🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov10.165533.1@fnala.fnal.gov>, rhatcher@fnala.fnal.gov writes...
> 
>> (I do not know what religions you have been exposed to, but my
>> beckground in is a sect that specifically encourages constant
>> questioning and self-examination.)
> 
>I want to point out the difference between "[self] questioning
>and self-examination" and questioning the fundemental beliefs
>(axioms?) of a religion.  Most religions stress the first; few, if any,

This is a very good point.  I have been told by several religious netters
that they have been taught to always question - always to question how 
they know the truth.  But there is a subtle and important difference between
questioning whether we know something to be true and questioning how we
know something to be true.  The latter exercise is a useless diversion, 
as it presupposes the truth of that which you pretend to question by
examination of the so-called evidence.  

This kind of "free enquiry" is just a sham - a way for people who unyieldingly
cling to faith as the ultimate arbiter of truth to seem to be open-minded
participants in the kind of open discussion which characterizes the search
for knowledge by the scientific method or by rational discourse.  

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		 although I have no right to say so, having
				 been a single cell so long ago myself that I 
				 have no memory at all of that stage of my 
				 life." - Lewis Thomas