Mike Lorrey wrote:
>Really? Then why did jesus say "My father has many houses...".
Let me guess: Ummm... he had a Jewish father, who had heavily invested in real estate?
>While I'm not an
>adherent, christianity can be very open or closed, depending on the mind
view of
>the beleiver. Considering the religious conflicts now going on in many
buddhist
>sects over succession (what? violence over material issues in a buddhist
group?
>how oxymoronic) I hardly think that the judeo christian arena has the
patent on
>ignorant intolerance.
"ignorant intolerance" can call itself whatever it likes. Sometimes it calls itself judeo christian, sometimes buddhist, sometimes communist, sometimes libertarian, sometimes national socialist, sometimes taoist, feminist, humanist, socialist, hinduist, or any ist you want to list.
I don't think we (tolerant, sensible, mature, rational, compassionate, sexy, intelligent, well-intended, honest, responsible, good-humored people) have much to fear from *ignorant* intolerance. OTOH, the *knowledgeable* intolerance of political lunatics and religious fanatics can present a difficult situation, as it regularly opposes reasonable science. I regret that science offends some people. But I don't think that scientists owe an apology to anyone.
Ideologues, theologues, and demagogues oppose reason and fear science because if reasonable scientists ruled, we could forget all about ideology, theology, and demagogy.
-zen
PS: I consider myself a student/scientist specializing in "psychonomy" -- a word I made up to signify the study of cognition beyond the myth of the mind. Psychonomy relates to psychology as astronomy does to astrology. Extropy plays an extremely vital part in this new field of science (or pseudo-science, if you feel intolerant), because extropy operates beyond the mind myth, and therefore merits careful and thorough study by extropic psychonomers.