Jangchub wrote:
On 19 Aug 2006 12:00:00 -0700, "Chris H. Fleming"
wrote:

Jangchub wrote:
On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 11:36:03 +0930, Michael Gray
wrote:

1. You saw something awesome.
2. You cannot personally understand it.
3. Therefore there is an invisible old man in the sky.

Push to shove, whatever enriches someone's spirituality or kindness or
consciousness is a good thing. I don't believe in a creator, but I
have no problem with those who do. And orb spiders are indeed
awesome. I don't believe a god created them, but if someone else does
and it touches their heart making them a better person, it's great.
Don't you think?


Do you still say that when they fly planes into buildings?

I'm not sure I understand. Would I say what?

I am a native New Yorker. I don't live there any more, but everyone I
know does. While watching the first tower, then seeing the second
plane as it drove through the second tower I didn't know what to day.
I remember saying: what the **** was that.

It was an unimanaged horror for everyone involved. I cried and got
very quiet.


I often hear people say "it's not hurting anybody" or "it makes them
happy" when refering to irrational beliefs. Say something mundane like
a person calling psychic hotlines. It doesn't hurt anybody directly. I
used to feel this way.

But there are evil things people do that can not be rationalized by
anything other than the unbelievable. Flying a plane into a building
one extreme. Or even the minority of Americans who believe God comes
down from his thrown and magically injects a human soul into the zygote
when the sperm and egg unite, so they forbid life saving research,
because that would inconvenience the zygote's soul.

By tolerating mundane irrationality, we create a environment where
threatening irrationality can flourish.