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From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Is there a spiritual force etc.?
Message-ID: <1994Sep13.030258.1803@news.media.mit.edu>
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Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
References: <SOSUSER.2.2E731869@sos.net> <1994Sep11.164225.6753@news.media.mit.edu> <JUH.105.779391202@stpc.wi.LeidenUniv.nl>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 03:02:58 GMT
Lines: 47

In article <JUH.105.779391202@stpc.wi.LeidenUniv.nl> JUH@stpc.wi.LeidenUniv.nl (Marc) writes:
>In article <1994Sep11.164225.6753@news.media.mit.edu> 
>minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:

>>Thousands of years ago, many clever people discovered that it was easy
>>to implant this belief into innocent minds, and that these victims
>>would then pay handsome fees to those who claimed to be able to
>>manipulate these effects. (...)
>
>I don't believe these 'conspiracy theories' of religion.  Most religious 
>leaders really believe in their own religions.  That they don't mind making 
>a profit out of it is another question.

Hmm.  I didn't say that they didn't believe them.  But I don't think
that this is much of an excuse.  In fact, I personally, consider it
worse--that is, in my view, the believers are even more to blame.

While we're on the atheism subject, I was impressed by the following
argument extracted from 'The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins.  I
myself had long assumed that some of my heroes, such as Galileo, were
closet atheists and were merely afraid to express this in those
dangerous times.  I've changed my mind because of Dawkins' argument.
The context of this quote was a discussion of how an atheist in
pre-Darwinian times could explain the evident complexity of animals.
Dawkins explains that, before there had been some working out of the
details of a theory of spontaneous evolution, there really was no
plausible alternative to propose, except for divine creation.

Dawkins:

  ...what Hume did was criticize the logic of using apparent design in
  nature as positive evidence for the existence of a God. He did not
  offer any alternative explanation for apparent design, but left the
  question open. An atheist before Darwin could have said, following
  Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know
  is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that
  somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a
  position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty
  unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically
  tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually
  fulfilled atheist. I like to think that Hume would agree, but some of
  his writings suggest that he underestimated the complexity and beauty
  of biological design.

Mind you, I'm still not exonerating Galileo for this.  He should still be
scolded for not having been Darwin, too.

