[PLUG-TALK] why religion is the root of all evil

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Wed Jan 31 18:34:54 UTC 2007


On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 11:39:22PM -0800, Ronald Chmara wrote:
> 
> I'm with ya, in Nazi germany, 1942.

Ding!  You lose.  Thank you for playing.

Nazification, besides being the hallmark of a losing argument on the
internet, is tactically a Really Bad Example to use when judging
science versus religion.  Nazi Germany is well worth study, because
the historical facts about the actual movement (especially the
willing participation of so many scholars and scientists) destroys
many unfounded beliefs held by the intelligensia.  Glen Roppella
referred to this tangentially with his mention of eugenics.  The
behavior of Heisenberg, Von Braun, and many other world class
scientists and engineers demonstrate that while science is a
valuable tool, it is not a substitute for values.  

Nor is slavish adherence to a religion, or an ideology, or group
membership, for that matter.  A PhD demonstrates skills, not
sainthood.

My point is not that one should cooperate with evil, but that
it is usually impossible to change minds the minds of others
using castigation and contempt.   If one is Adolph Hitler or
Saddam Hussein, public humiliation is a useful tool, because it
is a nonlethal surrogate for the actual mind-changing process,
unbridled murder.  As average citizens, though, your and my
ability to back our taunts with force is quite limited.  Did
my "ding" taunt make you surrender to my argument, or anger
you and make you more resistant?  LEARN FROM THAT.

Unfortunately, we have an inborn tendency to use the tools of a
tyrant, even if we do not have the status.  Far too many of our
ancestors were tribal tyrants, and propagated their tendencies to
the offspring of every female they could dominate.  Civilization
evolved to mitigate these tendencies, and redirect them as much as
possible to productive ends.  One cheap way to suppress tyrannical
behavior in average citizens is to invent a Big Invisible Tyrant
who punishes violators of social norms.  It seems like a lousy way
to accomplish the job, but the sad truth is that we have yet to
see the empirical demonstration of a better alternative (I have
seen a lot of claims that do not stand up to scrutiny).  This is
not because better alternatives are impossible, it is mostly
because social innovators don't understand their customers (who
are not innovators, among other things), and innovators are too
impatient to pay attention to the empirical results.

So if you want to change the world, rather than demonstrate clueless
incompetence, you must learn to separate values from nonproductive
rhetorical habits, and change your habits to facilitate progress
towards the values.  This is difficult, because it is easier to
keep the habits and change the values to match.  A good start is to
recognize that outcomes are the result of actions, not intentions. 
That is the difference between science and magic.  You may intend
to bring about a Beautiful World, but unexamined actions, without
observation of consequences and modification of approach, make the
world an ugly one.  

In other words, act for effect.  You will be judged by what you do,
not by what you intend.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs



More information about the PLUG-talk mailing list