Posted by Amanda on December 27, 1996 at 10:49:11:
In Reply to: bugs and men posted by stephen snead on December 27, 1996 at 09:24:26:
: First I want to thank Jason for a very intelligent and honest response to my last post. The other day while in my bathroom I saw a very ugly sight. A waterbug. call orkin quick. Actually I smashed it. But,not untill I looked and thought about something. If the atheists were absolutley right. Then that bug had as much dignity as I do. The bug ends the same as a human. Now I want to be careful here because the internet is wide open and I don't want to say anything that would disturb any unstable folks. But,if I believed that there was no more to me than a bug. If I really thought that humans were simply intellegent beasts at heart. No soul. Then I would be the meanest s.o.b. on the planet. No limits. What ever I could get away with. You have absolutely no right to judge Hitler,Stalin or Manson or Dalmer. Now I am not and will never be a violent person. I think the people I just named were monsters. I'm simply giving you a point that any honest atheist has to at least aknowledge. Please don't start with the glourious evelution of mankind. It does not change the banility of a souless world. Fundlementalism always breaks down at it's core. Reliogous or Atheistic. It just will not stand up. to a thoughtfull mind. I think that evelution (and yeah I need spell checker) should be taught as the best answer biologically for science classes. But,be careful of substituting dogma for science. One thing I have learned in my life. Everyone has an agenda. on the new age pages you will get fluff and highminded cosmic evolved little gods. On religion you get some honest quest for understanding and some reliogous mind controll dogma. Same for the new agers. And on these pages you get the (we are to intellegent to believe in anything but ourselves and what mr.randi and mr.gardner will pat us on the back for. Well to all of you I say Your god's too small. And finally please remember. We can caricature anyone. From Carl Sagan to Hugh Ross. But,only when we listen and search can we learn.
I think you're right in stating that we should always listen and learn but I disagree with you that we "need" a soul in order to stop ourselves from becoming monsters. Your argument doesn't hold much weight when you claim Hitler, Mussolini, Manson and Dahlmer were monsters when you also claim that humans do have souls. Obviously if a soul was the prerequisite for avoiding monsterhood and if all humans possessed one then we wouldn't have ever heard of such people as you referred to. If you claim that they became monsters because they didn't believe they had a soul then this is an empty argument that could never be proved - many people alive today claim not to have a soul yet somehow they refrain from mass murder. I think there are a myriad of reasons why people become what they become - in Hitler's and Mussolini's case it was an abuse of power and a misunderstanding of reality. In Manson's case it was due partially by soceity's influence and in Dahlmer's perhaps a serious chemical imbalance in the brain. I'm sure there are a list of other reasons why they became what they did but I don't see where the soul comes in to the picture. Jason gives an excellent explanation of his beliefs concerning the soul/spirit/mind in the next posting and I agree with him. I think the main reason why people refrain from becoming monsters is that they see that certain actions cause harm to others and for some this is the criteria between right and wrong. This might be an area where science can't be that effective of a tool.