MCLC: Putin wins Confucius Peace Prize (12,13,14)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Putin wins Confucius Peace Prize (12)
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What an interesting exchange!  It's caused me to question quite a few
things as follows:

“atheism offers no absolute validation for following the dictates of
conscience”

Bill seems to have forgotten in his list of dictators is that they invoked
an absolute belief to justify their actions.  Any creed can be turned into
an excuse for persecution, whether it be Mao rooting out ‘rightists’ from
Chinese society, Pol Pot imposing agrarian socialism, Catholic persecution
of the Huguenots, the Crusades, and so on.  In each case, regardless of
whether the driving belief was theist or atheist, an abstract ideal was
used as an excuse to persecute and the human nature of the people who
became victims of ideological debate were forgotten.  Wang Ruoshui’s ‘Man
is the Starting Point of Marxism’ places humans at the centre of
ideological debate as a counter to China’s preceding ultraleftism which
had forgotten humanity in its pursuit of political purity.

“What is dangerous, Mr Moran, is to believe in a false god”

I struggle with the ideas of a false god, because to claim any god as true
or false is to ask many questions.  Is the god invoked by extremists of
any religion a false god or is it true?  How do you know?  How do you
determine whether a god is false or true?  By the actions of the
individuals who follow said god?  How do you know that the god that you
believe to be the source of all truth isn’t actually a false god?  Are
different belief systems simply different expressions of belief in one
true god?  I could go on indefinitely.  It is the contest over which god
is true and which is false that leads to violent theism.

If one is to believe that one is not “in possession of the sole truth, but
believing that one knows - through no merit of one's own - the true God
who really is the sole source of all truth” then surely this should cause
each individual to doubt one’s own beliefs constantly.  Therefore "we
should allow other people¹s truths to exist" as we explore those doubts.
This should be applied across the board.  It should be applied to the CCP,
to Bill, to me, to L Ron Hubbard and to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti
Monster.  But why should you allow other people’s truth’s to exist unless
you have a belief in the fundamental rights of those people to live and
believe as they so choose?  Does this belief not constitute secular
humanism as “validation for following dictates of conscience” regardless
of whether or not one believes in some sort of god.

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From: rujie wang <rwang at wooster.edu>
Subject: Putin wins Confucius Peace Prize (13)

To equate atheists with people with questionable morals the way Bill
Goldman did in the previous post is an act of intolerance; acts like that
make people wonder sometimes if China, being an atheist society, is
superior or inferior to the States. However, what Bill and many other
Christians stand for, especially his genuine concern with and compassion
for the conditions of millions in China earning for freedom and democracy,
also makes me think favorably about his creed that says, in front of god,
everyone is equal. As an atheist I nonetheless find some aspects of
Christian theology appealing when expounded by such people as Thomas
Jefferson: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against
every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Rujie

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from: lucas klein <LRKlein at cityu.edu.hk>
Subject: Putin wins Confucius Peace Prize (14)

Hi, Bill--

I appreciate the clarification of what you think about freedom of religion,
and to the extent that you apologized, I accept. But since you wrote, "I am
sorry Lucas misunderstood me and can only ask him politely to read my posts
with more concentration if he wishes to know what I think," I hope you can
acknowledge that you wrote, "conscience is precisely what atheism tends to
dull" and that "if you don't believe in that God ... then you certainly
have
no absolute validation for that conscience's dictates," hence, with "no
reason to believe your actions will be judged by an Almighty just Judge one
day ... what is to prevent you from doing as you please?" This is why I
accused you of calling my beliefs (or lack thereof; same difference to me
here) "unconscionable." I may have misunderstood "you" or "what you think,"
but I don't think I misunderstood what you wrote. I would also politely ask
you to write with more concentration if you wish to express what you think.

Lucas