[ExI] Prisoner of bad philosophy: Carl Sagan couldn’t allow himself to hope

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Saturday, August 4, 2018 8:07 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Prisoner of bad philosophy: Carl Sagan couldn’t allow himself to hope

 

 For some atheists it is upsetting that so many base their lives around religious belief given this, and they feel obliged to tell them why they are wrong at every opportunity;  stathis

 

And the other way around:  Yet another reason for atheists to be militant:  being lectured to, patronized by people they consider intellectual inferiors.  It doesn't have to be that way.  I've been 'corrected' by students in my 101 classes and I found it funny (though I tried to hide it).

 

bill w

 

 

 

 

 

Occasionally in our lives we meet someone who is so clearly our intellectual superior it is startling.  In the controls biz, we sometimes had a very gifted young person who just seem to have that rare talent, an ability to see everything, to use the complicated systems of differential equations like Tarzan swinging from vines in the jungle, as effortlessly as flying.

 

We had a guy come thru like that, exactly one, a PhD candidate when he was still in his early 20s.  We have never had one like him before or since.  He was only there about a year before our customer discovered him and somehow coaxed him away.  He was religious to the core, and I do mean fundamentalist, tortoises all the way down hardcore fundy.

 

I don’t know how it works or why it works, but somehow religious belief is orthogonal to intelligence.

 

spike

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