Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on August 19, 2012 at 1:24pm

Actually, James, that doesn't sound like a bad life. I write, I paint, and there are a plethora of other things I would love to learn, if time permitted, including finding out what a plethora is.

But consider the flipside - you go to Heaven and spend eternity singing praises to a god so neurotic that he needs to hear himself continually praised - after a bit of that, I can assure you, that 476th garden plot would start to look pretty good. The wife wouldn't look so bad either --

Permalink Reply by Josh Leach on August 19, 2012 at 5:42pm

Haha nice archaeopteryx. I personally believe the world will not become entirely atheistic until fear is removed entirely. I believe someone has said it already, but fear is what created religion. Fear and a lack of an explanation for the unknown. Instead of simply saying "i don't know what lightning is" the ancients said "zeus is pissed off at us because we didn't give him enough sacrifice".

The same holds true when the bible was written. "what happens after we die?" Instead of saying "i dont know" they said "There is a big sky daddy who will take care of you forever and you will be happy, but only if you are a good person, honor him" etc etc. 

Fear of the unknown will not be removed until we know everything. I don't believe we have the capacity to know everything there ever is to know. There will always be unknowns, unforeseen variables, and they will cause fear. As long as there is fear, there will be religion.

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on August 19, 2012 at 6:50pm

Josh - RE: "I believe someone has said it already, but fear is what created religion." - actually, I said it, I was quoting Petronius.

We may never know everything, but we can be encouraged by this:

"God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance, that gets smaller and smaller as time goes on."
-- Neil Degrasse Tyson --

Permalink Reply by a spears on August 19, 2012 at 7:21pm

Whenever I see this fear of unknown argument, with which I largely agree, I am reminded of the English literature tradition. To be quite honest, we were only a few hundred or so years off of worshiping Beowulf. This is the first piece of that cannon, of course, and the first of many treatments of the unknown. This, in literature, is usually represented by a darkness or wilderness, or both. Of course, the monster Grendel and his evermore mysterious mother must be vanquished for the senseless killing of Beowulf's buddies. But what is interestingly to me is the fact that Beowulf meets this challenge and does battle naked even, to not have unfair advantage over the monster. Of course there are platitudes given up to god, but these could have been trimmed, as is the editing custom of holy books. My point here is that Beowulf did not need god in any of this. He fought on his own to protect himself and men and refuge against the bitter unknown. And hot women along with meat, heat, and Mead gave him all the motivation needed to send Grendel packing, at least for a time. Just think of how different life might be if that had been the testament. Maybe no better, but at least some credibility would be given to trusting in yourself in the face of even unknown or supernatural foe.

Permalink Reply by Unseen on August 19, 2012 at 7:31pm

I knew Beowulf was a book. I didn't know anyone worshipped it. And wasn't Beowulf the warrior? a mortal? Grendel was the monster.

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on August 19, 2012 at 8:58pm

Beowulf was a character in a legend, and she's saying that Mankind and his legends being what they are, we could well have wound up worshiping Beowulf, as opposed to a certain Jewish bachelor named Yeshua. Did you REALLY not get that, or are you being intentionally obtuse?

Permalink Reply by a spears on August 19, 2012 at 7:00pm

I would settle for a completely secular public arena in the world's superpowers, which is totally reasonable and doable. This way, nuclear winter worries can be put to rest, largely, and money could be spent on scientific discovery. After benefits of secularism are established and sustained sans rain of hell's fires, more would entertain thoughts of secularism throughout their daily lives. As it was with transcendentalism movement leaders Emerson and Fuller; this large of a change in the hearts of men would have to be individual and as such, will happen according to that man's clock. However, this, our movement must happen-focus-on the most volatile factions of society first. Government, the seat of control. After that, it's a measure taken in it's own time with each. Only then, time will not be a cataclysmic freefall to a fictional throne. Time will remain for that inner struggle to unfold within each. As it should.

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on August 19, 2012 at 8:04pm

Wow, Alicia, with that intellectual diatribe, I can see why the God Squad threw you out! Where you come from, anything beyond, "God good! Man, bad!" is outside their vocabulary. You just didn't speak the same languge --

Permalink Reply by Unseen on August 19, 2012 at 8:57pm

I wrote stuff like that when I was about 18.

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on August 19, 2012 at 9:02pm

In crayon --

Or was it oatmeal?

Permalink Reply by Unseen on August 19, 2012 at 11:41pm

What difference would it make to you?

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on August 19, 2012 at 11:50pm

Oatmeal tastes better than crayon.

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