Hi Ted,

Thanks for your response.

***Nothing would please me more than to see some seriously revolutionary ideas come out of this forum, ideas that change the world and improve the lives of all mankind.***

Yes. That would please me too, especially the part about improving the lives of all mankind.

***I think that that's exactly what we're doing.***

My hopes aren't up quite that high.

But regardless of how successful we are, there is a real danger. You spelled it out:

***If you examine the course of history, specifically the emergence of new and controversial ideas and theories, they are almost always marked with division and strife, often culminating in violence.***

There's the rub. Even if, in our modest forum discussion, we happened upon the most perfect, most marvelous, most reasonable solution to mankind's problems, history tells us that it would probably get misinterpreted, misunderstood, misapplied, distorted, and otherwise exploited to cause more untold misery among people in the name of "truth", "justice", and the "American way", and probably "culminating in violence".

That sounds very pessimistic coming from the optimist that I am, but I am only urging caution and restraint. I think that when we take such absolutist stands as "I fervently believe that evolution is totally false", we are most likely to stumble. I'd suggest taking a position more like, "I think that some parts of evolution are false", or "I think that evolution does not explain the entire picture". I think that would better allow the dialog to "evolve" as you said it should.

But, on the whole, I am with you in your objective, Ted, even though I don't think we see eye to eye on some fundamental issues.

Warm regards,

Paul

• Maybe you're right... - spartacus - July 30, 2002 - 00:39 UTC
  • Yes, but only maybe - pmartin - July 30, 2002 - 04:57 UTC