204 lines
8.0 KiB
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204 lines
8.0 KiB
Plaintext
X-NEWS: ids alt.atheism.moderated: 777
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Path: paperboy.ids.net!uunet!pipex!mantis!mantis!not-for-mail
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From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
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Newsgroups: alt.atheism,alt.atheism.moderated,news.answers,alt.answers
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Subject: Alt.Atheism FAQ: Overview for New Readers
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Supersedes: <overview_751802402@news.mantis.co.uk>
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Followup-To: alt.atheism
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Date: 4 Nov 1993 10:00:07 -0000
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Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.
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Lines: 181
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Approved: news-answers-request@mit.edu
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Distribution: world
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Expires: 25 Nov 1993 10:00:02 GMT
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Message-ID: <overview_752407202@news.mantis.co.uk>
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NNTP-Posting-Host: sunforest.mantis.co.uk
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Mime-Version: 1.0
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
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Summary: Hi. Please read this before you post.
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Keywords: FAQ, atheism
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Xref: paperboy.ids.net alt.atheism:10501 alt.atheism.moderated:777 news.answers:3278 alt.answers:510
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Archive-name: atheism/overview
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Alt-atheism-archive-name: overview
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Last-modified: 14 October 1993
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Version: 1.8
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Overview
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Welcome to alt.atheism and alt.atheism.moderated.
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This is the first in a series of regular postings aimed at new readers of the
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newsgroups.
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Many groups of a 'controversial' nature have noticed that new readers often
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come up with the same questions, mis-statements or misconceptions and post
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them to the net. In addition, people often request information which has
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been posted time and time again. In order to try and cut down on this, the
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alt.atheism groups have a series of five regular postings under the following
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titles:
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1. Alt.Atheism FAQ: Overview for New Readers
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2. Alt.Atheism FAQ: Introduction to Atheism
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3. Alt.Atheism FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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4. Alt.Atheism FAQ: Constructing a Logical Argument
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5. Alt.Atheism FAQ: Atheist Resources
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This is article number 1. Please read numbers 2 and 3 before posting. The
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others are entirely optional.
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If you are new to Usenet, you may also find it helpful to read the newsgroup
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news.announce.newusers. The articles titled "A Primer on How to Work With
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the Usenet Community", "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet"
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and "Hints on writing style for Usenet" are particularly relevant. Questions
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concerning how news works are best asked in news.newusers.questions.
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If you are unable to find any of the articles listed above, see the "Finding
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Stuff" section below.
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Credits
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These articles are free. Truly free. You may copy them and distribute them
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to anyone you wish. However, please send any changes or corrections to
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mathew@mantis.co.uk, and please do not re-post copies of the articles to
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alt.atheism; it does nobody any good to have multiple versions of the same
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document floating around the network.
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People sometimes ask whether these FAQ files are original, and if so, who
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wrote them. It's not an easy question to answer. Some parts I wrote myself;
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many others were contributed by the readers of alt.atheism and of other
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Usenet newsgroups. The articles are therefore a massive collaborative
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effort, of a sort which would not have been possible without electronic
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networking.
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I have written, rewritten and edited a great deal of material, but these FAQ
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files would not have been possible without the efforts of hundreds of people.
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In particular, I'd like to thank the following people for their
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contributions (in no particular order):
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kck+@cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge)
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perry@dsinc.com (Jim Perry)
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NETOPRWA@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu (Wayne Aiken)
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chpetk@gdr.bath.ac.uk (Toby Kelsey)
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jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
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geoff.arnold@East.Sun.COM (Geoff Arnold)
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torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
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kmldorf@utdallas.edu (George Kimeldorf)
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roe2@quads.uchicago.edu (Greg Roelofs)
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arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
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madhaus@netcom.com (Maddi Hausmann)
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J5J@psuvm.psu.edu (John A. Johnson)
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dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham)
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mayne@open.cs.fsu.edu (William Mayne)
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ajr@bigbird.hri.com (Andy Rosen)
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stoesser@ira.uka.de (Achim Stoesser)
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bosullvn@unix1.tcd.ie (Bryan O'Sullivan)
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lippard@ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
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s1b3832@rigel.tamu.edu (S. Baum)
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ydobyns@phoenix.princeton.edu (York H. Dobyns)
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schroede@sdsc.edu (Wayne Schroeder)
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baldwin@csservera.usna.navy.mil (J.D. Baldwin)
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D_NIBBY@unhh.unh.edu (Dana Nibby)
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dempsey@Kodak.COM (Richard C. Dempsey)
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jmunch@hertz,elee.calpoly.edu (John David Munch)
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pdc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Paul Crowley)
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rz@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Richard Zach)
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tycchow@math.mit.edu (Tim Chow)
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simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
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PHIMANEN@cc.helsinki.fi (Pekka Himanen)
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MINER@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Ken Miner)
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mayoff@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Rob Mayoff)
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hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen)
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mmwang@mv.us.adobe.com (Michael Wang)
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...and countless others I've forgotten.
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I use PGP to sign all the articles. This means you can be sure that you have
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received the entire article, exactly as I posted it. You can also check the
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date of each article, even if the header information has been lost. (This
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should help the people who find copies of the files re-posted to systems
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outside Usenet.) For information about PGP, send a blank mail message to
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pgpinfo@mantis.co.uk.
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Disclaimer
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The editor of these FAQ documents has attempted to verify the accuracy
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and correctness of the information contained in them, as far as is
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metaphysically possible. Mistakes can and do happen, and so far it
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seems no omnipotent beings have intervened to correct them. If you use
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the information in these FAQ documents, you do so at your own risk.
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However, the editor hereby guarantees that reading these documents will
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not cause your soul to perish in eternal damnation. Offer void where
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prohibited by natural law.
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Finding Stuff
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If you are on Usenet, all of the FAQ files *should* be somewhere on your news
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system. Here are some suggestions on what to do if you can't find them:
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1. Check the newsgroup alt.atheism. Look for subject lines starting with
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"Alt.Atheism FAQ:".
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2. Check the newsgroup news.answers for the same subject lines.
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If you don't find anything in steps 1 or 2, your news system isn't set up
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correctly, and you may wish to tell your system administrator about the
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problem.
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3. If you have anonymous FTP access, connect to rtfm.mit.edu [18.70.0.209].
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Go to the directory /pub/usenet/alt.atheism, and you'll find the latest
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versions of the FAQ files there.
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FTP is a a way of copying files between networked computers. If you
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need help in using or getting started with FTP, send e-mail to
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mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with
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send usenet/news.answers/ftp-list/faq
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in the body.
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4. There are other sites which also carry news.answers postings. The article
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"Introduction to the news.answers newsgroup" carries a list of these
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sites; the article is posted regularly to news.answers.
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5. If you don't have FTP, send mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
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consisting of the following lines:
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send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources
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send usenet/alt.atheism/faq
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send usenet/alt.atheism/introduction
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send usenet/alt.atheism/logic
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send usenet/alt.atheism/resources
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5. (Last resort) Mail mathew@mantis.co.uk, or post an article to the
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newsgroup asking how you can get the FAQ files. You should only do this
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if you've tried the above methods and they've failed; it's not nice to
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clutter the newsgroup or people's mailboxes with requests for files.
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It's better than posting without reading the FAQ, though! For instance,
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people whose email addresses get mangled in transit and who don't have
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FTP will probably need assistance obtaining the FAQ files.
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mathew
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For information about PGP, send a blank mail message to pgpinfo@mantis.co.uk.
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--
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/X-Attribution:/h:j -- just say no to SuperCite
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