You can be religious without being a total psycho about it. My dad, for instance, was very understanding of other viewpoints, and loved to learn about them. Meanwhile, he was an ordained priest.

You are right Angel, being a religious person does not make you a head case. And I didn't lable any particular religion, as no one religion has the market conered on Zealots. Fact is most Zealots tend to fallow a twisted idea of the core beliefs of their so called faith. That has very little to do with whatever that Faith came from.

Zealots do not always twist core beliefs.

That's why I said extremists.

Work smarter, not harder.

It is a shame when those that claim to be religious turn to being zealots and try and destroy that witch they do not understand, i.e. magic, waving the banner of righteousness against it saying it is the devils work.

Why do they judge all who use it as demon possessed or devil worshiper or say it is the work of the devil, when it could just as likely be the work of the divine and more often then not the ones they persecute are the ones helping those in need rather then those using it to harm the innocent?

They don't judge. A higher power does.

That is the point. A religious person doesn't judge the leave it to whatever higher power they follow to judge, where as the zealot takes it apon his self to judge.

Not necessarily. Often judgement has already been passed.

An infidel is an infidel is an infidel.

Most Zealots, and extremists for that matter assume that, they know the mind of the divine. This how most of them justify their actions. Basicly saying they act on the will of their god.
A rather foolish idea to be sure.

It is how all religious people justify any of their actions.

How do you know it is foolish?

Prof. Rosecrest wrote:Most Zealots, and extremists for that matter assume that, they know the mind of the divine. This how most of them justify their actions. Basicly saying they act on the will of their god.
A rather foolish idea to be sure.

I would like to see the look on thier face when they get there and are told they can't enter because of that assumpton on thier part.

Or you might be passing them on your way out.

That is a definate possibility

Aye lad.

I guess I do not trust the general public enough to clue them in.

As Natasha said of Sasha (and me) in the philosophy forum, there are elements we want to know and there are elements we think are better off not knowing. Some can handle it, some can't, and some will just further muck things up.

What we will have is clever humans taking advantage of the not so clever humans and then we have a whole new layer of shit to dig out. We already have more charlatans than we can manage. Maybe if I were not Russian I would have more faith in humanity. But I am not, and I do not. Things like the zero-day WMF attacks as well as 1000s of other Russian-brewed "hey can we sell this?" schemes which fucked countless lives.

So, yea, I'm not going to support awareness unilaterally across the board. It just would make things more difficult for us.

Being selective, however, ensures you get the right people for the job. I would rather foster five hunters than a hundred charlatans.

That's how cults get started.

It is too much idealism for me to bite into.

I understand the idea/concept/whatever. Education is the answer to almost all of the world's problems. I am not opposed to any of it.

Getting there requires a lot of things to fall seamlessly into place along a very long and difficult road.

As we know, that does not happen.

We just end up with hoards of charlatans whose gain and foothold grows a hell of a lot faster than the one we don't really have even now. Even the ones that do not go very far set us back further than they went forward. They just got to far enough to make people go "bunch of wackos".

You just get a bunch of 5 Year Plan[TM]s and a whole lot of nothing to show for it.

That would be one thing falling seamlessly into place. The next is that there is actually a global strategy for reaction (hehe, fun times).

Then you need a few thousand more.

If they have the power grid, we are no longer in communication. If we are no longer in communication, we have no idea what each other are doing. Militaries around the world are shut down, 95% or more.

Then there is the nature of the enemy. Are you fighting a stand up war or you have to sniff them out of caves and tunnels.

And so on and so on and so on.

Somewhat related... I know that Reagan and Gorbachyov spoke at times about a outer space threat, and I know several Russians still having wet dreams over the thought of a Russo-American One-Two beat down on anything that wants to step up.