From: Mark Hedges <hedges@infopeace.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 11:48:19 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: RE: Democracy... (fwd)
Message-ID: <v03130300b227dde307da@[209.75.197.30]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Jim Choate answered:
>> From: Matthew James Gering <mgering@ecosystems.net>
>> There is no reason to think that a god does exist, so why would one even
>> need to think about or believe in the negative.
>
>There is no reason to believe one doesn't either. If we take your claim at
>face value you need to demonstrate your test that shows the irrelevancy
>of god. God is not a belief in a negative, another straw man, but rather
>a mechanism or expression of human psychology and the need for humans to
>find patterns (ie reason) in things.

Mr. Gering, you may have heard the argument that there is also no reason to
believe that you exist, except your sense impressions which can be proven
to be unreliable and easily falsified. The old 'disembodied nervous system
floating in a tank getting poked by graduate students' premise could
explain your entire range of perceptions of your childhood, schooling,
adolescence, growing up, eating pizza at the office, etc.

I wondered for a while, and then I threw it in the waste bin, because it's
pointless and a waste of energy to wonder whether or not I exist. I decided
to trust my sense impressions well enough to go to the movies and jog in
the mornings and go to work and write code.

I certainly do not stop living because there is no reason to believe that I
exist.

There is also no reason for me to believe that you exist, because you could
be Toto forging the mail. You didn't sign your message, I don't have your
key fingerprint, I doubt I ever will, and besides, maybe someone monitored
your keystrokes and stole your key.

And in my experience, certain 'sense impressions' lead me to conclude that
the existence of 'god' as some sort of cohesive, coherent, universal-scale
eternal being is perhaps possible. Looking at cloud formations on the
plane, I sometimes feel like an astrocyte wandering a huge purkinje
skyscape, or like a star careening through a nebula. And the erosion
patterns on the mountains below look just like dribbling water on
sandcastles. And so there is something, some kind of underlying order, the
effects of which we see at every scale.

Though I'm incapable of understanding the transcendent order, or of
conceiving what the transcendent order might be, I do not block the
possibility from my mind. And that leads to some interesting experiences.

No, I don't follow the often arbitrary rhetoric of many organised
religions, and in that point I agree with your opinion of the concept.
Although, some of them espouse some interesting ideas.

To wander back to the thread topic, democracy, and to totally wrench
everything out of context, I've heard the same sort of argument used
against democratic empowerment. There's no reason to believe that 'the
people' are capable of making their own decisions, and there's no reason to
believe that stronger, more direct democracy would work as an effective
system of governance and organisational decision-making. 'The people' are
demonstrably idiotic, moronic fools, sheep, who must be lead by 'those in
the know'. By that logic, it follows we should concentrate all power into
the hands of a few beneficent rulers, or an educated aristocracy, or
perhaps just one -- the philosopher king.

I nominate myself. Any objections?

Please e-mail for address to send offerings and libations to me, the ruler
of the universe. Donations accepted in the form of gifts of $100 or more.
Gold and precious stones preferred. Multitudinous blessings to you, free of
charge.

Mark Hedges


__________________________________________________________________
  Mark Hedges   hedges@infopeace.com   www.infopeace.com
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