[MD] new blog

[Michael Poloukhine]

> [Michael]
> My entire disagreement with dmb (and my sudden immersion in this listserve
> where I had intended to dip in liightly, lol) has been his claim that the bad
> actions he sees exist because of theism rather than simply because people do
> bad things within an unavoidably theistic cultural context.
> 
> [Arlo]
> And I'd only counter with saying if you deny that theism can be the root of
> "bad things", then you also have to deny it can be the root of "good things".
> You can give theism credit for good behavior or good results, but then say it
> can't suffer the blame of bad behavior of bad results.

MP: I'm accepting theistic cultural responses (eg: "religion") are the roots, not 
theism itself. Theism, the simple act of believing there is a god or gods does not 
cause the actions, it is the actions which result from cultural constructs built 
around theism. But theism, the starting point is neutral IMO with respect to 
actions that result from it (good ones and bad ones.) But with respect to the 
cultural responses to theism, I don't for a moment deny they can be sources of 
bad actions as likely as good ones. I just don't attribute the bad (or good for that 
matter) to theism (as I insist it is defined.)

As I said before: "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater*" 
[*new edit: "even if it was the baby that peed in it]"