From: Lawrence Krauss Sent: 9/10/2015 8:10:36 PM To: jeffrey E. [[email protected]] Subject: Re: an article you may both hate. or like. Attachments: DA866543-7401-4A5A-8E50-FD32E33A50EC.png Importance: — High Ps. My piece argued against fanaticism. Lawrence M. Krauss Director, The Origins Project at ASU Foundation Professor School of Earth & Space Exploration and Physics Department Arizona State University, P.O. Box 871404, Tempe, AZ 85287-1404 Research Office: ALA ssistant Origins Ortice [email protected] origins.asu.edu | twitter.com/Ikraussl | krauss.faculty.asu.edu Sent from my iPhone On Sep 10, 2015, at 12:02 PM, jeffrey E. <[email protected]> wrote: I think religion plays a major positive role in many lives. . i dont like fanaticism on either side. . sorry On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 7:52 PM, Noam Chomsky {i wrote: Thanks for sending. A wide area of agreement, but not total. On confronting dogma, | of course agree — though in my opinion the secular religions — nationalist fanaticism, etc. — are much more dangerous. And if some find rational discussion offensive — as, for example, mainstream academics find dismantling myths of “American exceptionalism” or “Israeli self-defense” or Obama’s mass murder campaign, etc., offensive — so be it. But | don’t see why that should extend to ridicule. That includes astrologists. Astronomers can refute astrology, while recognizing that perfectly honest and deluded people may believe it and should be treated with respect, while their beliefs are confronted with evidence. | also don’t see why we should ridicule religious dogma, just as | don’t think we should ridicule the much more pernicious secular dogmas. Rather, we should respond to irrational belief with argument and evidence, while recognizing that their advocates (like most of the intellectual world in the case of secular dogma) are people who we should be responding to but without ridiculing them. It may be hard sometimes. For example, when the icon