Caught on tape by an undercover CIA agent were Frank Masingill's words:
 BS> I don't really view Buddhism as a religion, but rather a philosophy
 BS> that deals with life and how to escape suffering.  To be classified as
 BS> a religion, doesn't there have to be some acknowledgement of a god, gods
 BS> and/or goddess(es)?
 FM>    You can make a rat religious.
    Which reminds me... I haven't seen a new post from Fredric Rice or
 Andrew Cummins in at least a week.  Where'd they go?
 FM> Laboratory technicians do it almost
 FM> every day.  How do you suppose they train those chickens to ring the
 FM> bell and get a grain of corn down the chute?
    You classify trained response as a religion?  I suppose the metaphor
 could be used that trained rats would push their food button
 "religiously,"  but I would hardly actually equate those actions with a
 religion, even if it can be argued that there is a certain amount of
 faith involved on the part of the rats.  Indeed, they have a kind of
 faith that pressing the button next to the food dispenser will cause it
 to drop a food pellet out, but is that a religious kind of faith?
 FM> OTOH, there can be faith
 FM> and even an experience of deity or of the "boundless" with no
 FM> religiosity whatsoever.  Evangelism is engaged in by an "evangelist"
 FM> without respect at ALL to what the evangelist is "pushing."  In fact,
 FM> we've had several representatives from computer software companies
 FM> speaking at club meetings whose business cards actually designated
 FM> them as company evangelists.
    But that company's product isn't a god, a religious faith, or even a
 set of principles to live by.  I would have trouble thinking of that
 kind of evangelism as a religious act.
... Hiroshima 45 - Tchernobyl 86 - Windows 95
--- PPoint 2.06
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