From: Thomas Buckner (tcbevolver@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jun 05 2004 - 05:11:17 MDT
--- Samantha Atkins <samantha@objectent.com> wrote:
>
> On Jun 2, 2004, at 2:32 AM, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote:
> >
> > Let me toss your question back to you: What do
> you think a devout
> > Christian should be said to *want*, conditional
> upon Christianity
> > being false?
>
> What they "should be said to want" is to learn the
> truth but hopefully
> learn it in a way that allowed them to preserve or
> replace with better
> alternatives everything truly helpful they got from
> their religion.
> Doing the demolition of someone's believes is easy
> enough but is only
> destructive. Construction is more delicate.
>
> - samantha
>
Caveat: This applies not only to Christians, but to
people of all creeds and walks of life: There's a guy
I work with whom I used to debate constantly. Now I
speak to him only when business requires it. I only
ever learned one thing from him but it is a very big
thing:
Some people cannot be reasoned with. Period. Their
present memes are giving them some sort of comfort or
advantage they are loth to give up, and damn the whole
world. There are ideological crack addicts among us.
At one point I asked this fellow, "What if I had a way
to prove to you beyond all doubt that your position
would make the human race extinct in a few generations
after your death?" And he said "We've all gotta go
sometime!"
Tom
=====
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