[net.origins] personality types

toml@oliveb.UUCP (Tom Long) (05/13/85)

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	I read something recently which casts light on the contention in this
newsgroup.  It is in the book "Seven Story Mountain" by Thomas Merton, a well-
known writer and Trappist Monk.  When Thomas was a child, his mother found
him venerating the pilot light in the family oven.  I take this as evidence
that Thomas had a strong predisposition to a religious view of life.
	I think we can broaden this observation to say that some of us have
a strong predisposition to materialistic views of life.  I cannot recall ever
venerating anything.
	So when we look at the "evidence" for evolution, what do we find?
Clearly, there is nothing evident about it.  When Thomas Merton saw the human
body, like Lief, he probably saw strong evidence of design, and hints about
God's mentality.   When I look at the human body, I see kludge upon kludge
upon a basic mammalian body plan, and when I see or try to communicate with
an ape, I marvel at the similarities between us.
	So I propose that we consider each contribution to the newsgroup just
an expression of the personality of the contributor.  We could even save time
and effort by just writing our personality type -- materialist, religious,
undecided (for Paul) -- and leaving out the "evidence" and arguments.

						    Tom Long  (materialist)