Party of Citizens wrote,
> I personally
> want any religion which cannot prove its claims to be put out of business
> and in general I have the utmost CONTEMPT of organized religions of this
> world as parasitic and socially deleterious rackets which should be put
> out of operation under RICO laws. In that belief I make every attempt to
> be unprejudiced and non-discriminating. For example, when the Falun Gong
> leader proves he can levitate as those videos say, the Chinese authorities
> should take note and perhaps that would end their prosecution of this
> particular religion racket...thence upgraded to proven practice.
I do not disagree with your sentiment. However, I fear the day when people
turn on Extropianism as a false religion. (It has already happened,
remember!) What if they want Alcor to prove it can revive frozen bodies or
be shutdown? What if they want Eliezer to prove that AI can be friendly or
be shutdown? What if they want Foresight to prove that nanotechnology
works, or be shutdown?
How can we shutdown other organizations because we believe they are wrong,
without allowing other organizations to shut us down because they believe we
are wrong? How can we give a panel of scientists the right to say religion
is improvable without having the churches organize a panel of clergy to say
that science is sinful?
My fear is that any system that destroys groups for incorrect thinking will
quickly turn on us!
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> <http://Newstaff.com>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:56 MDT