Re: Notice to Scott Gamon

[Toby Reiter <treiter@cs.oberlin.edu>]

On 3 Jun 1997, Nathan Mates wrote:

>    Scott- if you can't think to make sure you're speaking the facts,
> and all of them, then please be quiet until you learn to do so.

Nathan, you are REALLY annoying me now.  There is no reason on earth that
you should HURT the Apple II community just because you can't live with
the fact that there are other reasons for speaking with another human being
that giving them "facts".  

In fact, it amazes me that a person who is as religious as you seem to be
(from looking at you web page) should have such a literal interpretation
of knowledge. How can you balance your deep-set Christianity with your
obsession with empirical evidence? Empirical evidence would seem to push
anyone away from, for instance, a biblical understanding of history.
However, a non-literal interpretation of the bible would allow one to do
so. I can't see how a person who refuses to see anything other than
black-and-white could possibly use such an interpretation.

> <*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
> # What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
> # Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
> # think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein

This quotation just about sums up some of the problems inherent to your
belief system. "Shun wishful thinking?" If there had never been wishful
thinking, there wouldn't be a wheel, let alone Apple II computers.
Obviously opinion has greater importance than fact--it doesn't matter if
the world is round if no one believes it! What the neighbors think will
have a great deal of influence--they could elect a politician, even if
he's not the best candidate, or choose a computer system, even if it's not
better quality (witness the world's use of MS-DOS, Windows, etc. over
Apple II's).  

I don't believe there actually are any absolute truths, and even if they
did exist, their importance to humanity would not be based upon the extent
to which they were true.  Rather, they would be important to the extent
that a belief in that "truth" was valuable to the person who believed in
it.  This is what makes faith significant.

Anyway, I hate cluttering up an Apple II newsgroup with philosophy, but I
really think it's time you, and others thought about the true reasons why
we are all here: because we love the Apple II and _believe_ it can be a
great computer.

Thanks,
Toby Reiter