
>
> [Hermit] Atheists come in two principle flavors each having multiple
> subtly
> different sub-classes which I will ignore. There are, I am told,
> "Strong
> atheists" (I have never met one) who assert, without evidence, that
> there
> are no "gods"; and "weak atheists" who acknowledge that there may be
> "gods"
> but that it is not worth believing in them.
>
> [Hermit] There are also certain atheists, myself amongst them, that
> combine
> these two positions. For example, I assert that the ridiculous and
> vicious
> Christian gods cannot exist except in the diseased minds of their
> followers
> (innumerable internal and external contradictions) but that there may
> be
> some creatures somewhere in the Universe that I might call "gods" if I
> knew
> about them. This does not affect my atheism, as I do not consider
> investing
> anything (let alone something as pernicious as "belief") in some
> hypothetical, undefined possibility. I use the singular, as, in our
> experience, the only way there could be a singular god would be if it
> were
> nasty enough to have killed the rest of its own kind - which wouldn't
> be
> deserving of acknowledgement, never mind inviting them to tea or
> anything
> more personal.
>
> [Hermit] I once described it like this:
>
> ["RE: virus: sophomoric atheism (literalness issues)", Hermit, Thu
> 1999-10-28 21:57]
> <quote>
> [Hermit 3.2] On the one hand we have "god-thingies as defined by the
> religious", in other words specific gods with specific attributes and
> generally speaking, easy refutation due to the "impossible" nature of
> the
> assigned attributes (through internal or external contradiction). On
> the
> other hand, there is the general class of god-thingies without
> assigned
> attributes which are impossible to refute, and in fact not worth
> refuting as
> the proponents of the idea of such god-thingies cannot provide any
> evidence
> for the necessity of such god-thingies and in fact, generally
> speaking, the
> existence or non-existence of such god-thingies would not make a
> difference
> to the mankind. Finally we have the idea of god-thingies, which while
> it
> definitely exists, has no positive effect on humans.
> <quote>
>
> [Hermit] Most so called agnostics are simply confused. Some people do
> call
> themselves agnostics as they prefer to think of themselves as 'not
> being as
> nasty' as the common portrayal of atheists as child-murderers and
> cannibals.
> But the term agnosticism was invented by Thomas Huxley, so it seems
> fair to
> let himself define it.
>
> <quote>
> ...it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective
> truth of
> any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically
> justifies
> that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my
> opinion, it
> is all that is essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny,
> and
> repudiate as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are
> propositions
> which men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory evidence."
> ["Agnosticism and Christianity and Other Essays", Thomas Henry Huxley
> 1889,
> Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1992, p. 193.]
> </quote>
>
> [Hermit] So unless an agnostic believes (that word again) that there
> are
> reasons to "believe" in gods, without evidence for those gods (which
> would
> be even more ludicrous than the typical bible wielding believer's
> faith),
> the agnostic is simply an atheist, wearing a label permitting him to
> socialize with the vicar (and vice versa).
>
> [Hermit] For myself, when I see a turd ("belief") floating in the
> teapot, I
> prefer to avoid joining the party no matter who labels it as something
> else.
>
> Hermit
>
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