virus: Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

Reed Konsler (konsler@ascat.harvard.edu)
Tue, 16 Mar 1999 09:11:10 -0500

>Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:20:55 -0500
>From: "Sodom" <sodom@ma.ultranet.com>
>Subject: RE: virus: Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
>
>Im trying not to beat a dead horse here - but wouldn't the word "confidence"
>instead of "faith" do just fine by itself?
>I know the "faith" discussion has been run around a million times, but with
>all these definitions and meanings, cant simpler words without the same
>connotations suffice? It seems like the word "faith" is just being added to
>please the mind aesthetically, not to actually mean or achieve anything
>outside of self-glorification or self-repair.
>
>Bill Roh

Yes, Bill...other words would serve. Emerson called it "self-reliance". But if I agree the confidence can be used in place of faith can you agree that faith can be used in place of confidence? Are they next to one another in your thesuarus? Or, as I suspect, does the word faith raise red-flags where confidence doesn't? I'm flexible, can you be? I listen to televangelists and I hear the message, do you? I'm not saying that the televangelists are brilliant as you or I are, nor as popular as Oprah. Sometimes they make mistakes and some of them are plain looney. But most of them, most of the time, are still preaching that message of tolerance.

Or maybe I just surf by the real wierdos?

In my department the word "education" is considered taboo...to warm and fuzzy for cold rational scientists. Instead we talk about "management". You would be amazed at the lengths people will go to with euphemistic language just to avoid saying those terrible taboo words.

Boogy! Boogy! Boogy!

[laughing]

Reed 

  Reed Konsler                        konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------