X-Message-Number: 399 From att!compuserve.com!73647.1215 Sat Aug 17 05:08:29 EDT 1991 Date: 17 Aug 91 02:45:06 EDT From: Thomas Donaldson <> To: <> Subject: Re: cryonics #396 - Re: Write California Senator Watson! Perhaps this man might consider carefully his own attitude to politics, and ask himself just how clean he really is. Thomas Subject: Re: cryonics #397 - Re: Write California Senator Watson! Dear Al & friends As I've written to John himself, I found his approach more astounding than offensive. And I too have libertarian sympathies. But for John and others I have a story to tell which will tell the wiser part of them to take thought much more deeply: When I was in Australia, and teaching at ANU, a Spanish atheist came from Spain to live in Australia. As everyone knows, Spain is so Catholic that any other mode of life than reference to the Church cannot be imagined by many Spanish: the Church is their cosmos, with nothing outside it, anymore than we can think of anything outside the Universe. And as happens with all countries there are atheists in Spain, people who see the vast majority in the Church and decide that the claims of the Church are empty and its promises are empty too. But to be an atheist in Spain is very different than to be one in the US, or in Australia. It must occupy your whole life; you will form groups to promote atheism, you will stand on street corners and preach it to everyone, found atheist bookstores, and never speak to anyone without reminding them of the nonexistence of God. And so he came to Australia, and tried to found an Atheist Society there like those in Spain. And I do not think he ever understood why so few Australians showed any interest at all. An interesting story, yes? Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=399