Re: virus: Limiting
Marie Foster (mfos@ieway.com)
Wed, 10 Dec 1997 10:41:51 -0800
Sodom wrote:
>
> Marie Foster wrote:
>
> > You have the right to choose the memes you wish to define you. I have
> >
> > the same right. Respect is all I ask. What is it that you want from
> > me?
> >
> > Marie
>
> You have always had the respect you are speaking of, with me anyways.
> All I ask is that you acknowledge that your perception of "God" is far
> different from the much more common concept of "God" that has been
> created by mankind for thousands of years and exists today in
> westernized religions. And also, that many of your reasons for believing
> are emotionally based reasons that cannot, by their very nature, be
> accurate outside of your own mind. As an atheist, I choose not to
> believe something based on my feelings about it - no matter how much I
> want to. I choose to believe based on the criteria laid out by most
> other atheists here because the results have been so compelling. The
> same emotional desire that has helped you to heal and improve have been
> used by many others to kill and destroy. Reason alone has no comparison
> to the evils caused by believers (none that i am aware of anyway)
>
> Sodom
I thnk you for your respect. So far atheism has not organized itself
into *churches* or sects or whatever. I think that the possibility of
any such organization becomming as rabid as fundamental religions is
likely as that seems to be the way of human association. Also, I do
have at least one example of an atheist who has done a pretty good job
of creating destruction and chaos in our 20th century world.
Emotions... ah perhaps that is the crux. What are these devils called
emotions? Why are they so feared by some people? Certainly they are
mysterious... I do not see emotions as any cause of anything. They are
a result of thought. I may not be aware of the thought because the body
is very quick to apply emotion to its own protection. (Fight or flight
sort of thing.) I for one prefer to try to understand the thought that
precipitates the emotion. That way I can start to learn from my
reaction to ideas. Life would be pretty dull without emotion. Spock
may be an intriguing character of fiction, but I would not want to be a
Vulcan. Think of the ulcers!
Marie