From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@calweb.com)
Date: Fri Sep 19 1997 - 12:30:52 MDT
>>Although there are undoubtedly fundamentalists who would shriek that Faith
>>must reign supreme over Reason, there are also sane people, some of them with
>>doctorates in physics, who would insist that every word of the Old Testament
>>is unvarnished and unmetaphorical fact. Many would take offense if you
>>suggested that their belief is not "in accordance with or sensitive to
>>evidence and reasons".
>
>>While it is not my intention to intervene in religious disputes at this
>>time - I feel we'll all know who was right soon enough - I do feel it
>>necessary to remind everyone that there are sincerely and unapologetically
>>religious people, who are often involved with charitable issues and
>>generally spread a little Light around, even if it is in the name of God.
How /more/ good could they do if they gave up their irrational faith?
I'm personally quite fond of many religious practices--in fact I'm
contemplating founding a religion myself. Such things as building a
community, teaching a moral foundation, maintaining history, organizing
celebrations and ceremonies, and coordinating long-term projects are
very good things--but none of them require irrational faith, or God, or
any of the other silly things most religions waste time on. If the
people doing those good things are offended by those of us who disdain
faith, then maybe they'll be encouraged to do those same things for
rational reasons. It is irrational for me to hold my tongue solely for
their discomfort. If they take offense at my simple, honest expression
of my beliefs, that's far more intolerant of them than my desire to
express beliefs that don't happen to match theirs.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:44:55 MST