> You cannot be "religously neutral", that's a contradiction in terms. Either
> you say that you believe in the presence of supernatural power(s) or you say
> you don't. There are a few who don't believe in God but are afraid that they
> are hit by a lightning when they admit it. They are called agnostics ;-)
> (Anders, I know that your definition of agnosticism is probably slightly
> different :-). I wouldn't call them neutral either.
I think most agnostics would object to the above definition. Agnosticism
is centered around the idea the question of whether God exists or not is
not provable (whether through limitations of the human mind or whatever).
My own idea is that the question of God is a nonsensical question created
by a meme. We're infected by the virus and thus feel compelled to address
the question. Brodie's "Virus of the Mind" does a wonderful job of outlining
how completely useless questions arise from memes.
As for Contact, the 95% figure was probably accurate in that such a figure is
probably accurate for the percentage of people that believe in some form of
supernatural something. Whether that means such a person should embark on the
first representative is another issue. By selecting arbitrary criteria you disqualify
virtually anyone from being the first representative. The obvious choices would be
military-trained individuals (similar to the Gemini and Apollo astronauts) who could
deal with the variety of unknowns and psychological stress that such an encounter would
probably entail. However, what percentage of the world populace is military-hardened
to such a pristine degree?
I agree with the idea, as I would guess most people on the list would, that the first
representative should be a scientist (perhaps even a mathematician) since that would
be the common language we might share. Additionally, a scientifically trained mind
would be able to adapt, process and toleratethe "strangeness" of the aliens much easier
than a Southern Baptist minister from Augusta, Georgia.
Doug Bailey
doug.bailey@ey.com