Russian School Hostage Crisis

(Comments after reading report that hundreds of school children were killed in a hostage taking incident by Muslim separatists in Beslan, Russia)

Just before the end of the last century, a biologist when invited to write a contribution to a collection of views, hopes and insights for the 21st century chose to share a letter he wrote to his then 10 or so year old daughter. The gist of what he said to his daughter went somewhat like this (as best as I can remember).

He said that he decided to put his views in a letter because his daughter was too young to understand them, and he hoped that she will find them meaningful later in life.

In the letter he said that the advancement the world had seen in the 20th century and its hope in the next lie in rational thought, and not blind faith as basis for all our actions. From rational thought, we learned to understand and adapt 'better' to Nature than our forebears, and thus saw big improvements in the quality of life for a larger proportion of human beings than ever in history. We can also understand better the effect of our actions on Nature only through rational analysis.

History had proven that the way of life based on blind faith as basis for human conduct is futile and outright dangerous. Based on blind faith, an Irish Catholic is as absolutely sure that his view is right as a Muslim in Arabia and a Hindu in India with theirs. And they are totally disagreable to each other. As by blind faith such people are absolutely certain that they are right and therefore the others must be wrong, how are we going to resolve their differences? In fact throughout history these people kill each other as the only way to 'prove' that they are 'right'.

This Russian school incident is just another example of what this man was trying to say to his young daughter. Sadly, many idiots that operate the way he feared still exist in this new century.

Another man once said: War does not determine who is right, it only determines who is left".

And if you have been following the US elections, those idiots are vying to boast on who makes a better war monger. Such is the character of a country that many idiots I know think is the greatest country on earth.