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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>William Flynn Wallace<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Theological arguments<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 12:25 PM, John Clark <<a href="mailto:johnkclark@gmail.com" target="_blank">johnkclark@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>…</span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'></span><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>What is so difficult for me to understand is this: we teach young children about the tooth fairy, Santa, Easter bunny, and all sorts of things in various cultures that they grow out of (a meaningless phrase, that), coming to see fairly early that these are false. So why do they believe anything the parents and wider culture believe? One would think that they are now prejudiced against the older generation's beliefs. <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>After all, they were lied to over and over.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>bill w</span><span style='font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>BillK, the most religious parents do not teach their children about the Easter bunny, Santa or tooth fairy, none of it. They don’t want the competition for their religion memes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>When I was teaching my son math, I was careful to not say you couldn’t take the square root of negative numbers. I remember so well when I was introduced to imaginary numbers at age 13: …you know when we said you cannot take the square root of negative numbers, well that isn’t exactly right…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>That was a minor crisis for me, for math was the one perfectly self-consistent objective and logical world. It really bothered me to find out I was given a simplified incorrect view at any step anywhere. Soooo… I introduced my son to imaginary and complex numbers when he was 7 years old. We didn’t do much with them until recently (age 9), but when he did, they seemed perfectly natural.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>The hardcore religion parents are right up front in telling their kids Santa is a commercial advertising device very loosely based on a historical figure, the Easter bunny is almost that. Then they have all that credibility in the bank for their religion memes, and they need it all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>