Saturday, January 13, 2007

TGIF!

But I'm on call tomorrow so it's not so joyous. Cheers anyway.

I found this interesting. Lately I've watched a couple of shows on the plague. The plague spread most rapidly among the urban poor, who lived in squalid conditions. Before science discovered that microbes cause the plague, the conventional wisdom (in England at least) was that poor people were poor because they were out of favor with God, and that their wretched, "ungodly" lifestyle brought the plague upon them. The plague wasn't considered a problem for society but rather fit into God's "plan." They were only getting what they deserved. Sound familiar?

Perhaps if society operated from the premise that God doesn't exist, then progress (against disease, for example) could proceed more rapidly, much to society's benefit. Just a thought. (And I'm not a flaming atheist.)

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