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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Is there a spiritual force which also effects the future?
Message-ID: <Cw6t13.Eqp@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <1994Sep11.164225.6753@news.media.mit.edu> <Cw3927.FDF@spss.com> <Cw4p8I.BsA@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <1994Sep14.234811.3343@news.media.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 20:03:02 GMT
Lines: 78

In article <1994Sep14.234811.3343@news.media.mit.edu>,
Marvin Minsky <minsky@media.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <Cw4p8I.BsA@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>>In article <Cw3927.FDF@spss.com>, Mark Rosenfelder <markrose@spss.com> wrote:
>>>........
>>>There's something about religion that makes people completely abandon
>>>rationality and standards of evidence, and condemn to perdition anyone who
>>>doesn't agree with them.  And that's just the effect on the *un*believers.
>>>
>>You surely know about an atheist ideology which did exactly the same things
>>(abandon ..., condemn...) with terrible effects on unbelievers (and
>>believers too). So perhaps it is not a belief in God by itself which leads
>>to such awful consequences.
>
>Could you elaborate on that, Andrzej? I presume you're speaking of the
>Soviet Empire.  But my impression is that their culture never absorbed
>the critical materialist culture, but retained a superstitious outlook
>that did not respect rationality and evidence very much.  After all,
>even I would have no objection to believing in God, given adequate
>evidence.  (However, i'd still not see much reason to behave in accord
>with hIS commands, except because of cowardice in the face of hIS threats.)
>
Your impression is quite correct. My point was (and is) that it is not 
religion (understood as belief in God) which makes people completely abandon...
etc. Perhaps it is a lack of what you call "respect for rationality" which
makes people prone to these excesses, and not the belief in God itself. You
may claim that the belief in God is a result of such a lack of "respect for 
rationality" (but then it would be a result of a cause common also to the 
excessive behavior), but I would question this. True, a lot of people try to 
justify their belief in God through reasoning which does not meet standards of
rationality, but this may simply mean that they are attempting to rationalize
out (erroneously) a belief for which they have a subconscious need. You
obviously do not have such a need. Notice, however, that a culture of strict 
rationality may make people to adopt a stance that no moral code makes sense,
I'll do whatever is good for me. It seems to me that a society with such
a culture might be given to excesses which wouldn't be much better to those
alluded to above. I am convinced that it such a prospect which makes a lot
of very rational people to stay with the belief in God as a way to anchor
a notion of morality. Personally I do not see a contradiction between
respecting rationality and a belief in God. If we notice that a notion of
God as a supernatural being (omnipotent, omniscient etc.) does not stand
a logical scrutiny (and why should God be bound by our human notion of logic?)
than it is logical (=:-)) that we should not mix spiritual and rational realms
of human existence. They have separate place in our lives. As long as we
accept that they are separate there should be no conflicts.
I prefer an agnostic stance myself, but I agree with the fact (mentioned
by another contributor) that anchoring morality is a problem for "the critical
materialist culture".

>My favorite instance of Russian gullibility was in a movie I saw that
>depicted an alleged psychic woman who was moving a pencil on a table
>toward herself by sheer psychokinetic power of will.  The only trouble
>was that whenever she exerted her power, and the pencil jumped a
>little, you could also see her shirt button jumping too, because of
>the Nylon thread.  Only a nation of wishful-thinkers who wanted to
>believe in the supernatural could have applauded this clumsy
>performance.  I've done it myself, but took the precaution to thread
>the thread through the tablecloth, and operate it by foot.
>
>(I know about this because I once set this trick up at a big board
>meeting, with the pencil jumping toward the chairman, about 5 meters
>away from me, whenever he started to speak.  It was no use.  The
>chairman stared at it for a moment and then without even looking in my
>direction said, "Cut it out, Minsky.")
>
I can understand your disappointment, but perhaps you have played this side
of your personality too often. If next time you keep quiet the whole meeting
except for praising the chairman for his ideas, it might surprise him more
than the jumping pencil.
(I am just being envious that myself I rarely have guts to play tricks like 
this :-)).

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
