IUBio

infant stimulation: intelligence

dag.stenberg at helsinki.nospam.fi dag.stenberg at helsinki.nospam.fi
Tue Mar 30 15:28:27 EST 1999


Cijadrachon <cijadra at zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> >and superstition...
> Woould it be better if a person whose partner after 50 years of
> marriage died would watch the maggots eat away the face of the other
> till the skull starts to grin at her, and have to handle that that IS
> the other one, no soul, no reincarnation, Walhalla, Eternal Hunting
> Grounds, Heaven, path along the Milky Way to where the nice tent
> places and grounds of the dead are, ...?  Ever considered the impcts
> on society?

Well put. Still, I prefer what I believe to be truth.Besides, watching
the maggots devour the body does not tell us anything if we still 
believe there is an immortal soul.

> For some it is easier to believe that the maggot filled corpse is just
> a hull and not what is left of whom they love(d) und hugged,
> and for some it is important that they have external stuff to believe
> in when internally they are not strong enough, 
> and for some who have a bad life it is important to believe that
> afterwards there is something nice.

OK. So are you telling me that I should leave the superstituos ones in
their own belief? That I mainly do. If a person has that kind of religion,
I do not try to convert him, but I do not believe that he isnecessarily
a happier person because of it. As you say, it may be a necessary
parachute for a person.
 
> You yourself have the superstition that your race is so valuable that
> it is correct if members of your valuable race do harm to others of
> other races just to find out stuff about themselves because the others
> are so neatly similar to the own race, 
> I have my superstitions as well.

It is, of course, irrelevant here that you use the word 'race' unlike
the rest of us, who define species as a group of individuals that can 
interbreed, and 'race' as subgroups of the species. As mice and men 
do not interbreed I do not accept mice as humans. It is, however, 
true that. like you, I regard different species as differently valuable,
and I do (sometimes hesitantly) kill mosquitoes, flies etc., without 
even the scientific reason. On the other hand, I have a very brotherly 
feeling towards dogs and would not murder them (or horses) for 
scientific reasons. So I am very irrational (and emotional), like most of us.

Dag Stenberg




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