Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!brl-adm!seismo!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!bath63!cc_dgdc
From: cc_dgdc@bath63.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.bio,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Reply to Douglas Clark re. 'poor deluded Americans, etc.'
Message-ID: <832@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 6-Mar-87 09:43:50 EST
Article-I.D.: bath63.832
Posted: Fri Mar  6 09:43:50 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Mar-87 17:31:19 EST
References: <8398@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Reply-To: cc_dgdc@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Clark)
Organization: University of Bath, England
Lines: 38
Xref: utgpu sci.bio:136 talk.origins:388


This is a reply to an article directed at me in sci.astro by Ken Arndt
I have to crosspost it to sci.bio to get it out of Europe. Europe doesnt
take talk.origins solo. And I have already promised the net to put it there.


Paul Davies' God and the New Physics, as I remember reading it last summer,
does not find any scientific use for the concept of god. I have the book in
my library. I am not interested enough in your squabble over it to reread it.

The recent book that really puts the boot into poor ol' god is Richard Dawkins'
The Blind Watchmaker. This is an elegant presentation of neo-Darwinism 
following on from his popular study The Selfish Gene and his erudite work
The Extended Phenotype. If you haven't read The Blind Watchmaker yet then you
have a lot coming to you. His love of computers is great fun.

It is incredible that Friedrich Nietzsche understood what scientific discovery
had done to the concept of god a hundred years ago but today there are still
educated Americans who cannot face the facts. I think that the only person
left in Great Britain who believes in god is Old Soapy, Robert Runcie -
the Archbishop of Canterbury, but I have heard rumours that he is losing
confidence too. There is also the Pope in Italy.
Anyway god is for wimps.

If you need a god in your life to sustain you then you must be very lacking in
inner resources. It's not really all that lonely to be on your own. It doesn't
rule out love. That is a much more sustaining force. I recommend you read
some feminist psychoanalysis (Nancy Chodorow etc) if you really want to find
out where you came from. The purpose of life is the living of it. As Sigmund
Freud said 'work and sexuality'.

Now bring on the godsquad!    :-)

-- 
Douglas Clark                        Voice: +44 225 826826*5214
Computer Unit, Bath University,      JANET: Clark@UK.AC.AUCC
Claverton Down, Bath, Avon,          UUCP : seismo!mcvax!ukc!bath63!cc_dgdc
England BA2 7AY                      ARPA : cc_dgdc%ux63.bath.ac.uk@ucl-cs.arpa