and as you well know, those foxholes are filled with the dress-up dolls.

Power comes in several flavors. There is the overt power of force that comes with flamethrowers and swords. This is bad enough, and hopefully the last century has embarrassed us into cutting back on that a little.

Another form of power is when you have the opportunity to influence the mind of the very young. They can be filled with memes that will influence their behavior, their attitudes, and their happiness throughout their life.

What I object to is an instition that has such power over the very young and plants in them the following memes:

1) you are by nature bad and evil
2) it is impossible for you to fix that by yourself
3) if you don't fix it, you will suffer worse than the most unspeakable and horrific torture that you can imagine, and for an eternity which is longer than you can imagine
4) anyone who disagrees with memes 1-3 is even more evil than you and is destined to go directly to 3) without collecting $200.

and even worse,

5) you can easily fix 3) by flying an airplane into a building occupied by people in 4).

It's surprising to me how many people actually believe this stuff. And it's apalling how dangerous it is.

Warm regards,

Paul

• the metaphors overwhelmed me...my own fault probably - spazcon - April 2, 2002 - 04:06 UTC