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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Is General Goodness just a moral principle?
Message-ID: <1366@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Jul-85 12:51:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1366
Posted: Wed Jul 31 12:51:58 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 01:42:05 EDT
References: <852@umcp-cs.UUCP> <360@utastro.UUCP> <879@umcp-cs.UUCP>, <1235@pyuxd.UUCP> <2134@pucc-h> <2163@pucc-h>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
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>>>Your assumption that life, consciousness, and intelligence arose -- from a
>>>state where there were no such things (this is your assumption, is it not?)
>>>-- is not at all empirically verifiable; it just fits the rest of your world
>>>view.

>>It is also supported by archaeology, paleontology, cosmology, ...  Not an
>>assumption, no, it is the converse (that it DID [yes, it DID, DID, DID and
>>DID!] ), that a creator deliberately caused it to exist, that is the
>>assumption.

> Rich, you're entering obnoxious mode without provocation (per my article
> "a suggestion").  The parenthetical note in your paragraph above is
> unnecessary.

The parenthetical note is neither obnoxious nor unnecessary.  Given the
weight of evidence supporting the notions that such people wish to debunk,
their attempts really are nothing but "Yes it did happen!  It did!  It did!"
assertions.

> The sciences you name support the idea that changes have occurred on earth
> (e.g. dinosaurs once lived here, but no more), but they do not imply that
> there was no intelligence behind the changes.  And as I said, we don't see
> evolutionary changes taking place now, and we certainly don't see life coming
> from non-life now.  The idea that that could happen is an assumption by those
> who, like you, do not want to admit the existence of a god.

"Do not want to admit"?  You mean "do not want to assume"!  Let's get that
quite clear.  One "admits" things that have been shown to be true.  Have you
done so?  Until you do, don't you dare claim that others who disagree with
your notions "do not want to ADMIT" them.

>>Funny, there are plenty of people I know (myself included) that really and
>>truly want to do things that this book considers wrong, and we have yet to
>>see any reason for labelling these things as wrong (they don't harm other
>>people or themselves).  Are you SURE it's the "other" way around??

> It's all in the definition of "harm", I suppose.  Sex, for instance, is such
> a titanic linkage of two people that if one has sex with numerous partners,
> one is in a sense violating oneself by bringing too many people too close.

Please document your assumptions here.  Show me in what way these statements
are anything more than your assertions about sex.  You feel that way because
of the way you feel about sex.  Does that make it universal?

>>I'm sure many married Christians might support Jeff's view [that premarital
>>sex is unwise], but the fact that others may not, and that married and
>>unmarried non- Christians can offer a completely different perspective shows
>>that the blanket classification that this is ONLY right in marriage is bogus.

> Once again, I'm not talking "right" and "wrong"; I'm talking "best for the
> people involved".

When you talk, Jeff, you seem to assume that what's right for you as you see
it APPLIES to ALL other people "involved".  Witness your foray into net.singles
on homosexuality, AGAIN.  Thus, we ARE talking right and wrong because of the
way you talk about things.  In your paragraph about "harm", you make reference
to people in general ("if *one* has sex...").  I've always said that right and
wrong are subjective and individually rooted, and you've been saying that it's
not, that right and wrong are written in a book.

> But be it noted that the idea that acceptance by {S,s}omeone else
> can help you to accept yourself and grow toward wholeness is not confined to
> Christendom; the most obvious more secular example is Alcoholics Anonymous.

Agreed.  It's a shame when one HAS to depend on the external continually to
feel the self-acceptance.
-- 
"Because love grows where my Rosemary goes and nobody knows but me."
						Rich Rosen   pyuxd!rlr