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From: ALFONSEC@EMDCCI11.BITNET
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Subject: The Godless Assumption
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Date: 26 Aug 88 02:52:00 GMT
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Date: Thu, 25 Aug 88 09:23:43 HOE
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Date: 25 August 1988, 09:22:40 HOE
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From: ALFONSEC@EMDCCI11
To:   AILIST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU at EDU
Subject: The Godless Assumption
Ref: AIList Digest Volume 8 : Issue 64.

In a previous article, John McCarthy says:
> Burning  Giordano Bruno presents problems for many religions that Hiroshima
> doesn't present for science.  Science doesn't claim that scientific
> discoveries can't be used in war.

Isaac Asimov (in "The sin of the scientist") contends that Science knew
sin when the first product was developed that could be used ONLY in war.
If I recall correctly, this product was mustard-gas (used in WWI).

> A religion that claimed that the Catholic Church was protected
> from doing evil by God, that the Catholic Church was responsible
> for the killing of Bruno and that killing Bruno was a crime
> have problems.

The Catholic Church never claimed that its members (whatever their
hyerarchy level) were protected from doing evil. The "infallibility
of the pope" has nothing to do with that. It affects not deeds, but
sayings, and only very special ones (only twice in the last 150 years).

In a previous article, sas@BBN.COM says:

> To my knowledge there is no scientific litmus test which can determine
> the good or evil of a particular thought of action.

True. From premises in the indicative mode ("this is so") you can never
deduce a conclusion in the imperative ("you shall do so"). You need at
least a premise in the imperative (i.e. a moral axiom).

In a previous article, Surya M Mantha says:

>In a previous article, ALFONSEC@EMDCCI11.BITNET writes:
>>

>>burned in Hiroshima in 1945. In actual fact, neither Religion nor Science
>>are discredited because of that, only people who do things can be discredited
>>by them. Theories are discredited by negative evidence or by reason.
>>
>    Not surprising!! This line of reasoning I mean. It is one that is
>mostly commonly used to defend institutions that are inherently unjust
>undemocratic and intolerant. The blame always lies with "people". The
>institution itself ( be it "organized religion", "socialism", "state
>capitalism") is beyond reproach. Afterall, it does not owe its existence
>to man does it?

I was not defending institutions. Religion and Science are not
institutions. A Church or a University are. Institutions are made out of
people. If people can be blamed, obviously the institutions can, too.

I was not even attacking people. Who am I to pass judgment on people
who lived at a place, a time, an environment, and who had a background
very different from mine?

Finally, in a previous article, Thomas Grossi says:
>In a previous article, ALFONSEC@EMDCCI11.BITNET writes:
>> .... If Religion is discredited because Giordano Bruno was burnt at
>> the stake in 1600, then Science is discredited because 120,000 people were
>> burned in Hiroshima in 1945.

>No, World Politics is discredited:  the bomb was dropped for political reasons,
>not scientific ones.  Science provided the means, as it did (in a certain
>sense) for Religion as well.

Agreed. But it was also World Politics that was discredited when
Bruno was burnt. There was a lots of politics involved in that.

M. Alfonseca

(Usual disclaimer)