cbostrum (02/21/83)
Well, personally, I belong to The Church Of The Least Fixed Point. Amongst others, we worship the logician Alonzo Church. Whereas "Christ is our Church" is metaphysical rubbish, (along with similar claims, like "God is Love","The Absolute is Perfect", etc.) "Alonzo is our Church" is merely hard, simple fact. A major problem to be solved by a religion is "What is the Self?" This is essentially a problem of Self-Realisation: A Self is an X that thinks of itself. Thus, where (Thinks X) is the operation of thinking of X, we want an item Self, such that Self = (Thinks Self) The Church provides an answer to this question using His Paradoxical Combinator, Why: Why = (lambda f ((lambda x (f (x x))) (lambda x (f (x x))))) With this, it is easy to show that (Why Think) = (Think (Why Think)) yielding a fixed point as required. We Believe that there is great signifigance in these Results, altho there remain some details (such as the exact nature of the Think functional) to be worked out.
gh (02/22/83)
If you can believe ten impossible things before breakfast, then you should join THE CHURCH OF COUNTERFACTUAL BELIEF An amalgamation of the Creation Science Research Foundation and the Flat Earth Society, The Church of Counterfactual Belief has been set up to cater to all who do not allow demonstrable truth to get in the way of their beliefs. In addition to creation science and the flatness of the earth, the following beliefs have been certified by Pope Duane as correct Church dogma: -- There is a hole in the Earth at the North Pole from which UFOs come. -- PI equals precisely 3.000. -- Sex can be enjoyed only by blacks and homosexuals. -- Billy Joe Wilson (of Hoopla, Miss.) has successfully squared the circle. -- Harry Truman is still president, and doing a fine job. -- PI equals precisely 22/7. Several other important counterfactual beliefs are presently being studied, including Reagan/Thatcher economics; that the moon landings were done in a Hollywood special effects studio; and all current theories in Artificial Intelligence. These will be the subject of a forthcoming Papal Bull. To join the Church of Counterfactual Belief, send $39.95 and 10% of all future paychecks to: decvax!brunix!gh or gh.brown@udel-relay.