[MD] God is dead.

[ian glendinning]

Spot on Mike,

I haven't had time or patience to get involved with this thread.
I too am an atheist, but one of the traits of which I despair is the
idea that when one person admits to being a Christian, another brands
them a religious zealot, or worse.

Pointless binary arguments, like one can only be right by destroying
another ? It's not just intolerance, it's a total misunderstanding of
what truth and quality are.

Ian

On 3/21/06, Michael Hamilton <thethemichael at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I am no Christian, but I think Robert is talking a good deal of sense,
> and many around here seem all to eager to misconstrue him in order to
> paint him as a "religious zealot". For example:
>
> [Robert]
> > 'God would exact payment for such evil and destroy the thief. Pragmatically
> > speaking, whichever method works is good.'
>
> [Peter] so much for the benevolent 'God'.
>
> Robert isn't preaching fire and brimstone here, Peter. He's saying
> that, from the pragmatic point of view, a society of the past would
> have benefitted greatly from instilling crude religious beliefs into
> its citizens (for example, the belief that sinners would literally be
> punished in hell). This was necessary because, unfortunately, not all
> members of society have the ability or the inclination to internalize
> the more profound religious teachings of compassion and creating
> heaven on earth - the Quality teachings.
>
> In other words, there are two ways of making sure that people don't
> steal: a) teach them the benefits that compassion brings to this life,
> b) scare them shitless. Ideally, method (a) would be all that we need,
> and this would be a good end to work towards, whether you see it as
> Quality, or as Heaven On Earth. Unfortunately, for the time being,
> this is the real world, and not everybody is going to accept the more
> profound teachings of Pirsig or JC. A shame.
>
> It is also a shame that all religious people are painted as
> literal-minded zealots.
>
> Regards,
> Mike
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