Surprising news

Two items caught my eye the other day. One was from CNN, and presents the story of a soldier who is claiming harassment because he's an atheist. The story presents him as a reasonable guy who just doesn't want to subscribe to any religious doctrine. It presents the military as a bunch of jerks who won't leave him alone because of his beliefs. I'm not sure this would have been a news story ten years ago, so that's cool, but let's think about this:

Maybe religion makes you a better soldier.

I have heard that athletes who lie to themselves successfully do better in competitions. Maybe soldiers who would not be religious in civilian life adopt religion as a self-defense mechanism ("I know these guys say God's on their side, but God's really on ours!"). Maybe this spurs soldiers on to fight harder and feel more confident about their abilities, which may make them react to dangerous situations more quickly. I don't know any of this for certain (as is always the case), but it's worth some thought.

And on the subject of thought, I saw an interesting article over at Slashdot. It asks a philosophical question, and the people who respond give surprisingly philosophical responses. I'm pleased; usually, even when you ask a very smart group of people a philosophical question, they end up yelling nonsense. (My new formula: H = i / (q * n). The average IQ of the group (i) divided by the philosophical interest of the question (q) times the number of people in the asked group (n) equals the amount of time between when the question was asked and when people start yelling at each other.)

Here, however, the responses have a surprisingly high ratio of intelligent, worthwhile responses. I was really impressed.