At 11:28 PM 4/16/97 -0400, you wrote:
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> Hello. How are you guys doing today? I decided to pick on an
>agnostic by the name of Robert G. Ingersoll. He claims implicitly through
>his writings that he is right. Well, let's take a look at his writings..
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> The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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> **** ****
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> WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
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> 1889
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> PART I.
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> "With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls."
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> The same rules or laws of probability must govern in religious
>questions as in others. There is no subject -- and can be none --
>concerning which any human being is under any obligation to believe
>without evidence. Neither is there any intelligent being who can,
>by any possibility, be flattered by the exercise of ignorant
>credulity. The man who, without prejudice, reads and understands
>the Old and New Testaments will cease to be an orthodox Christian.
>The intelligent man who investigates the religion of any country
>without fear and without prejudice will not and cannot be a
>believer.
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>Very simplistic logic for a smart man. Let's look at his first sentence.
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>Does he show to have any prejudice in the first sentence? Yes. Therefore
>we can conclude that he did NOT read the Bible with a (supposive) clear
>mind. Probability is a human creation not an instinct. My point is NO
>one can read anything without prior biases.
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> Most people, after arriving at the conclusion that Jehovah is
>not God, that the Bible is not an inspired book, and that the
>Christian religion, like other religions, is the creation of man,
>usually say: "There must be a Supreme Being, but Jehovah is not his
>name, and the Bible is not his word. There must be somewhere an
>over-ruling Providence or Power."
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>Man this guy is full of assumptions. I have not arrived to this so called
>"enlightened" conclusion. According to scriptures everyone knows there is
>a God, AND they are without excuse. When the athiest stands before the
>King's Throne he will have to bow.
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> This position is just as untenable as the other. He who cannot
>harmonize the cruelties of the Bible with the goodness of Jehovah,
>cannot harmonize the cruelties of Nature with the goodness and
>wisdom of a supposed Deity. He will find it impossible to account
>for pestilence and famine, for earthquake and storm, for slavery,
>for the triumph of the strong over the weak, for the countless
>victories of injustice. He will find it impossible to account for
>martyrs -- for the burning of the good, the noble, the loving, by
>the ignorant, the malicious, and the infamous.
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>It seems to be the case that if someone does not understand WHY God
>allows things to happen the way they do, it means that God is not real.
>What kind of logic is that. Let me ask you this: Do you understand how a
>satellite works? I will assume it is to highly complex for most of you.
>You will say No. Therefore that means that it can not be real.
>Know you are most likely say to my last comment that is stupid, BUT there
>are things you are ignoring. There ARE more evidences that God is real
>from your present situation then there are for the satellite being
>real. Let me explain:
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>1. You have most likely heard about someone speaking to God before.
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>2. You have heard of and probably read the historical document about
>God(Four Gospels, etc.) in human flesh, just as you have heard of read
>about Julius Caesar.
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>3. Since you have probably read about God walking the Earth(Eden, Christ,
>etc.) then you know that someone has seen, touched, talked with, heard
>about, walked with, been helped by God(in physical form).
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>4. You probably have heard of people getting healed by God, but you chose
>to ignore it because it wasn't worth your time.
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>5. You probably have never seen a satellite in real life. Most likely
>you read about it, or seen a picture of one T.V.
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>6. You DO have a lot of word of mouth and mass majority that will tell
>you it is real or that they have seen it, but do we always believe people?
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>7. People for some reason always have to follow majority opinion. What
>about other proofs?
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>8. You have probably breathed the same air molecules that Jesus Christ
>breathed.
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>9. Etc.
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>You probably get what I am talking about now. When you actually look at
>what evidences you have, you will see that there are many. Matter of
>fact: I think most people come to the conclusion that there is no God
>because they don't want to believe, not because there isn't enough proof.
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> Bank of Wisdom
> Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
> 1
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> WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
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> How can the Deist satisfactorily account for the sufferings of
>women and children? In what way will he justify religious
>persecution -- the flame and sword of religious hatred? Why did his
>God sit idly on his throne and allow his enemies to wet their
>swords in the blood of his friends? Why did he not answer the
>prayers of the imprisoned, of the helpless? And when he heard the
>lash upon the naked back of the slave, why did he not also hear the
>prayer of the slave? And when children were sold from the breasts
>of mothers, why was he deaf to the mother's cry?
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>It's amazing how God is about the only thing that is dependant on what we
>do NOT understand. If I was walking down the road and saw you on the
>street and said, " There is going to be a concert in that building over
>there to raise charity" you would probably believe me(without any proof).
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>But when it comes to God, unlike everything else, you stick Him in a test
>tube.
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> It seems to me that the man who knows the limitations of the
>mind, who gives the proper value to human testimony, is necessarily
>an Agnostic. He gives up the hope of ascertaining first or final
>causes, of comprehending the supernatural, or of conceiving of an
>infinite personality. From out the words Creator, Preserver, and
>Providence, all meaning falls.
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>The first sentence is a false assumption. I am a Christian, and I know
>the limitations of the mind and I give proper value to human testimony.
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>The Agnostic must have a hard time believing anything with the logic
>mentioned above. How could he be satisfied with people just telling him
>there is a president, or that gravity makes apples fall? Come on, explain
>to me why a certain mass M has a gravitational pull.
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> The mind of man pursues the path of least resistance, and the
>conclusions arrived at by the individual depend upon the nature and
>structure of his mind, on his experience, on hereditary drifts and
>tendencies, and on the countless things that constitute the
>difference in minds. One man, finding himself in the midst of
>mysterious phenomena, comes to the conclusion that all is the
>result of design; that back of all things is an infinite
>personality -- that is to say, an infinite man; and he accounts for
>all that is by simply saying that the universe was created and set
>in motion by this infinite personality, and that it is miraculously
>and supernaturally governed and preserved. This man sees with
>perfect clearness that matter could not create itself, and
>therefore he imagines a creator of matter. He is perfectly
>satisfied that there is design in the world, and that consequently
>there must have been a designer. It does not occur to him that it
>is necessary to account for the existence of an infinite
>personality. He is perfectly certain that there can be no design
>without a designer, and he is, equally certain that there can be a
>designer who was not designed. The absurdity becomes so great that
>it takes the place of a demonstration. He takes it for granted that
>matter was created and that its creator was not. He assumes that a
>creator existed from eternity, without cause, and created what is
>called matter out of nothing; or, whereas there was nothing, this
>creator made the something that we call substance.
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>It must be assumed according to the writer that accepting something not
>fully understood is an absurdity, BUT if you use this so called logic on
>other things it falls apart. As I have already mentioned, how can a man
>just take it on faith that gravity just works. Do you fully understand
>it? If you do you are very smart.
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>Like I also have said before, if you say God is dependant on what you
>understand, then you need to apply it to other things. If you are an
>agnostic you should not believe in blackholes, aliens(unless you were
>abducted[but then mass opinion says you are a ravening fool]), and
>top it off: gravity.
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> Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite
>personality? Can it imagine a beginningless being, infinitely
>powerful and intelligent? If such a being existed, then there must
>have been an eternity during which nothing did exist except this
>being; because, if the Universe was created, there must have been
>a time when it was not, and back of that there must have been an
>eternity during which nothing but an infinite personality existed.
>Is it possible to imagine an infinite intelligence dwelling for an
>eternity in infinite nothing? How could such a being be
>intelligent? What was there to be intelligent about? There was but
>one thing to know, namely, that there was nothing except this
>being. How could such a being be powerful? There was nothing to
>exercise force upon. There was nothing in the universe to suggest
>an idea. Relations could not exist -- except the relation between
>infinite intelligence and infinite nothing.
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>Romans 8:6~ Carnal mindedness is death, spiritual mindness is life and
>peace.
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> Bank of Wisdom
> Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
> 2
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> WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
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> The next great difficulty is the act of creation. My mind is
>so that I cannot conceive of something being created out of
>nothing. Neither can I conceive of anything being created without
>a cause. Let me go one step further. It is just as difficult to
>imagine something being created with, as without a cause.
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>Ha, Ha, Ha. That so stupid. That must mean he gets troubled when he
>makes a hamburger, house, etc. I have never met anybody so perplexed!?!?
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>To
>pustulate a cause does not in the least lessen the difficulty.
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>Wait.....I guess he is right. I CAAAN'T understand how any one could make
>a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
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> In
>spite of all, this lever remains without a fulcrum. We cannot
>conceive of the destruction of substance. The stone can be crushed
>to powder, and the powder can be ground to such a fineness that the
>atoms can only be distinguished by the most powerful microscope,
>and we can then imagine these atoms being divided and subdivided
>again and again and again; but it is impossible for us to conceive
>of the annihilation of the least possible imaginable fragment of
>the least atom of which we can think. Consequently the mind can
>imagine neither creation nor destruction. From this point it is
>very easy to reach the generalization that the indestructible could
>not have been created.
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>The second law of thermodynamics tied in with entropy is scientific
>evidence that the universe is increasing overall in entropy(one of the
>corillaries clearly states this). Thus, any person that states there is a
>force in the UNIVERSE that causes evolution(decrease in entropy within
>organisms) to come about is wrong, because this is a DIRECT violation
>of the second law(corillary). The only thing you can state is that for
>some reason there is a force that NO one has seen operating, works on
>organisms only(decreasing entropy). According to other THEORIES we see
>from scientific proof that anything which increases in entropy has had
>something that caused it come about. Usually from observation, there has
>to be a mediator(intelligence) bring this about. SO according to
>different corillaries and THEORIES we can conclude that this FORCE is very
>unlikely t be real, because thus far it has been hype, blind leading the
>blind, and majority opinion among our people.
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> These questions, however, will be answered by each individual
>according to the structure of his mind, according to his
>experience, according to his habits of thought, and according to
>his intelligence or his ignorance, his prejudice or his genius.
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> Probably a very large majority of mankind believe in the
>existence of supernatural beings, and a majority of what are known
>as the civilized nations, in an infinite personality. In the realm
>of thought majorities do not determine. Each brain is a kingdom,
>each mind is a sovereign.
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>Whatever.
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> The universality of a belief does not even tend to prove its
>truth. A large majority of mankind have believed in what is known
>as God, and an equally large majority have as implicitly believed
>in what is known as the Devil. These beings have been inferred from
>phenomena. They were produced for the most part by ignorance, by
>fear, and by selfishness.
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>Above he states some of his opinions.
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> Man in all ages has endeavored to account
>for the mysteries of life and death, of substance, of force, for
>the ebb and flow of things, for earth and star. The savage,
>dwelling in his cave, subsisting on roots and reptiles, or on
>beasts that could be slain with club and stone, surrounded by
>countless objects of terror, standing by rivers, so far as he knew,
>without source or end, by seas with but one shore, the prey of
>beasts mightier than himself, of diseases strange and fierce,
>trembling at the voice of thunder, blinded by the lightning,
>feeling the earth shake beneath him, seeing the sky lurid with the
>volcano's glare, -- fell prostrate and begged for the protection of
>the Unknown.
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>The above is opinion. He has a good imagination wouldn't you say?
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> In the long night of savagery, in the midst of pestilence and
>famine, through the long and dreary winters, crouched in dens of
>darkness, the seeds of superstition were sown in the brain of man.
>The savage believed, and thoroughly believed, that everything
>happened in reference to him; that he by his actions could excite
>the anger, or by his worship placate the wrath, of the Unseen. He
>resorted to flattery and prayer. To the best of his ability he put
>in stone, or rudely carved in wood, his idea of this god. For this
>idol he built a hut, a hovel, and at last a cathedral. Before these
>images he bowed, and at these shrines, whereon he lavished his
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>Funny....We don't see air. Prove to me it is real.
>This guy has got a good imagination, almost like those evolution movies.
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>Well, I have completed a small portion of chastising this mans
>free-thinking. I will go now, I had my fun for the day.
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>Thanks,
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>Tony Woodcock.
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