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From: javilk@netcom.com (Javilk)
Subject: Re: The function of religion is not to help you understand reality...
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Date: Sun, 13 Nov 1994 09:02:38 GMT
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stidd sean c (stidd@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu) wrote:

: at least, not in the scientific sense.  Religion has a great many 
: functions - it is supposed to provide us with a meaningful way of life, 
: with the possibilities of worship, piety, spiritual celebration, and the 
: experience of the sublime.  It functions to help make our lives more 
: meaningful.  Religion is not a theory about the universe, but a way of 
: being.  
     And knowing more, seems to make my life more meaningful.  maybe not 
yours... But I am a very curious person.

: Also, it is incredibly naive to say that "economics will make you want to 
: help people."  It has that effect on some people, possibly;  but I don't 
: think the vast knowledge of economics on the part of the economists 
: working for DuPont, Exxon, World Bank, General Motors, or the U.S. 
: Government has inspired them to help people at all.
     Um... gee, do you buy their products?  Or perhaps their competetors 
products?   Why?  Do not those products help you do something more easily 
or better than if you had not bought those products?  Well, if not you, 
then some people Do buy, and are benefited by, those products. Otherwise, 
why do they buy them?


: Sorry to be such a critic, but I seem to lack the optimism that so many 
: share about the proper scientific understanding of the world being the 
: cure to solving all of our problems.
     It isn't.  It can, however, make it easier for PEOPLE who want to 
try to solve those problems.

:  A complete knowledge of genetics 
: does not tell us what kind of human being we ought to build;  
    NO, but it can point to wasy of helping correct some of the types of 
defects we all have. Like not being able to synthesize our own Vitamin C, 
for example.  Or helping reduce the occurance of Diabetes, Sicle Cell 
Anemia, Tayh-Sachs disease, and thousands of other of "life's little 
inconveniences" which people might be born with.

: neither 
: does a complete knowledge of economics tell us what sort of society we 
: ought to set up.  Science deals with what is;  what is, however, does not 
: really give us any information at all about what ought to be.  
   No, but it can give us a hint or two!

: Normativity is not naturalizable in any interesting way.
   Normalizing everything is a great way of killing off everyone from
boredom.  AND of preventing progress.  DaVinci, Einstein, Edison, and many
others were difinately "abnormal" in LOTS of ways! 

-J- javilk@netcom.com ------------------------------------------
Laugh at yourself, The Goddess loves company -- and You! -------
After all, we wouldn't want her to cancel the show, would we? --
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A Pagan Scientist -- I am trying to find out HOW She did it!


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