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From: Ron Decker <ron_decker@wavebbs.com>
Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 06:52:57 -0500
Fwd Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 12:16:43 -0400
Subject: Re: CSICOP Takes Stock of the Media

> Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 21:12:33 +1000
> To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
> From: Dave Everett <deverett@vir.idx.com.au>
> Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Re: CSICOP Takes Stock of the Media

> >From: clark@canby.mn.frontiercomm.net

> >> CSICOP Takes Stock of the Media

> >Of course it's a little sad, too.  These guys need a life, or
> >at least a hobby.  For all their huffing, puffing, and frantic
> >bloviation, they have yet to provide an iota of empirical evidence
> >for their beloved faithf that pro-paranormal or -anomaly opinions
> >have any measurable negative effect on society.  At the very worst,
> >such ideas amount to nothing more dangerous than silly folk beliefs.

> It's much more dangerous than that! I lost a huge security contract due to
> an Astrologer! Right now there may be people making decisions using faith,
> myth or superstition that will affect you.

> We can't control every aspect of our lives as long as we live in a society,
> it is imperative that we ensure that decisions made for us are based on
> logic, fact, evidence and truth.

> I was once quite tolerant of peoples faith beliefs, but the incident I
> recounted above made me realise how foolish that tolerance could be.

> Dave Everett.

  And when tolerance for others' beliefs are gone, with what are we
left?  The kind of paranoid, over-reaching paternalism we've seen in
places like the Soviet Union, China, and so forth.  It can happen here;
and if it does, it will happen at the hands of the "scientists," not the
"kooks."

  BTW, my stepfather bankrolled a guy whose formula for picking futures
was based on Old Testament verses.  They did quite well.

  The real danger is not that someone might their stock picks or choose
a security contract based on an astrological table, but that that
someone will lose the ability to do so.  It's their money, right? They
can do with it what they want.  I shudder to think that some group like
CSISLOP will one day have the ability to say, "You can't think that
way," and be able to enforce that decision.

  Why is it that the strict materialists don't recognize that their
materialism is as much based on faith as the beliefs of snake handlers
and poison-drinkers?  The true "true believers" are guys like Randi and
his pals.  Their dogmatism and intractability would make an 11th century
churchman proud.

  Best regards,
  Ron Decker.