[extropy-chat] The use of intelligence

[Keith Henson]

As most of you know, I have been engaged for years with the slowly 
successful grinding down of the scientology cult.

It has been an experience that led me deep into evolutionary psychology.

One of the things which has impressed me is how people develop and maintain 
strong beliefs that completely negate logical thinking.

It is fairly amazing to see a fellow human using a fair amount of smarts 
trying to defend the undefendable.  The particular example is a 
scientologists who goes by "SunSurfer" <therealmsoftime.net> on usenet.

There are several similar threads where this person doggedly defends silly 
scientology practices.  This might be of meta interest here because we who 
try for a technologically advanced future will have to contend with this 
kind of person sooner or later.  (Unless we can manage to leave it all 
behind at 0.5 c.)

Keith Henson

http://www.google.ca/groups?selm=112ka3rfqc98248%40corp.supernews.com&output=gplain