<table><tr><th>From:</th><th>jeffrey E. &lt;jeevacation@gmail.com&gt;</th></tr><tr><td>Sent:</td><td>Thursday, September 10, 2015 7:02 PM</td></tr><tr><td>To:</td><td>Noam Chomsky</td></tr><tr><td>Cc:</td><td>Lawrence Krauss;</td></tr><tr><td>Subject:</td><td>Re: an article you may both hate. or like.</td></tr></table>

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 <█████████████████████ <mailto:█████████████████████> > wrote:

Thanks for sending. A wide area=of agreement, but not total.

On confronting dogma, I of course agr=e — though in my opinion the secular religions — nationali=t fanaticism, etc. — are much more dangerous. And if some fi=d rational discussion offensive — as, for example, mainstream academ=cs find dismantling myths of "American exceptionalism" or =E2 Israeli self-defense" or Obama's mass murder campa=gn, etc., offensive — so be it.

But I don't see why that shou=d extend to ridicule. That includes astrologists. Astronomers =an refute astrology, while recognizing that perfectly honest and deluded people may believe it and should be treated with respect, while th=ir beliefs are confronted with evidence. I also don't see wh= we should ridicule religious dogma, just as I don't think we shou=d 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 worl= in the case of secular dogma) are people who we should be responding to b=t without ridiculing them. It may be hard sometimes. For example, when the icon and founding fathe= of sober non-sentimental Realism in International Affairs informs us that=the US, unlike other countries, has a "transcendental purpose, =80 and the fact that it constantly acts in contradiction to its purpose doesn't matter because the facts are just "=buse of history" while real history is "the evidence of history as our minds reflect=it," then it's hard to avoid ridicule. But we should= There's no point ridiculing virtually the entire IR profession and=the major journals, even though such extraordinary irrationality leads to =ajor human disasters.

On Davis, I frankly think that =99s a non-issue. If she decides she cannot do her job as the conditi=ns of employment require (including following the law), then she can quit and look for another job. As in any other such case.=/u>

Noam

From: Lawrence Krauss [mailto

Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2015 1:51 AM
To: Noam Chomsky <blackened out>
To: Jeffrey E. <jeevacation@gmail.com>
To: <mailto:jeevacati=n@gmail.com>>
Subject: an article you may both hate. or like.

=AO hope all is well.

Lawrence

http://www.new-orker.com/news/news-desk/all-scientists-should-be-militant-atheists <http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-l-scientists-should-be-militant-atheists> =/u>

Lawrence M. Krauss
Director, The Origins Project at ASU
Co-Director, Cosmology Initiative

Foundation Professor School of Earth & Space Exploration and Physics Department

Arizona State University, P.O. Box =71404, Tempe, AZ 85287-1404

please =ote

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