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From: CSvax:Pucc-H:aeq@pur-ee.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Religion vs. Science?
Message-ID: <315@pucc-h>
Date: Tue, 27-Sep-83 23:02:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.315
Posted: Tue Sep 27 23:02:38 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Sep-83 21:35:52 EDT
References: <1932@utah-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 27

<pilot light [tiny flame] on>

stan the leprous--er, leprechaun hacker:  Religion has not solved massive
problems for the simple reason that people have not accepted it massively.
I mean that in two senses:  1) quantities of people, 2) degree of acceptance.
While millions are on the rolls of the major denominations, they are still a
minority (in this country at least); and not many people allow their faith to
really change them.

It seemed a little odd that you criticized religion for not solving problems
of technology, which are, of course, not its department at all.  Religion is
aimed at solving spiritual and (partly as a consequence) psychological
problems.  I, for one, have seen a great IMPROVEMENT in my psychological
health over the last several years (quite the opposite of "the equivalent of
a prefrontal lobotomy"), largely due to my faith, and to the faithful help of
"the God who is there", as Francis Schaeffer says.  I, of course, am not at
all the only person who can say such things.  Thus, "religion" has been shown
many times over to solve problems on the individual scale.  But not enough
individuals get enough of their problems solved to have the psychological
strength to make much of a dent in the massive non-technological problems of
the world.  Certainly I still have a long way to go.

<pilot light off>

Dumb question:  How did this discussion get into net.politics?

-- Jeff Sargent/pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq