False Copernican
Foundation /
Non-Moving Earth
Marshall Hall
From: marshall hall
To: Positive Atheism <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: false Copernican foundation
Date: Sunday, June 01, 1997 11:06 AM
Cliff:
As a former evangelical atheist, may I encourage you to get and read: THE EARTH IS NOT MOVING (328 pages, 2nd printing)?
It is available thru: FEF, Box 866, Cornelia, GA for $14 ppd U.S.
Marshall Hall BS MA
Is this some kind of marketing ploy?
If not, please state your case. My role here is to discuss philosophical and moral issues as they relate to theism. I'd especially like to know what an "evangelical atheist" is, considering that evangelism refers specifically to the propagation of the so-called Good News of Jesus Christ -- though I know better than to think that that particular message has done much good to the human species. Considering that everyone starts life without a god-belief, then every theist is a former atheist.
If this is simply a marketing ploy, SPAM or otherwise, please honor our posted request for no commercial solicitations. (Or at least give a tease as to the gist of the book! We will consider posting any reviews of this book, or any other book, which are sent to us.)
-- Cliff Walker
P.S., Does "FEF" stand for, perhaps, the Flat Earth Foundation? d;^)
From: marshall hall
To: Positive Atheism <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: non-moving earth
Date: Monday, June 02, 1997 2:32 PM
Cliff Walker:
No problem. My point was simply that having been a fervent atheist, and having found that position untenable if evolutionism and heliocentrism can be readily falisified -- which they most certainly can be -- you might be open to investigating those assertions for yourself, beginning with Copernicanism.
I wish I had put "fervent" or "zealous" atheist instead of "evangelical atheist", as that adverbial adjective seems to have muddied up the main message about an easy way to get atheists up to speed on an issue that is gaining momentum and will be coming their way before many moons pass. Incidentally though, "evangelical" does carry the connotatiion: "marked by ardent or zealous enthusiasm for a cause". I can only say to you, Cliff, that definition fit me to a "T" when I was fully indoctrinated by the contra-scientific nonsense of Darwinism and Copernicanism (not mention Marxism, Freudianism, Saganism, and the like).
One strong conviction I retain about the atheists of the world is that a large percentage of them are in the same boat I was, and that those folks will welcome an expose' of false science's lies. Indeed, I suspect that lukewarm church people are going to be astounded to see the level of zeal for the Bible -- restored to full credibility -- that they will exhibit. Anyway, thanks for responding. No offence intended with the first message or with this one. Quite the contrary!
Oh.
Are you a Discordian, then?
-- Cliff
From: Jerry Billings
To: Cliff Walker
Subject: Re: Fw: non-moving earth
Date: Tuesday, June 03, 1997 1:00 AM
Cliff
I simply am unable to swallow the idea that a rational person can trade logic for illogic. I am well aware of the strange concept that many Christians have, that one can alter one's mind by an act of will. But someone who is a ferverant Atheist becoming a born again, never!
And what is that Copernicanism that your correspondent mentions. As I understand the great Polish astronomer, his work was one of observation, not the founding of a new "ism". He proved the heliocentric theory is a fact and our planet does rotate around our sun as do the several other planets in our solar system. Apparently your friend has the idea that it is somehow sinful to observe & report an unbiased fact.
By his comments, the Christian also suggests that our system is not heliocentric if he believes that "Copernicanism" (a word not in my dictionaries) is untrue and a sinful concept.
Once a debater makes an error of this magnitude, the rest of his position crumbles and falls. In my opinion, he has only proved that he hasn't the faintest idea of what he is putting out as his belief.
This butresses my earlier thought that his confusion between adverbs & adjectives establishes the existance of a vacuum in his cranium.
Jerry
Being opposed to any form of fundamentalism, I agree with Robert Anton Wilson when he pokes fun at what he calls "Fundamentalist Materialists" such as James Randi and the humorless, albeit useful, Martin Gardiner.
Gora considered Materialism to be a form of Theism when the Materialist resigns or "surrenders" to the fate of the elements.
In this sense, a human can put on the appearance of being a rational thinker in that she or he spouts all the correct rhetoric. But what's going on inside more closely resembles the thinking style of a Fundamentalist Theist than that of a rational thinker -- even though he or she spouts all the "correct" jargon and holds the "correct" viewpoints that would normally identify one as being a rational thinker.
This fellow's error is in failing to realize that rational thinking is a method -- a process for determining truth -- rather than the set of tenets that many theists falsely represent it as being. That he calls himself "a former evangelical atheist" should be your first clue: he was never a rational thinker, but was most likely very "evangelical" in the way he unthinkingly parroted atheistic and rationalistic rhetoric that he probably picked up from books and atheist meetings and the like. That such an atheist would suddenly convert to non-Copernicanism does not surprise me in the least.
-- Cliff
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