From: Samael (Samael@dial.pipex.com)
Date: Mon Dec 21 1998 - 05:00:38 MST
-----Original Message-----
From: Spike Jones <spike66@ibm.net>
To: extropians@extropy.com <extropians@extropy.com>
Date: 21 December 1998 10:51
Subject: irrational atheists
>you may have seen a single axis thought-space map for politics
>which shows liberals on the left, moderates in the middle and
>conservatives on the right. (please ignore the vertical axis for
>the sake of this simple arguement.) to the left of the leftists are
>the radicals, to the right of the conservatives are the reactionaries.
>in some models, the two ends join in a circle, since radicals and
>reactionaries share some characteristics, do they not?
>
>now, do the same trick for religion, a single axis thought-space
>map for religion. try to locate yourself on that map. can you?
Sure:
People who believe there is a God (without evidence)
People who don't believe anything without evidence but don't go around
saying "it's impossible" either. <---Me
People who believe there is no God (without evidence)
>suppose we focus on christian based religions for the sake of
>this limited model, and to prevent me from venturing too far on
>ground i do not understand. {8^D ok, in the middle, we have
>moderate believers. to the left are the more open-minded brands
>of christianity, presbyterian, etc. farther to the left are unitarian
>universalist, etc. to the right are bible thumping fundamentalists.
>
>ok, on that scale, what is to the left of the universalist? what is
>to the right of the fundamentalist? give up? let me suggest,
>to the left of the universalist is the agnostic, and to the right of
>the fundamentalist is the athiest. like the political counterpart,
>the far left and far right share many characteristics. the axis
>meets around back.
>samael, how does this theory work for you? spike
Seems not unreasonable. Basically you've put people into groups depending
on how much they alue theire curent beliefs and how easily they are likely
to believe that things idfferent to what they currently believe are true.
Samael
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