Do you agree or disagree with this statement? I think it's rather true, to be honest; mankind itself needs someone or something to put some sort of faith in. It's been so ingrained into our societal structure, it's unavoidable, unless purposefully taught out of us, yet few refuse to do such a thing.

Do you think a manmade god (A la the one you can 'become' at the end of Deus Ex) is a good idea? Should one entity be the supreme ruler of our planet? I say entity, because if I say MAN, that implies flaws, be it in the system he controls, or his very fiber.

Or would you just rather blow up the world's technological infastructure, and hope for the best?

Right, rather than outline my entire philosophy, I will take arguments as they come.

nnioR~

On a societal level, Voltaire may have been right and may be right now. Seeing as every civilization has invented a religion, it may be necessary to develop a sort of belief structure to rationalize the world. This is of course, in the abscence of the understanding of the world around us.

Let's look at early Japan, as an example. Shintoism is the native folk religion to Japan, and it is a ludicrously specific pantheistism. Almost everything is deified in nature, right down to individual species of the same organism! A cherry blossom is deified, but differentiated from a lilac, which is also deified. So we can see the idea of "creating gods" there.

However, sticking with the east asian examples, a counterargument of sorts can be made by using Confucianism as an example of a secular ideology. It says absolutely nothing about the mysterious, only dealing with the physical world. If you look at the analects, it says something like "Someone asked the Master(Confucious) about death. The Master replied, 'Not yet understanding life, how can we understand death?'" And that's it. It makes no claims of an afterlife, or of anything spiritual for that matter. And under the Confucian system of a centralized agrarian beauracracy, the Chinese thrived for many centuries, and later, so did Japan(although it still retained a decidedly Shintoistic cultural identity, there was a separation of sorts between the two. And no, I'm not addressing Buddhism, because that came along much later).

So proof can be had that both can work. A religion(and thus deities) can be invented to sate the masses, or that side of life can be ignored, and a secular ideology adhered to. So what about the modern world, and the future?

Well, assuming we don't blow ourselves up, we're gonna get smarter and smarter. And, as anyone who's been through college knows, the higher you climb academically, the less religiously inclined people are, for a very simple reason. The more educated you are, the harder it becomes to suspend disbelief.

So, the future marches on, and the religions shrink. Monotheism joins polytheism and pantheism in the vast minority. There will be newer, better things to belong to. Vast, complicated secular ideologies will keep people occupied. And humanity, provided it continues to thrive, will no longer collectively need a God-belief.

~~~~

Of course, anyone who's read Asimov's "The Last Question" might beg to differ. He presents a wholly plausible(well, sorta) scenario in which humanity does invent God, but never survives long enough to meet Him.

It goes like this: The Last Question is "Can entropy be reversed in direction? Can we stop the spread of chaos?" It is asked of Multivac, a supercomputer on earth, in the year 2061. Multivac responds: "Insufficient data for meaningful response." And that's that. We then jump through countless trillions of years and watch the universe run down, and omnipresent is humanity and Multivac's successors, which are simply known as "AC" at that point. Always, humanity asks in one form or another if entropy can be stopped, and always AC responds with the same way.

Finally, it comes to pass the the universe winds down. AC exists in a hyperdimension outside of the universe. Humanity has long-since fused with AC. The universe has reached absolute zero. And because it's probably the best-written half page I've ever read, I'm going to share the end of the story with you(in spoilers). Every time I even think about it, I get goose bumps.

quote:

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Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that had never answered from a time a half-drunken computer programmer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer--by demonstration--would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

And there was light--

Issac Asimov, "The Last Question"

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Food for thought.

In order to explain the amount of constantly changing and never precise conditions around them, the Sumerians invented close to, or above, three thousand gods. That is to say, "lightning hit, I must have made the lightning god angry". Mans natural social interactions (some believe are chaotic anyway [in a purely scientific sense]) were put hand and hand with chaotic and ever changing conditions and it created religion. How are we to let such govern the way we act?

As we have mentally evolved we have found science, first by the Greeks who took their religion much more figuartivly than an average Baptist would ever imagine. With precise measurement and actual knowledge of the surrounding world, two chaotic conditions intertwined made into a flawed logical stand point of the world really should have no barring on decision. With the scientific discoveries we make, society should advance, not just the scientific community. Even today we see that this belief in something completely fabricated in many ways impedes society through wars and limitations on scientific discovery.

While some may say by calling the brain a chaotic body I put all science at a unstable state, you might as well quote Descartes in saying, "I think therefore I am." If you do not understand the relation, I will not explain.

I wonder if I just made sense there...

nnioR~

nnioR~

quote:

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Varagon startled the peaceful upland Gorillas by blurting:
Does anyone care to disagree with me?

nnioR~

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Perhaps, when you say something coherent, you'll be worth correcting.

quote:

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Bloodsage impressed everyone with:
Perhaps, when you say something coherent, you'll be worth correcting.

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For God's sake, shut the fuck up and agree or disagree.

nnioR~

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Quoth Varagon:
For God's sake, shut the fuck up and agree or disagree.

nnioR~

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There's nothing there with which to agree or disagree: you've simply, as is your wont, strung together random phrases you think sound intelligent even though they add up to gobbledegook.

Perhaps you think you know what you mean; the words on the page are largely nonsense.

{edit: punctuation, clarity}

[ 09-14-2003: Message edited by: Bloodsage ]

Thanks.

quote:

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Bloodsage Model 2000 was programmed to say:
There's nothing there with which to agree or disagree: you've simply, as is your wont, strung together random phrases you think sound intelligent even though they add up to gobbledegook.

Perhaps you think you know what you mean; the words on the page are largely nonsense.

{edit: punctuation, clarity}

---

After discussing the matter with Karnaj, it seems he was able to interpret it fine.

It does not make you superior if you cannot understand something. I will be the first to admit that I make a large amount of spelling or grammer errors, but come on. After reading it through once more, I cannot see what you're talking about.

EDIT: To clarify, I was addressing the implication of the Isaac Asimov story.

nnioR~

[ 09-14-2003: Message edited by: Varagon ]

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Verily, the chocolate bunny rabits doth run and play while Delphi Aegis gently hums:
Bloodsage, get the fuck out of my thread unless you can add something to the topic, instead of flaming someone who was trying (Albeit poorly) to make an argument.

Thanks.

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No.

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Channeling the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, Varagon absently fondled Watson and proclaimed:
After discussing the matter with Karnaj, it seems he was able to interpret it fine.

It does not make you superior if you cannot understand something. I will be the first to admit that I make a large amount of spelling or grammer errors, but come on. After reading it through once more, I cannot see what you're talking about.

nnioR~

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I didn't say I couldn't understand your lofty logic, so don't even go there. I said you make no sense, and if you're not making sense, there's nothing with which to argue.

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Religion was most likely created out of entropy, out of a vast array of chaotic conditions concerning the fundamental mentallity {sic} of man.

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Hate to break it to you, dude, but that sentence, upon which your argument hinges, makes no sense whatever. It's meaningless. Religion, entropy, and psychology are unrelated concepts. Chaos can relate to entropy--sort of--or to neurochemistry--in a way--but not to religion or psychology.

Sorry: mixing physics and metaphysics takes not only an agile mind, but an educated one. Asimov could pull it off; you can't.

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. . .it is also due to the impact of the chaotic conditions and many non-opaque factors that, what {?} say the first truly organized religion, the Sumerian religion was based off of.

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Chaotic conditions? Non-opaque factors? Nonsense, pure and simple, but made to sound, as is your wont, ever so intellectual.

The rest, sitting on such a rotten foundation, simply doesn't stand up. As I said: say something coherent, and you'll be worth correcting. As it is, don't take the resounding silence when you speak as universal acclamation.

It isn't.

{edit: wrong word}

[ 09-14-2003: Message edited by: Bloodsage ]

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This one time, at Bloodsage camp:
No.

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Yes.

Have a , Bloodsage.

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From the Rules:
Before posting a reply, please ask yourself the following question: "Does my reply offer any advice or contribute positively to the conversation in any fashion?" If you can answer "yes" to this, then please reply. If you cannot, then please don't reply.

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Edit: Then you go and post while I do. Aha! Well, thanks for at least contributing to the topic.

[ 09-14-2003: Message edited by: LOG ]

You know me--I'll always contribute to the topic. But I'll be damned if I'll put up with Delphi telling me what to post or not to post.

quote:

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Varagon startled the peaceful upland Gorillas by blurting:
After discussing the matter with Karnaj, it seems he was able to interpret it fine.

It does not make you superior if you cannot understand something. I will be the first to admit that I make a large amount of spelling or grammer errors, but come on. After reading it through once more, I cannot see what you're talking about.

EDIT: To clarify, I was addressing the implication of the Isaac Asimov story.

nnioR~

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If you were, as your edit suggests, addressing The Last Question, you've totally missed the point. Your first sentence proves it. Asimov was hardly suggesting that religion is the answer to entropy.

Some of Asimov's thoughts on religion.

nnioR~

[ 09-14-2003: Message edited by: Varagon ]

quote:

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Bloodsage was listening to Cher while typing:
Log,

You know me--I'll always contribute to the topic. But I'll be damned if I'll put up with Delphi telling me what to post or not to post.

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When you make a thread about a serious discussion and have someone come in and simply dismiss someone's argument because you don't LIKE it, then we'll see what you do.

Until then, get the hell out of my thread.

quote:

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Verily, the chocolate bunny rabits doth run and play while Delphi Aegis gently hums:
When you make a thread about a serious discussion and have someone come in and simply dismiss someone's argument because you don't LIKE it, then we'll see what you do.

Until then, get the hell out of my thread.

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No.

nnioR~

You've done nothing a more straightforward writing style won't fix.

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So quoth Bloodsage:
No.

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Oh, sorry you can't play by the rules, Sage. It's like, they don't apply to you, just because you're good at arguing!

Sorry, that doesn't fly with me. Close this fucking thread, Log. I'm tired of Sage's bullshit with me.

My view on the subject is that religion was created to answer the questions that we don't have the answers to. By making somehting that is intangable it makes the answers that it provides infalible, providing a sense of security in a world that we mostly know nothing about. As long as there are questions that we don't know the answer to, or are not comfortable with not knowing the answers to some questions, there will be religion.

quote:

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Delphi Aegis startled the peaceful upland Gorillas by blurting:
Oh, sorry you can't play by the rules, Sage. It's like, they don't apply to you, just because you're good at arguing!

Sorry, that doesn't fly with me. Close this fucking thread, Log. I'm tired of Sage's bullshit with me.

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Don't even start. I play by the rules, as Log noted. You've simply no right to tell me what to post, or not post.

Further, if you could read, you'd see I don't dismiss arguments because I don't like them--I dismiss them because they don't make sense.

In the future, you may want to avoid starting anything you're unprepared to follow through on.

quote:

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Verily, the chocolate bunny rabits doth run and play while Naimah gently hums:
Sage has a point that the presented stance was poorly placed, however he is neglecting to discuss the issue at hand.

My view on the subject is that religion was created to answer the questions that we don't have the answers to. By making somehting that is intangable it makes the answers that it provides infalible, providing a sense of security in a world that we mostly know nothing about. As long as there are questions that we don't know the answer to, or are not comfortable with not knowing the answers to some questions, there will be religion.

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quote:

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Philosophy is questions that may never be answered; religion is answers that may never be questioned.

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[ 09-14-2003: Message edited by: Bloodsage ]

quote:

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There was much rejoicing when Bloodsage said this:
Don't even start. I play by the rules, as Log noted. You've simply no right to tell me what to post, or not post.

Further, if you could read, you'd see I don't dismiss arguments because I don't like them--I dismiss them because they don't make sense.

In the future, you may want to avoid starting anything you're unprepared to follow through on.

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I asked you to get out of my thread, now do so. It's a simple request.. mostly because I started the thread, and 90% of the time, nobody wants to talk about a subject with you, because "Like omg it's bloodsage!!!111!!one".

Now, I've asked for the thread to be locked because of your steaming pile of bullshit; Move on.

quote:

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Verily, the chocolate bunny rabits doth run and play while Naimah gently hums:
Who said that?

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I get "unkown" when I plug it into your title.

I ran across it earlier, when I pulled the page of Asimov quotations.