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From: dcs2e@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson)
Subject: Re: Fish is human tomato pornography theory as humor
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Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 14:32:29 GMT
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In article <4phhcj$1uq@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>
turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:

> -*------
> In article <DssJ38.CoI@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
> David Swanson <dcs2e@darwin.clas.virginia.edu> wrote:
> > ... What I want to say is this: at the point that they become 
> > aware of trying to believe, their success becomes utterly hopeless. 
> > One cannot approach religion or anything else with the intent of
> > making a great effort to believe.  One cannot consciously try to 
> > believe.
> 
> The evidence suggests otherwise.  I understand Swanson's doubt,
> because "trying to believe" is completely foreign to me, whose
> internal workings are just as Swanson describes.  But many people give
> different witness.  Pascal is an interesting read, in this regard.
> 
> Russell


P's wager is what your colleagues in crime might call "gibberish".  I
can remain in some sort of slight doubt as to whether "trying to
believe" is possible for certain individuals, but until it's explained
to me I will not take its existence on faith.  I don't mean to draw too
sharp a line between the conscious and the unconscious, only to point
out the incoherence of a fully concscious act of fooling oneself.


David

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
