X-Message-Number: 17746 Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 12:06:54 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles Platt <> Subject: religion etc No time to go into all these interesting points about religion, but one little detail jumped out at me: The suggestion that Timothy McVeigh was guided by the US Constitution. Certainly he believed he was defending constitutional rights against an oppressive political regime. However, it so happens I have met the owner of the motel where McVeigh stayed in Kingman. The owner told me that when he searched McVeigh's room, he found various possessions, including a book in which McVeigh had marked key passages, mostly justifying the use of violence against enemies. That book was the Bible! I suggest that McVeigh drew his outrage from perceived constitutional violations, and supported the ethical validity of his retaliation by reading that well-known guide to the Christian faith. As for Christianity having done more good than bad, I certainly disagree, because I think that any group which believes in a bunch of myths about the afterlife is liable to make dangerously irrational decisions. Secular dictators have of course been responsible for a huge number of deaths, but the real problem is that they, in turn, were pushing their own version of myths (such as collectivism), perhaps even more dangerous than religious myths. Perhaps we could agree that the real problem lies in uncritical willingness to believe almost anything that a trusted leader says. Skepticism is the antidote to religion _and_ totalitarianism. Skepticism is also an antidote to wishful thinking in cryonics. Skepticism (self-skepticism, especially) is a fundamental attribute of any responsible scientist. --CP Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17746