From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp-lib.org)
Date: Fri Feb 16 2001 - 10:44:18 MST
Steve Nichols wrote:
> >Rock on, Mr. Nichols. Direct frontal assaults on belief systems always
> >work. Err. Don't they?
>
> Interestingly, yes!
You can't mean that part. Ever hear of Falun Gong? Ever hear of the
Roman Empire's actions toward Christianity in the first few centuries
CE? Evidently imprisonment, torture and public execution aren't direct?
> Why should the voices of truth be silent?
Do what thou wilt. I'm for aikido, myself. I'm also an agnostic, since
"God/god(s)" is a squirmy concept with a lot of wiggle factor.
> Young children in particular will believe whatever is told to them,
> particularly by an adult, and even older folks will subconsciously
> accept what is told to them, at least til their critical and analytic
> faculties have time to kick in.
And young people will often appear to rebel, and then fall back on the
faiths of their fathers (or whatever their model of it is). Why kick the
props out from under them? Why, for instance, try to deprive a terminal
cancer patient of her epiphany/notion that the world has a plan?
> But sure, what are your suggestions for a "sneak attack" on Xian
> fundamentalism?
I have no master plan, just a bunch of heuristics. You, on the other
hand, have a master plan.
I hope to pay attention to what works. You and I appear to have
different attentions. This is OK; a sheaf of strategies is probably a
good idea. One-size-fits-all fits few. Things got the way they are
because people have been the way they have been.
I have, in years past, sometimes thought that the final battle, if it
comes, will not be between good and evil, but between the forces of good
and the forces of good-and-evil-at-the-same-time. See Sowell's
"constrained" vs. "unconstrained" visions.
> www.steve-nichols.com
> MVT ... the all-conquering philosophy!
Umm. Right. I have delusions of _adequacy_, myself.
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