From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Jul 14 2001 - 22:21:43 MDT
Mike Lorrey writes
> As one who sees everything as 'simply matter and physics', I can also
> stated that I most certainly don't think that doing so eliminates value
> or values or the sacredness of anything. This, I find, is a primary
> fault of those who wax excessively about religion and spiritualism,
> claiming that science is no better than another superstition. They
> cannot imagine the possibility that the universe can be looked at in a
> completely rational manner while simultaneously having a sense of awe
> and wonder at it. They also have extreme difficulty imagining the
> possibility that one could derive a set of values from objective
> rational observation of the universe that is anything but a rather crass
> and simplistic dog eat dog existence.
I also have extreme difficulty imagining how one could derive a set
of values from rational observation of the universe, period. I
believe that normal human beings come equipped with genes that
prejudice us towards a number of values, e.g., cooperation, altruism,
envy, and retribution, and sometimes when people "discover" that
almost everyone shares certain values, they go on to suppose that
these values are objective. They're not. The quickest way to see
that is to imagine aliens perhaps rather improbably derived from
quite different environments.
> It is these cognitive failings in the religionists that I find most
> troubling,
of course you mean *most* religionists
> and is what I meant earlier when I said they are lacking. I
> take great umbrage at the assertion that I lack in a sense of
> aesthetics, that I don't appreciate beauty or human spirit, just
> because I choose to look at the world rationally rather than
> from a position of superstition and supernaturalism. I don't
> need religion to be spiritual, and I don't need supernatural
> phenomena to feel at one with the universe.
I find this quite clear (and I even agree), except for what you
mean by "spiritual". As you know, the term evidently means very
many different things to very many people. Such terms, it seems
to me, might be better dropped from wide-ranging public discourse,
such as this list.
Lee
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