Klarinet Archive - Posting 000408.txt from 2004/03

From: "Kenneth Wolman" <kenneth.wolman@------.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] The Necessity of Atheism
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2004 19:29:26 -0500

I am going to hate myself in the morning, but...

> Evelyn.
>
> God must be - by definition - the giver of everything. You can't just
> credit a god with the good bits and pass the bad bits on to another.
> He's supposed (at least in most religions) to be all powerful and the
> creator of the Universe.

In other words, evil comes from God. I'd argue that Evil comes from human
beings misusing and abusing their free will. Whatever you want to call
it--God, a higher power, a Being--it is hard to believe we were put here to
act thoughtlessly on every crappy intention we have. Where does conscience
come from? When you act against your conscience do you know it? How do you
know it? I know, you read the code of things for which the police can lock
you up.... Explain then why the Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
willingly returned to Germany from New York to break German law and fight
against Hitler and to willingly give up his life. The last part of that
sentence points at a familiar story, doesn't it? Suggesting that some
aspects of religion can get us to do noble things that overcome our natural
fear, cover-our-assedness, and selfishness.

> You sound like a Christian - but what did Jesus say about killing? Thou
> shalt not kill.

Not quite. It's in the Hebrew Scriptures, it's revealed to the Hebrews at
Sinai, and it properly reads "You shall not MURDER." The committee that
designed the King James Bible in 1611 didn't do any favors to the cause of
textual accuracy or scholarship. Nice poetry, though.

> How can you in all conscience allow your daughter to join the army? Her
> function within the army is to disobey the word of your God. Sounds a
> strange type of worship to me.

Back to the word Murder as opposed to Kill. READ. You do a bad imitation
of Madalyn Murray O'Hare. If they are caught, soldiers who commit
murder--against prisoners and civilians--are subject to punishment. I may
not be in love with the US war in Iraq, but to suggest that this woman's
daughter is about to join a corps of murderers BECAUSE of enlisting is the
reductio ad absurdem of the kind of knee-jerk non-thought invective you've
been spewing here.

Ken
-------------------------
"If you think you're in control, try giving orders to your cat."--Anonymous
Kenneth Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com
http://kenwolman.blogspot.com