The Mind Is The Effect, Not The

I Even Agree That The Concept Of God Helps Some People Lead Better Lives. That Does Happen. Don't Ever Forget It. I Just Think There Are Better Ways To Help People Lead Better Lives.

Cults And Prophets Proclaiming The Imminent End Of The World Have Been With Us For Several Millennia, And It Has Been Another Sour Sort Of Fun To Ridicule Them The Morning After, When They Discover That Their Calculations Were A Little Off. But, Just As With Marxists, There Are Some Among Them Who Are Working Hard To "hasten The Inevitable," Not Merely Anticipating The End Days With Joy In Their Hearts, But Taking Political Action To Bring About The Conditions They Think Are The Prerequisites For That Occasion.

The Task Of The Mind Is To Produce Future, As The Poet Paul Valery Once Put It. A Mind Is Fundamentally An Anticipator, An Expectation-generator. It Mines The Present For Clues, Which It Refines With The Help Of The Materials It Has Saved From The Past, Turning Them Into Anticipations Of The Future. And Then It Acts, Rationally, On The Basis Of Those Hard-won Anticipations.

Those Who Feel Guilty Contemplating "betraying" The Tradition They Love By Acknowledging Their Disapproval Of Elements Within It Should Reflect On The Fact That The Very Tradition To Which They Are So Loyal—the "eternal" Tradition Introduced To Them In Their Youth—is In Fact The Evolved Product Of Many Adjustments Firmly But Delicately Made By Earlier Lovers Of The Same Tradition.

In The Long Run I Certainly Hope Information Is The Cure For Fanaticism, But I Am Afraid Information Is More The Cause Than The Cure.