----- Original Message -----
From: "David Riddell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2005 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: Cocooned in Dylanesque or is Albert Einstein indeed God?
David Riddell wrote, in part:
> . . . being singular in purpose and apparently
> with no allies for support I seem to be fighting
> a losing battle amongst formidable foes
> from many sides.I don't know how long I can
> fight the good fight against such overwhelming
> odds but I will try and do the best I can.
> I appear to be the pagan here
> amongst the intellectual elite,my personal
> viewpoint cast aside with distaste.
>
> Nevertheless I shall not wave the white flag.
> I shall not surrender.I will not bow down and
> worship the religion of individualism,a religion
> whereupon man-kind worships itself.
((Allow me to interject this view into the discussion:
"Thou art a Man, God is no more,
Thy own humanity learn to adore."
--William Blake, mystic and Christian))
> 'Knowledge' is worshipped as God.
(( John 1:1-2 reaffirms God's creative role and declares that Jesus, the
Logos, was fully involved in that creative process since "the Word was God".
http://www.credo.ndirect.co.uk/creation.html
Non-believers no more worship 'knowledge' as God that believers worship the
Bible,
which they call "the Word of God," as God. You claim, David, that "man-kind
worships itself" and that "'Knowledge' is worshipped as God." This appears
to suggest that 'man-kind' "is" 'knowledge.' Could you clarify this
conundrum?))
> You will usually find these worshippers amongst
> the highly educated in our society.
> They are the ones who take pride in the fact
> that they have been blessed with this knowledge
> and therefore deserve our worship.
>
(Alison commented: >>Others have questioned your assumptions; I do not read
that as intolerance.
>>If you are not interested in debating your beliefs, why raise them here?
>>
>
> not assumptions Alison.
> my beliefs could never be construed
> as assumptions.my beliefs are not pretentiousness.
>
((Beliefs necessarily qualify as assumptions; proofs alone, admittedly in
limited ways, escape that characterization. Whether you believe it or not,
in the plane geometry of the right triangle, a squared plus b squared equals
c squared. And no one these days 'worships' such knowledge. Beliefs concern
probabilities or possibilities--or, indeed, impossibilities; proofs do not.
You may correctly assert that your "beliefs are not pretentiousness," but
only if you do not rank them as a species of certainty equivalent to that of
(proven) knowledge.))
> If you indeed fail to see the
> intolerance that has so far been displayed toward my
> point of view,then there is nothing I can say that
> will persuade you otherwise.
>
> As far as debating my beliefs is concerned, I have yet
> to see any rational argument put forward by anyone
> on this List that is worthy of any response from me.
>
((I'd venture you've confused intolerance with impatience.
Would it surprise you if, reading your last sentence, some
on this list might suffer a similar confusion? It does seem
rather arch, dismissive, high-handed and sulky . . .))
Best,
Dan Zimmerman
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