On Apr 24, 2009, at 11:27 AM, ravi wrote:
> On Apr 24, 2009, at 9:15 PM, Bill Bartlett wrote:
>> At 7:25 AM -0700 24/4/09, Chris Doss wrote:
>>
>>> Burning witches to prevent them from casting spells doesn't work,
>>> because there are no witches casting evil spells is the first place.
>>
>> Aha, but how can you be sure? There are thousands of documented
>> cases of people confessing to being witches. Confessions obtained
>> under torture, to be sure. But according to you, that is a reliable
>> way of gaining intelligence. So according to your own argument, it
>> follows that there were thousands of witches back then.
>>
> there are independent (of results of torture) reasons to (a) believe
> that witches do not exist and (b) terrorists and their plans of
> mayhem do.
How on earth can anyone doubt the existence, historical and contemporary, of witches? Or the effectiveness of what the witches themselves consider(ed) witchcraft? Of course you can make a convincing (to a mechanical materialist) point that a witch's effectiveness comes solely from her herbs, not at all from her spells. The patrons of many a botanica would disagree. Similarly, no one can doubt the existence of terrorists--since the torturers and their apologists openly exult in their terrorism (though, of course, not in the terrorism that they foment under a variety of "false flags").
Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos