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IRRAT

irrationality flame              April 23, 1992


It's always kind of awkward to discover that some friend
of yours, despite seeming like a very nice, intelligent,
reasonable person has some completely nutty, irrational
beliefs.

I mean, look around the usenet,
here you've got a bunch of people
who are at least bright enough to
use a computer, most of them are
hanging out at universities or
working jobs that require a
degree... what do you
find?  People who believe in:

   Astrology.
   "magick".
   the holocaust is a myth
   AIDS is a government conspiracy
   AIDS is the wrath of god.
   Bill Clinton can get elected.
   vi is better than emacs.
   And...
           There are all the religious people.
           Who would be raving lunatics,
           except that most of them are
           carefully living their lives so
           that their religion doesn't make
           much difference.




The world seems to be full of
people who were awfully lucky to be
born into the right religion.                 I could go on, but it all
                                              seems so stale to me.


The God hypothesis just doesn't
tell you anything new.

You ask any serious questions
about god, you'll get told
something like "The ways of the
lord are mysterious".

Go ahead, make some testable         More recently (10/94)
predictions using the religious      I was reading the
model.                               Skeptical Inquirer
                                     and I discover that
I don't even care which              there apparently are
religious model, pick one.           people who've
                                     attempted to do
                                     "scientific"
                                     experiments studying
                                     the efficacy of
                                     prayer as a factor in
                                     healing.

                                     The world continues
                                     to amaze me.

                                     (Bill Clinton got
                                     elected too!  For one
                                     term, anyway.)

                                           Heh. *Two* nitwit.

                                              "It does not pay for
                                               a prophet to be too
                                               specific."

                                               -- L. Sprague de Camp

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