I've been avoiding this debate just to see where it goes, but I think
I'll step in now... I beleive that we can only have /faith/ in
rationality. As I see it, rationality /can not/ be used to defend
itself. Ie. you cannot give reasons to become rational because that
begs the question... If you are going to be convinced by the reasons
given to be rational, you must already accept that reason works. So we
must have faith: we must beleive in reason. And I see no way around
that.
> Of all the mail I have received from this list since I became a virus
> voyeur, this inspires my two cents worth. I am.....interested in the
> perception that an agnostic bringing faith into his life has
> sacrificed integrity for happiness. I would hazard to suggest that
> fear of the unknown (commonly referred to here as 'irrational') = fear
> of faith = the insistence upon clinging to rationality in an
> irrational world. What integrity is this man supposed to have
> sacrificed?
> lamato@activevoice.com
I would maintain that he has sacrificed much anyway... you see, as soon
as you decide to have an /irrational/ faith in reason, then you no
longer have to rely on faith any more. Reason is always available. So
what the above hypothetical person has done is made the rationality
faith leap, and then not used reason to justify everything else. Thus
he has continued to use faith, even when he beleives[1] that a better
alternative exists.
[1] Note that this really is a beleif. He may provide reasons why he
thinks reason is better than faith, but this meerly begs the question.
> 2) The Authority problem. Having been (discouragingly) attacked for *not*
> being a Christian, on the grounds that I don't adhere you ya'll's strict
> definition of Christian, on what basis does the Church of Virus claim that
> it is
> a) a Church?
First I would need a definition of "Church" I've got all these
"fundamentalist" meme's running around in my head screaming that a
Church is a gathering of people who all support the same "Truths,"
gathering mostly to reinforce and learn about their truths and how to
recruit more people to them... but this would obviously exclude you from
the Church you attend.
So, what is a Church, then?
> b) a memetically-based religion?
The CoV is founded on the principles and insights of memetics. The
entire idea is to use memetic's to engineer an "everlasting" religion...
one that evolves towards a system that more and more people think is
well and good. (Ie. that evolves to infect more and more people)... it
almost sounds evil, eh? Guess that is why it is hosted on lucifer.com.
ERiC
he terms his affliction "a disease with a purpose -- maybe
not such a bad disease after all"; he remarks that the disease
"wants to turn me into something else, ... something that never
existed before."