Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!quintus.UUCP!ok From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: The Godless assumption Message-ID: <19880824175343.3.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 24 Aug 88 17:53:00 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 39 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu To: Path: quintus!ok From: Richard A. O'Keefe Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: The Godless assumption Date: Tue, 23 Aug 88 04:04 EDT References: <19880823022420.7.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Sender: quintus!news@Sun.COM Reply-To: Richard A. O'Keefe Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc. Lines: 27 In a previous article, lishka@uwslh.UUCP writes: >It is true that religious beliefs have been used *as*excuses* to commit >horrible atrocities (witch burnings, ... This concedes too much. It is widely believed, but that doesn't make it true. The belief in the existence and malevolence of witches was an *empirical* belief. If you read "Malleus Maleficarum" (there is at least one translation available in Paperback) or if you read the court transcripts and pamphlets from the New England witchcraft trials (there's an historical society which issued reprints in the first half of this century) you will find few if any appeals to faith, but many appeals to evidence. Where we disagree with the past is about what constitutes evidence (we do not, I trust, regard torture as necessary on the grounds that evidence so produced is the most reliable kind, but if we _did_ think that, what do _you_ think law enforcement agencies would do?). There are any number of people today who believe in ghosts, poltergeists, ESP, and the like, on far worse evidence than our forbears had for believing in witches. Either there were no few people who wished to be witches, and even believed that they _were_ witches, or all court testimony is worthless (as Ambrose Bierce once said, somewhat more forcefully). Some of the other messages have reflected a similar credulous acceptance of "pop history". The past is stranger than we imagine. This topic really hasn't much to do with AI. Perhaps it could be moved somewhere else?