The other day an atheist-turned-theist (one of that group that can be the most fanatical) poured scorn on the originator of the neutral-inclusive Norm for being stupid. "It's always better or safer", 'e argued, "to believe in a god, because if there is one, you have honored him, and if there is no-one, you have not dishonored him by not believing in him".

"In order to follow your reasoning," the originator replied, "your listener must already have taken a theocentrist position in which it is the existence or nonexistence of one or more gods which counts and the question whether it or they feel recognized or not, honored or not." The originator first wanted to point out to 'er opponent, who 'e knew to be a monotheist, that by recognizing and revering only one, usually ethnic or ethnocentric, god all those other gods that might exist as well are bound to be extremely upset. But this, 'e realized, would too much distract from the question of denominational primacy itself.

So the originator continued: "From a normistic position the question of the existence of gods, demons or beings that are some mixture of the two does not have fundamental significance, for from this position it is the existence of values or norms which matters and the recognition of such values and norms. Do you really think that your personal safety or happiness is the purpose of the universe? Don't you care at all about such universal values as truth and relevance, the only ones which may or may not justify your believing or your saying that you believe?"

"If it is part of your belief, i will appreciate your not lying to me when you have stolen a cookie from my cake-tin, but why would you, on the same grounds, be allowed to claim the existence of things whose existence cannot be proved, and to spread certain or probable falsehoods about them? If it is part of your belief, i will appreciate your not discriminating between male and female when talking about cooks in the kitchen, but why would you, on the same grounds, draw a sexual, ethnic or other such distinction with respect to a being that is supposed to be far superior, and to stress irrelevances about it?"

"What would this world be like, if people who think of themselves that they are not stupid took their own personal happiness as their sole guideline in life? What would intelligence be like, if it lay in your exclusive safety, instead of in veridical truth and inclusive relevance? It would be a much more dangerous and unhappy world for all of us. Therefore stop believing in the impossible, in things for which you have no or not enough evidence and in the constructions of extremist or exclusivist minds."

And this the originator of the Norm added: "Only then will you find the true belief on the safe side."

62.SEL