I've been skimming this discourse with amusement, recognizing the absurdity of thinking on the part of Briggs as well as the comical implausability of the "way, the truth, and the [stolen ideas from earlier manuscripts and religions]."
My curiosity is always piqued by a person who claims to believe that after death he will live in an eternal bliss, yet still fears and/or avoids death. I would think that any honest Xian would go out of his way to risk death, if not commit suicide, since surely eternal heaven must be better than the best possible life here. Why wait? Why aren't all Xians the first to volunteer as firefighters and police officers and the like, and of those that do, why do they bother with Kevlar vests and the like? Why wear a seat belt, or drive slowly on a winding mountain road?
Equally spurious are Briggs' other assertions concerning the morality of atheists versus that of Xians. Atheists know that the only form of eternity we have is to live on in the memories of those we leave behind, thus most of us work for the improvement of society now and in the future. Admittedly, there are those atheists who use their free choice to embrace hedonistic values, but if so they at least are not piously hypocritical about it! You won't see atheists sermonizing about the sinfulness of promiscuity while renting cheap hookers in every town on the tent revival trail, nor eschewing worldly goods while stockpiling parishioner's cash in secret accounts. And in fact many animals do "marry," though they don't get some celibate clown in a collar to officiate!
Briggs really gets my gut busting when he attacks Farrell's debate tactics, then proceeds to blabber falsehoods himself! For example, NO WAY would "personal testimony" that someone rose from the dead be admitted as the sole evidence in a courtroom, unless he's speaking about a McCarthyite courtroom, the same era that gave us the misbegotten "In God We Trust," a Constitutional violation which I cover with correction fluid on all bills that come into my hands. Funny how the "followers that have survived persecution" have been as often, if not more so, the persecuters, and how other religions have survived the persecution by Xian as well--yet Briggs does not consider the Islamic or Judaic religions proven! I'd love to see the photographic evidence proving JC was here yesterday, as Briggs claims! Nothing fancy, just a Polaroid with plenty of witnesses and a newspaper--and of course proof that it was JC, not Koresh or Manson or any one of the other thousands who claim(ed) to be the returning messiah. No one has yet proven that JC even existed, any more than Sherlock Holmes or Captain James T. Kirk did: ideas in minds are harder to kill than real humans; Sherlock lives on today (in the metaphorical sense, of course). And ONE variant on the Holey Babble is enough to prove that it is not of divine origin, since an omnipotent deity who inspired a book for the purpose of guiding humanity surely could keep us from SCREWING IT UP, couldn't he? In fact, this brings up another question I've long wanted, and never received, an answer to: Why didn't JC himself write the Holey Babble? Are we to presume the "Son Of Gawd" could not write? Or is there supposed to be his own writing somewhere, and if so, where is it? Why didn't it "survive?"
You can't teach atheism. It's impossible to teach a lack of belief. If logic leads people to accept atheism, and the schools teach logic, it is not the fault of the tool nor the toolgiver. One does not credit hammer manufacturers with creating sculpture. Nor does evolution theory teach kids they came from apes (a common ancestor is not the same as a direct line of descent, but Briggs doesn't appear to comprehend even the basics). Only creationism teaches that the universe "magically appeared;" evolution teaches an orderly process following a combination of an element of chance and the logic of the laws of physics. No magic there.
I must disagree a smidgen with Farrell though, concerning the invention of new religions and the superstitious nature of the population. While we may have progressed slightly since the days when L. Ron Hubbard invented his religion and made his pile, there are still plenty of suckers eager to grasp at straws in the world; witness the rise of so-called "new age" practitioners, who pack the gullible into auditoriums and feed them ancient mystical absurdities that make even the Holey Babble seem relatively rational!
Someday, we may free ourselves from the grip of superstitious thinking, but the political power of the churches makes it a "ten steps forward, nine steps backward" process.
Cheers,
Brent Yaciw Internet: athalflb@aol.com Fundamentalists are like the fir trees in German forests: they cannot stand alone, and are only stable when crowded together, branches locked with those of their brothers. That is why we must always fear them, because they will always hate us for our individualism. --Brent Yaciw, with inspirational regards to Jack M. Bickham