marshall@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Kevin Marshall) <1r2eba$hsq@csugrad.cs.vt.edu>

Faith and dogma are dangerous because they cause people to act on
faith alone, which by its nature is without justification.  That
is what I mean by the word ``faith'': belief without justification, or
belief with arbitrary justification, or with emotional (irrational)
justification.

For example, when someone says that God exists, that they don't know
why they believe God exists, they can just feel it, that's faith.

Dogma is bad because it precludes positive change in belief based
on new information, or increased mental faculty.

Faith and dogma are irrational.  The faith and dogma part of any religion
are responsible for the irrationality of the individuals.  I claim that
faith and dogma are the quintessential part of any religion.  If that
makes (the much overused in this context) Buddism a philosophy rather
than a religion, I can live with that.  Science is not a religion,
because there is no faith nor dogma.

Have you noticed that philosophers tend to be atheists?  If a philosopher
is not an atheist, s/he tends to be called a theologian.

A Christian tends to consider Christianity sacred.  Christianity is
a special set of beliefs, sanctioned by God himself, and therefore,
to conceive of changing those beliefs is to question the existence
of That Being Who Makes No Mistakes.  Faith comes into play.  Dogma
comes into play.  ``The lord works in mysterious ways'' is an example
of faith being used to reconcile evidence that the beliefs are flawed.
Sure, interpretations of what ``God said'' are changed to satisfy the
needs of society, but when God says something, that's it.  It was said,
and that's that.  Since God said it, it is unflawed, even if the
interpretations are flawed.

Science, (as would be practiced by atheists) in contrast, has a
BUILT IN defence against faith and dogma.
A scientist holds sacred the idea that beliefs should change to
suit whatever is the best information available at the time, AND,
*AND*, ****AND***, a scientist understands that any current beliefs
are deficient in some way.  The goal is to keep improving
the beliefs.  The goal is to keep changing the beliefs to reflect
the best information currently available.  That's the only rational
thing to do.  That's good philosophy.

Can you see the difference?  Science views beliefs as being flawed,
and new information can be obtained to improve them.  (How many
scientists would claim to have complete and perfect understanding
of everything?  None---it would put them out of a job!)  Religion
views its beliefs as being perfect, and the interpretations of
those beliefs must be changed as new information is acquired which
conflicts with them.

It's easier for someone to kill a person when s/he doesn't require
a good rational justification of the killing.  I don't consider
``he's Jewish'', or ``he was born of Jewish parents'', or
``this document says he's Jewish'' to be good rational justification.


Clinton and the FBI would love for you to convince them of this.
It would save the US taxpayer a lot of money if you could.