Thirith on 15/2/2008 at 10:43

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C'mon, SD, you may want to be sarcastic about it, but you're obviously forgetting the atrocities of Angstistan...

Gray on 16/2/2008 at 01:25

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We are?

My opinions of the future are firmly planted in the here and now: my children are depending on what I do NOW today to make their world a better place, that's why I want to be "good". Not that I expect some sort of reward in any hypothetical afterlife. For every action there is a reaction, etc.



I think that quote is more an expression of man's search for a greater purpose than the actual invention and/or creation.



I disagree. I don't think, for one, that science "kills" god. I don't think more scientifically gathered data about the world we live in should kill anyone's perception of god, only that every little bit of info will help us understand the universe a bit more. Now, I certainly don't believe in god, but I don't see why it should be so hard for a believer to encompass the idea of "we really don't know enough about god's great big creation, and science is just helping us understand it". Science may disprove certain _ideas_ about god, but perhaps not god itself.

[Edit]

I currently see no attempts to make man a god in any way, by scientific means or otherwise. For one, I don't think stemcell research is "playing god", it's just common sense in trying to save lives, now and in the future. I think actual science is very very far from being even close to the general perception of "god". But then I have a pretty down-to-earth perception of what the god I don't believe in isn't; your mileage may vary.

However, I do think that through science, we will find that the preconceptions we have of god are becoming very unlikely. I attribute this entirely to that god as we know today was defined by normal average people some 2000-3000 years ago, as a motivational force in _their_ particular society. Somewhere along the way it became literal belief that every word in a particular text is god's will, and that, to me, is downright nutty. But that's a whole separate discussion.



Those are just cultural expressions. Even I, 20+ years decidedly an atheist, will in certain cases automatically use random expressions from _my_ culture, before I think for half a second and change my mind. It's what peolple say. I'm around people. I'm people. Given half a second more thought, I'd never use those words for expressing particular situations, but rather more common swears involving genitalia or feces, as are also quite popular in my cultural sphere.

failure2comply on 25/2/2008 at 01:14

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Amen.

jtr7 on 29/2/2008 at 23:36

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Yes! And they had gene-spliced/copulated with primates (Prime Mates) to make US, and have been tweaking the DNA code ever since! They built the pyramids, arranged in the same configuration as the constellation Orion's belt (or sword, I haven't brushed up on my propergander), and pointed to the Heavens at Orion, saying "That's where we come from." But the early humans didn't quite realize the aliens were pointing at Orion, and so they just interpreted what the aliens were saying as "Up there. In the heavens."

The Sphinx, by the way, is much older than the pyramids, and is the alien artists' earliest experiment with sculpting on Earth, using materials in that area. The figure of a man mixed with a lion was based on the alien population's favorite genetic experiment. Only one alien/ape/lion hybrid was successfully created in a lab--like our sheep clone Dolly, but much better. The creature lived a long and celebrated life--a bit lonely, being the only one of its kind--but had multitudes of fans. When it died, the alien artists built the monument in its honor--both celebrating its life, and the new gene experiment program on the fertile planet Earth.

Zillameth on 1/3/2008 at 16:29

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The major difference between religion and Salinger is that a lot of people care a lot about religion, and Salinger only has a few fans. If you were an evil person trying to take over the world, would you rather pretend to be a literary critic or a spiritual leader? It's always easier to manipulate people with things they are emotionally attached to.

Look around, see how much evil has been done in the name of patriotism. Does it mean patriotism is evil? In my country we have just recently done away with a goverment that was essentially attempting a kind of coup. Guess what the governing party's name was:

"Law and Justice"

As for the Bible, the problem with huge philosophical books like this one is that you can use it to come up with virtually any notion, and then find a passage that seems to validate it, if interpreted in appropriate manner. Remember the part about how Jesus drove merchants away from the temple? You can take it literally and say: "God doesn't want us to sell things in His temples". Or you could take it metaphorically and say: "God doesn't want us to confuse the sacred with the profane". Or you could take it hyperbolically and say: "God hates merchants". Let's say I choose the last interpretation, which is kind of silly. Does it mean the Bible is silly? No! It's just my silly way of thinking about it. Therefore, I am silly, and Bible is just a book.

So, in short, Bible is good, because it's a philosophical book, and philosophical books make you think. They are all, however, dangerous in that they tell you how to think, and not what to think. They are like a textbook on calculus: it tells you how to do calculus, but it doesn't prevent you from making errors in your calculations. So if you don't learn the calculus well enough, you better not try to build a bridge, because it will collapse when the first train comes. Similarly, a lot of people read books like Bible, and then they make errors in their thinking. And that's a bad thing, but - blame people, not books!

Bible is also an ideological book, to some degree, but the ideology it really does propose is very basic. Love everybody. Respect your parents. Don't cheat on your wife or husband. Theft, murder and slander is a no-no, too. And that's all, more or less. Very few people would disagree with those points. There are many other opinions expressed within the book, but they are either open to interpretation or contradictory. You can't really claim Bible wants you to take "an eye for an eye", if another passage of the very same Bible says you should "forgive 77 times".

Oh, and that's actually a very good example of the kind of trouble all casual disputes on Bible run into. There is this "eye for an eye" part - but it tells about a law. It's a kind of penal code. And then there is the "77 times" part - but it tells about a personal stance. They don't really contradict each other, because they speak of different things! It could happen that, for example, one man injures another and is caught, then the judge sentences him to suffer similar injury, but the victim says "let him go, I forgive him". This is not only possible: it's exactly the norm we use in our modern societies on a daily basis (only we put our criminals in jail instead of mutilating them, because it's more practical). And yet some people denounce the book. Why? Because they haven't read it. They've only heard about it, and their knowledge on the topic is incomplete. Those casual disputes don't really deal with the book. They only deal with various perceptions.