On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Philip Hart wrote: > Well, from my perspective as a physicist, an atheist, and a reductionist > (all one thing in my opinion), all belief is the same stuff - hooey. > But that's not a productive argument. Rather I should say that it seems > to me people have a set of mostly emotional viewpoints on what's right, > and that they effectively practice their religion and politics > accordingly. Politics ultimately derives as a system that attempts to solve large-scale problems of human society, and as these problems have largely proven intractable to science and reduction, some amount of belief inevitably creeps in. The default heuristic of 'what worked for Grandpa?' tends to serve as an on-going marketplace of ideas where each generation 'votes' on what their idea of an optimal solution is -- it's a rough and blindly questing sort of progress, but it is progress. The Edmund Burke quote on tradition has always seemed apropos to me: "Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father." Lord Falkland was perhaps more blunt, but no less to the point: "When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change." pe