Off My Chest
17 Jul '11 19:11Wow, this is so wrong (the fact that so many intelligent people buy into it notwithstanding). Where to start? At the beginning, I guess...
sonhouse said:
I'll second that. And the biggest problem is 2 billion people think exactly the same way. 2 billion people obsessing about a god and devoting all that energy to worship and such
pyx replies:
If only. 🙂 Most of those 2 billion are only nominally Christian, unfortunately. Clearly you haven't attended a church in a long time, if ever (especially if you think we all think "exactly the same way." That's really funny.)
sonhouse says:
when the world really needs all the human intelligence it can muster to tackle REAL problems like global warming, poverty, education, the study of medicine, the study of evolution and genetics without all the obsessively god based distractions that robs us of our real gift, intelligence.
pyx replies:
You far overrate human intelligence. Understandable, I guess, in one of your accomplishments... however, we as a race aren't that smart, or good, or pretty much anything else positive. We have accomplished as much as we have, materially, on the easy availability of cheap energy, and we are living in the "last days" (if you'll pardon the expression) of that phase.
But smart people aren't by that token any better (morally speaking) than the rest of the human race; they might in fact be laboring at somewhat of a disadvantage once the real purposes of humanity are taken into account.
sonhouse said:
If 1000 people are working on a common problem, whatever that is, genetics, cancer, energy, whatever, and 200 of them are actively devoted to destroying the science behind it, then those 200 are killing 20 percent of our common intelligence pool.
pyx replies:
All the science in the world isn't going to solve the problems we have created. To believe that there is some scientific breakthrough(s) out there that will allow us to continue consuming energy at the present pace is to be more deluded than a snake-handler in the mountains of West Virginia.
sonhouse said:
We need all the help we can get to get us out of the corner we have painted ourselves into.
pyx replies:
Finally, something I can agree with wholeheartedly! But, sadly, I don't think you and I are going to see eye-to-eye on the solutions...
sonhouse said:
All the prayer and religious wars on the planet will not make the climate come back a bit faster. What it needs is real science, and that may in fact involve the study of evolution and genetics. We don't need millions of people robbing us of our real heritage, intelligence. The more we have to respond to specious attacks on evolution, the less brain power we have to devote to REAL problems in the world, for instance genetically altered bacteria that can poop oil. That is being done but creationist forces would have us firmly back in the tenth century forced to cut off any science or engineering in that direction or the use of placental stem cells for instance, for real medical breakthroughs.
pyx replies:
Your faith in science is touching but misplaced. And it is FAITH... unless you know something you're not cluing the rest of us in on (and as bright as you seem to be, I doubt even you have all the answers). What is needed is for us to cut back on our ambitions and our wasteful ways, and the only real way for us to do that is to recover a sense of the spiritual, and *true* religion. God doesn't force us to do what is right; He allows us to make our own mistakes.
sonhouse said:
Religion holds us back more than any other single negative force on the planet from the fight for survival we are desperately fighting for now. If you don't think it is a fight of desperation, you have your head in the sand and all the praying to your deaf god comes to absolutely nothing, zero, nada. Meanwhile, we are destroying species at a rate not seen for 65 million years and all the religious set can do is rail over the rights of gay people to get married or women to control their own bodies however they want. In short, religious people want to, no, DEMAND, to be in charge and direct the flow of intellectual effort in a vain attempt to get god like.
pyx replies:
That has it just about backwards. It isn't the (truly) religious people who want to be Godlike (they know better than that); it's those who think this world is all that there is, and thus all that matters, that must try to become more and more godlike in a vain attempt to rescue the world from their predecessors in hubris, who got us to where we are now. Do you really think otherwise? Has the influence of religion (the Christian religion especially) been growing or shrinking over the past two, three, five hundred years? I think the answer to that is pretty clear... and the fruits, which have been pretty well-hidden from us in the prosperous West for the last fifty or sixty years, are about to be harvested. And they're going to be bitter.
sonhouse said:
I'll second that. And the biggest problem is 2 billion people think exactly the same way. 2 billion people obsessing about a god and devoting all that energy to worship and such
pyx replies:
If only. 🙂 Most of those 2 billion are only nominally Christian, unfortunately. Clearly you haven't attended a church in a long time, if ever (especially if you think we all think "exactly the same way." That's really funny.)
sonhouse says:
when the world really needs all the human intelligence it can muster to tackle REAL problems like global warming, poverty, education, the study of medicine, the study of evolution and genetics without all the obsessively god based distractions that robs us of our real gift, intelligence.
pyx replies:
You far overrate human intelligence. Understandable, I guess, in one of your accomplishments... however, we as a race aren't that smart, or good, or pretty much anything else positive. We have accomplished as much as we have, materially, on the easy availability of cheap energy, and we are living in the "last days" (if you'll pardon the expression) of that phase.
But smart people aren't by that token any better (morally speaking) than the rest of the human race; they might in fact be laboring at somewhat of a disadvantage once the real purposes of humanity are taken into account.
sonhouse said:
If 1000 people are working on a common problem, whatever that is, genetics, cancer, energy, whatever, and 200 of them are actively devoted to destroying the science behind it, then those 200 are killing 20 percent of our common intelligence pool.
pyx replies:
All the science in the world isn't going to solve the problems we have created. To believe that there is some scientific breakthrough(s) out there that will allow us to continue consuming energy at the present pace is to be more deluded than a snake-handler in the mountains of West Virginia.
sonhouse said:
We need all the help we can get to get us out of the corner we have painted ourselves into.
pyx replies:
Finally, something I can agree with wholeheartedly! But, sadly, I don't think you and I are going to see eye-to-eye on the solutions...
sonhouse said:
All the prayer and religious wars on the planet will not make the climate come back a bit faster. What it needs is real science, and that may in fact involve the study of evolution and genetics. We don't need millions of people robbing us of our real heritage, intelligence. The more we have to respond to specious attacks on evolution, the less brain power we have to devote to REAL problems in the world, for instance genetically altered bacteria that can poop oil. That is being done but creationist forces would have us firmly back in the tenth century forced to cut off any science or engineering in that direction or the use of placental stem cells for instance, for real medical breakthroughs.
pyx replies:
Your faith in science is touching but misplaced. And it is FAITH... unless you know something you're not cluing the rest of us in on (and as bright as you seem to be, I doubt even you have all the answers). What is needed is for us to cut back on our ambitions and our wasteful ways, and the only real way for us to do that is to recover a sense of the spiritual, and *true* religion. God doesn't force us to do what is right; He allows us to make our own mistakes.
sonhouse said:
Religion holds us back more than any other single negative force on the planet from the fight for survival we are desperately fighting for now. If you don't think it is a fight of desperation, you have your head in the sand and all the praying to your deaf god comes to absolutely nothing, zero, nada. Meanwhile, we are destroying species at a rate not seen for 65 million years and all the religious set can do is rail over the rights of gay people to get married or women to control their own bodies however they want. In short, religious people want to, no, DEMAND, to be in charge and direct the flow of intellectual effort in a vain attempt to get god like.
pyx replies:
That has it just about backwards. It isn't the (truly) religious people who want to be Godlike (they know better than that); it's those who think this world is all that there is, and thus all that matters, that must try to become more and more godlike in a vain attempt to rescue the world from their predecessors in hubris, who got us to where we are now. Do you really think otherwise? Has the influence of religion (the Christian religion especially) been growing or shrinking over the past two, three, five hundred years? I think the answer to that is pretty clear... and the fruits, which have been pretty well-hidden from us in the prosperous West for the last fifty or sixty years, are about to be harvested. And they're going to be bitter.
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