From: CHARLES DITTELL     
To: DRAGONFLY           
Subject: relig & logic??
Date & Time: 05/21/91 20:38:14
Message Number 16972

Heheh....I think we can keep from preaching, and keep the "preachers"
out of this discussion. One way I see the problem of using "useful", may
well be it's non-absoluteness (yes, I know I argued its opposite 
before! So what!?)...what is useful to someone or to some group, may
NOT be useful to others. The German Nazi movement was useful to many
(I say this as a partly Jewish person who lost 10 2nd cousins in WWII) -
trains ran on time, employment up, most Germans becoming well-focused
on working together. It was certainly NOT useful to Jews, Catholics,
Blacks, and later Allied Forces. Some medications are useful to some
patients and deadly to others. Re religion, it _appears_ to be useful
to some (perhaps many), but my feeling is that the further from "truth"
one gets, the less useful in the intermediate to long run the idea,
perception, belief becomes (to humanity in general). What
blows me away is that some people still believe that religions "prove"
supernatural events occur. A friend believes the universe began in
4004 BC. No use telling him about how dates are figured; he just says
that "God set it up" to make it _look_ like the earth and universe are
older. Whew!