Re: On credulity and religion

@#$%!?! (smryan@netcom.com)
Thu, 4 Jul 1996 10:53:38 GMT

: By all means, share with us the "conclusive proof" that Santa Claus and
: spooks are real.

Silly rabbit. The counter is not that Santa is real but merely he might
be. (This involves a not-so-subtle point of logic, but logic is rarely
useful against dogmatism.)

"I beseech in your bowels to consider that you might be wrong."

: encourages dissent. Science offers a self-correcting mechanism (the
: scientific method of collecting data to test hypotheses' predictions) and

Silly rabbit. What is your proof that all the truth is repeatable and
testable? For somebody who is supposed to be skeptical, why haven't you
applied your skepticism to the scientific method? Obviously you can
believe the evidence of your own eyes, can't you? (hint: hyponotic
suggestions, optical illusions, nonpsychotic hallucinations, etc)

(Again, this involves not-so-subtle points of logic dealing with axiom
systems, level mixing, etc, but, again, logic tends to invoke rage rather
than understanding among dogmatics.)

: No, you shouldn't conclude that. Because if you can provide me with some
: shred of evidence for religious claims (or the claim that UFOs visit
: earth, or the claim that tiny pink unicorns push electrons around), I'll
: re-evaluate my stance.

The real pity is you will probably never ever be able to really read
your own words and seen them for unreasonning dogmatism you enjoy chiding
others for. How sad for you, never able to see the _possibilities_.

: ready to question--really question--and re-evaluate their assumptions.

: Healed souls aside, how many diseases have been cured with dialectics,
: and how many lives extended by careful reading of Biblical tenets?
: Now, how many have been bettered by the careful application of the
: scientific method? Ah...

Maybe healing souls is more important than healing bodies....Maybe not,
but could your dogmatism ever consider that _possibility_? And is
quantity of life necessarily superior to quality of life?

How many people have saved by science? There's about 2 million in
Cambodia, 10 million in Germany, 20 million in USSR. How many
americans were sterilised by eugenists? How many downwinders when AEC
decided to study the effects of fallout? If violence among teenagers
is indeed the result of abandonning of morality, how many a day?

Of course, that wasn't real science. We have to distinguish real science
from psychopathic ravings. The Inquistion, witch burnings, now that was
was real religion, obviously.

Poor child. You really learn to cultivate "1. A doubting or questioning
attitude or state of mind; dubiety, 2. The philosophical doctrine that
absolute knowledge is impossible and that inquiry must be a process of
doubting in order to acquire approximate or relative certainity."

PS. Read the last lines from Animal Farm. Or Pogo.

-- 

She yearns to feed on force of youth,      | smryan@netcom.com  PO Box 1563

to claim his strength with claw and tooth. |          Cupertino, California

She wants to rise, to wend from lies,      | (xxx)xxx-xxxx            95015

and meet again the morning's truth.        |         I don't use no smileys