Wirt, you wrote:

> Rubbish is in the eye of the beholder, I presume.

True and one man's rubbish is another man's treasure (pardon the
adapted phrase).

[snip]
> But ignorance, especially purposefully
> engendered ignorance, bothers me a great deal. It's as close to intellectual
> death as anything that you will encounter, and the American fundamentalist
> Christian church has become the primary purveyor of that purposeful ignorance
> of late. As I've mentioned before, this ignorance is turning a magnificient
> moral philosophy into a superstition.

Okay. I misunderstood your reasons for the posting. I agree that
ignorance and
moral bankruptcy are probably two of the main "sins" of our age.

[snip]

> Nevertheless, that fundamental lack of knowledge -- or even a lack of a
> desire to learn that knowledge -- represents no excuse for the promulgation
> of simple-minded superstitions. Creationists often go on at length about the
> fact that they can't get evolutionists to debate them, but using the examples
> in these recent posts, it's very easy to understand why. The minister who
> says that 10% of the hard drives in America are infested by either Lucifer or
> his minions is as good a way for you to understand why scientists don't
> bother.

Yes. I, personally, can see no link between technology and religion
(or
superstition). I also have a problem with "Science" which professes to
broaden
our knowledge of the life and the universe (and indeed does in some
directions)
but ignores any phenomena that cannot be measured by physical means
therefore
eliminating huge areas of the living experience. Indeed, some of these
"unmeasurable features" are closer to everyone's daily experiences
than
most people realise. For example, all living beings use energy. I
would like
to know how that energy is stored and how it is used. How do the
Buddhist monks
use this energy to perform incredible feats? We all use this energy
unconsciously
and effortlessly when we are children and our "channels" are not
blocked. It is
only as we get older and block these channels that we "forget" how to
use the
energy in such a way. Having practiced Tai Chi Chuan and Aikido for a
number of
years and "felt" and directed this energy, I feel that I have
recaptured, in some
part and for short periods of time, the effortless movements of my
youth.
This is just one example, in my personal experience, but I'm sure that
it
wouldn't be hard to find many cases of confirmed intuition etc without
delving too deeply into the shadowy realms of psychic phenomena.

[snip]

> The rubbish in all of this is that someone believes this nonsense. The sin is
> to let it pass, unnoticed and unmentioned. We're better than that.

Yes. I see your point now. Apologies for misunderstanding.

Cheers,

John Dunlop

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