Touchy Subject

[mattwestwick]

I think we should be concerned with the transition of media replacing the role of religion.
I mean at what point do people actually start worshipping Simon Cowell.

[hollowleviathan]

Humanism isn't going to be the end of the world. Atheism isn't the coming golden age, either. I strongly believe people are just fundamentally evil, and the trappings they wrap that in don't change anything.

[Tanshaydar]

Lord of the Flies.

[Bek]

I think we should be concerned with the transition of media replacing the role of religion.
I mean at what point do people actually start worshipping Simon Cowell.

heh.. the game Deus Ex works this idea into it's plot, and suggests that the next thing to be worshipped will be an artificial intelligence system that controls everything (cameras, all information etc). In short they invent their god.

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JC Denton: "I don't see anything amusing about spying on people."
    Morpheus: "Human beings feel pleasure when they are watched. I have recorded their smiles as I tell them who they are."
    JC Denton: "Some people just don't understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance."
    Morpheus: "The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms."
    JC Denton: "Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence."
    Morpheus: "God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary."
    JC Denton: "No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera."
    Morpheus: "The human organism always worships. First, it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment."
    JC Denton: "You underestimate humankind's love of freedom."
    Morpheus: "The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization."

[Sexbad]

I strongly believe people are just fundamentally evil, and the trappings they wrap that in don't change anything.

I'd never try to hide the fact that sometimes I am a bastard (perhaps in a job interview), and everyone else is too. The problem that I have with this idea is that many religions have incredibly arbitrary definitions of evil. I understand what any Abrahamic book could have against killing or stealing, but I'm confused by why so many religions wish to make us repress natural sexual desires, not eat item(s) X on day(s) Y, or wear certain hats. I'm confused about what it would do to harm an all-powerful being's ego or make you any less of a person. Also, I don't really like the idea of an infinite peace or suffering based on a finite existence, especially in Christianity, one of whose main selling points is the idea of forgiveness (you can ask for a little bit of love right on your dying bed, but after that, you stick with what you get?).

[DominusVita]

"The problem that I have with this idea is that many religions have incredibly arbitrary definitions of evil."

You do have to take in mind the Zeitgeist of when these religious texts were created. That's a very great quote from Deus Ex, by the way. It speaks quite a great deal on human nature.

[hollowleviathan]

I understand what any Abrahamic book could have against killing or stealing, but I'm confused by why so many religions wish to make us repress natural sexual desires, not eat item(s) X on day(s) Y, or wear certain hats.

Those aren't evil, they're ways in which the faithful can honor and praise their creator, whom they love for loving and caring for them. People of those religions may be base or simple people who only perform the ceremony out of rote, or have confused tradition with law, but abstaining from those things is not necessarily evil.

[Sexbad]

I understand what any Abrahamic book could have against killing or stealing, but I'm confused by why so many religions wish to make us repress natural sexual desires, not eat item(s) X on day(s) Y, or wear certain hats.

Those aren't evil, they're ways in which the faithful can honor and praise their creator, whom they love for loving and caring for them. People of those religions may be base or simple people who only perform the ceremony out of rote, or have confused tradition with law, but abstaining from those things is not necessarily evil.

The term "abomination" must mean something different than I had thought it did, then.

[hollowleviathan]

The term "abomination" must mean something different than I had thought it did, then.

That part is people injecting hate and evil into their religious tradition, and is man-made.