Eyer, et al, the Necessity of Replacing God…

[amicus]

I write this in my ‘cups’ as it allows my hubris free reign, otherwise, I might be sociable and politically correct…ah, not much chance of that…but…

Please acknowledge that you have been ‘poking’ me to provide an acceptable defense of my atheism as it applies to the essential qualities of mankind that we both agree are values and virtues.

This cannot be accomplished easily or briefly, but I shall attempt to condense my thoughts without diluting the content, not an easy task and I know you know that…

The origin of man, whenever and however it occurred, and I do know my Paleontology, was fragile at best and fraught with the dangers surrounding him. I find it entirely rational and believable that early man sought explanations for his existence that surpassed his own tenuous existence.

If you are knowledgeable about past beliefs and faiths, you know full well of the thousands of variations on a theme of the questions of man’s purpose, his existence, his origins and his future aspirations.

I am not a scholar in any field, I find it much too confining, but, without belaboring the history of faith, from the earliest times, please accept that I am familiar with the major luminaries of the auguries of human existence.

Some stipulations of self evident truths: the concept of human evolution, of evolution in general, is no longer a theory, but factual knowledge. In the 1950’s, scientists recreated that primordial ‘soup’ in a laboratory and produced the building blocks of life. We now know how life appeared and evolved on Earth, and it was not through Adam and Eve, or any other creation theory based on faith and introspection.

Medical science is well on the way to clearing up the mysteries of our physical existence; how the body functions and why. The mind remains somewhat of a mystery, but nothing like it was before the rational inquiry began in earnest.

We are getting a handle on understanding the planet and how it evolves as well, and thus the Sun, the Solar System and the Galaxy. There is much we have not learned, but nothing in our discoveries implies the divine hand of a creator; all rather mundane Astro-physics and the like.

Thus, the God theory, goes out the window for lack of evidence of any kind indicating the possible existence of such an entity.

Since there never was a God outside the imagination of Man, it is not a tangible loss, but it does leave a spiritual vacuum, and you know how nature abhors a vacuum…smiles…

I postulate that man gathers together when danger threatens and gains sustenance from others and that in extremism, will call out in prayer to any power greater than himself. I see that as an entirely natural event.

Although we live with aging and death all around us, I see it as natural to hope and pray for life ever-after but the rude awareness that life becomes tiresome with age and infirmities and the loss of physical and mental attributes that were once taken for granted somewhat dulls the attraction and the promise of life after death…does it not?

The Ten Commandments
Exodus 20:2–17
Deuteronomy 5:6–21

The Ten Commandments:
Exodus 20:2-17

1. "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the Earth beneath, or that is in the water under the Earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My Commandments.

3. Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD made heaven and Earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it.

5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's.

http://www.americanhumanist.org/who_we_are/about_humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_I

FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.

THIRD: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.

FOURTH: Humanism recognizes that man's religious culture and civilization, as clearly depicted by anthropology and history, are the product of a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environment and with his social heritage. The individual born into a particular culture is largely molded by that culture.

FIFTH: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Obviously humanism does not deny the possibility of realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry and by the assessment of their relations to human needs. Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.

SIXTH: We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of "new thought".

SEVENTH: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation--all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained.

EIGHTH: Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man's life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now. This is the explanation of the humanist's social passion.

NINTH: In the place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.

TENTH: It follows that there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural.

ELEVENTH: Man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his knowledge of their naturalness and probability. Reasonable and manly attitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom. We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking.

TWELFTH: Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists aim to foster the creative in man and to encourage achievements that add to the satisfactions of life.

THIRTEENTH: Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life is the purpose and program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions, their ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function effectively in the modern world.

FOURTEENTH: The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.

FIFTEENTH AND LAST: We assert that humanism will: (a) affirm life rather than deny it; (b) seek to elicit the possibilities of life, not flee from them; and (c) endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all, not merely for the few. By this positive morale and intention humanism will be guided, and from this perspective and alignment the techniques and efforts of humanism will flow.

So stand the theses of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/morality.html

Morality

What is morality, or ethics? It is a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions—the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life. Ethics, as a science, deals with discovering and defining such a code.
The first question that has to be answered, as a precondition of any attempt to define, to judge or to accept any specific system of ethics, is: Why does man need a code of values?

Let me stress this. The first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? The first question is: Does man need values at all—and why?

“The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 13.

Ethics is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man’s survival. . . .
I quote from Galt’s speech: “Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice—and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”

The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man.

Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil. Since everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and produced by his own effort, the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work.

“The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 23.


Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man—in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.

“The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 25.


Life or death is man’s only fundamental alternative. To live is his basic act of choice. If he chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course.

“Causality Versus Duty,” Philosophy: Who Needs It, 99.


The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

Speech, For the New Intellectual, 123.


Sweep aside those parasites of subsidized classrooms, who live on the profits of the mind of others and proclaim that man needs no morality, no values, no code of behavior. They, who pose as scientists and claim that man is only an animal, do not grant him inclusion in the law of existence they have granted to the lowest of insects. They recognize that every living species has a way of survival demanded by its nature, they do not claim that a fish can live out of water or that a dog can live without its sense of smell—but man, they claim, the most complex of beings, man can survive in any way whatever, man has no identity, no nature, and there’s no practical reason why he cannot live with his means of survival destroyed, with his mind throttled and placed at the disposal of any orders they might care to issue.

Sweep aside those hatred-eaten mystics, who pose as friends of humanity and preach that the highest virtue man can practice is to hold his own life as of no value. Do they tell you that the purpose of morality is to curb man’s instinct of self-preservation? It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality. The only man who desires to be moral is the man who desires to live.

Galt’s Speech, For the New Intellectual, 123.


If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man’s only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a “moral commandment” is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man’s virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.

Galt’s Speech, For the New Intellectual, 128.


You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island—it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today—and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.

Galt’s Speech, For the New Intellectual, 127.


A moral code is a system of teleological measurement which grades the choices and actions open to man, according to the degree to which they achieve or frustrate the code’s standard of value. The standard is the end, to which man’s actions are the means.

A moral code is a set of abstract principles; to practice it, an individual must translate it into the appropriate concretes—he must choose the particular goals and values which he is to pursue. This requires that he define his particular hierarchy of values, in the order of their importance, and that he act accordingly.

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 33.


Morality pertains only to the sphere of man’s free will—only to those actions which are open to his choice.

“Playboy’s Interview with Ayn Rand,” March 1964.


A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man’s sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality.

Galt’s Speech, For the New Intellectual, 136.


In spite of all their irrationalities, inconsistencies, hypocrisies and evasions, the majority of men will not act, in major issues, without a sense of being morally right and will not oppose the morality they have accepted. They will break it, they will cheat on it, but they will not oppose it; and when they break it, they take the blame on themselves. The power of morality is the greatest of all intellectual powers—and mankind’s tragedy lies in the fact that the vicious moral code men have accepted destroys them by means of the best within them.
“Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,”

Philosophy: Who Needs It, 67

http://aynrandlexicon.com/about/conceptual.html#ethics

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/values.html

Values

To challenge the basic premise of any discipline, one must begin at the beginning. In ethics, one must begin by asking: What are values? Why does man need them?

“Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept “value” is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and forwhat? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible.

I quote from Galt’s speech: “There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or nonexistence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of ‘Life’that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.”

To make this point fully clear, try to imagine an immortal, indestructible robot, an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have any values; it would have nothing to gain or to lose; it could not regard anything as for oragainst it, as serving or threatening its welfare, as fulfilling or frustrating its interests. It could have no interests and no goals.

“The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 15.


“Value” is that which one acts to gain and keep, “virtue” is the action by which one gains and keeps it. “Value” presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? “Value” presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible.

Galt’s Speech, For the New Intellectual, 121.


It is only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, that makes the existence of values possible. Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. “It is only the concept of‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible.”

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what itought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and“ought.”

Now in what manner does a human being discover the concept of “value”? By what means does he first become aware of the issue of “good or evil” in its simplest form? By means of the physical sensations of pleasure or pain. Just as sensations are the first step of the development of a human consciousness in the realm of cognition, so they are its first step in the realm of evaluation.

The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man’s body; it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about it, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will make him experience the physical sensation of pleasure or of pain. What is that standard? His life.

“The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 17.


Since a value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep, and the amount of possible action is limited by the duration of one’s lifespan, it is a part of one’s life that one invests in everything one values. The years, months, days or hours of thought, of interest, of action devoted to a value are the currency with which one pays for the enjoyment one receives from it.

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 34.

Material objects as such have neither value nor disvalue; they acquire value-significance only in regard to a living being—particularly, in regard to serving or hindering man’s goals.

“From the Horse’s Mouth,”

Philosophy: Who Needs It, 79.


Values are the motivating power of man’s actions and a necessity of his survival, psychologically as well as physically.
Man’s values control his subconscious emotional mechanism that functions like a computer adding up his desires, his experiences, his fulfillments and frustrations—like a sensitive guardian watching and constantly assessing his relationship to reality. The key question which this computer is programmed to answer, is: What is possible to me?

There is a certain similarity between the issue of sensory perception and the issue of values. . . .

If severe and prolonged enough, the absence of a normal, active flow of sensory stimuli may disintegrate the complex organization and the interdependent functions of man’s consciousness.

Man’s emotional mechanism works as the barometer of the efficacy or impotence of his actions. If severe and prolonged enough, the absence of a normal, active flow of value-experiences may disintegrate and paralyze man’s consciousness—by telling him that no action is possible.

The form in which man experiences the reality of his values is pleasure.

“Our Cultural Value-Deprivation,” The Voice of Reason, 102–103.


The objective theory of values is the only moral theory incompatible with rule by force. Capitalism is the only system based implicitly on an objective theory of values—and the historic tragedy is that this has never been made explicit.

If one knows that the good is objective—i.e., determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man’s mind—one knows that an attempt to achieve the good by physical force is a monstrous contradiction which negates morality at its root by destroying man’s capacity to recognize the good, i.e., his capacity to value. Force invalidates and paralyzes a man’s judgment, demanding that he act against it, thus rendering him morally impotent. A value which one is forced to accept at the price of surrendering one’s mind, is not a value to anyone; the forcibly mindless can neither judge nor choose nor value. An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes. Values cannot exist (cannot be valued) outside the full context of a man’s life, needs, goals, and knowledge.

“What is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 23

~~~

Any rational, average educated individual in this time and age, has had much reason to question the existence of God and Formal Religion, as it is practiced currently.

The values that the Church and Religion in general has offered for centuries, is no longer adequate to answer the moral and ethical questions of modern man and modern society.

Only the intellectually jaded reject all concepts or right and wrong, moral and immoral actions and face the world with uncertainty, subjectivity and relative values.

Those still holding to a faith of the past do so only by refusing to see the moral conflict all around them. The corruptions in the churches of all denominations continually force the faithful to question the efficacy of their faith.

If you come to this Thread with an open mind and a desire to learn, there is much to gain.

Amicus Veritas

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

When confronted by government and the brutality of man empowered, were there no God, someone would invent one out of necessity if only to render the illusion of hope, even if in the next life.
A_J, the Atheist

 

[amicus]

When confronted by government and the brutality of man empowered, were there no God, someone would invent one out of necessity if only to render the illusion of hope, even if in the next life.
A_J, the Atheist

~~~

In extremis, man will automatically turn to any source for solace.

I think that prayer, talking perhaps only to one's inner self, can give courage in the face of adversity.

There are times, when all hope is lost, that the spirit of man, his individual life, refuses to accept the inevitable.

We are still alone in the Universe.

Amicus

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

It (prayer) got the original sackers of Jerusalem right wound up...

... fasting seems to help too.


I was training a UAE officer when I stopped for water. He was looking at me saying he wished he could drink. "Ramadan," I stated.

"Yes," he beamed with pride and the joy of finding a Westerner who knew of such things.

"Tell me if it were Ramadan when Saladin walked the Templars out into the desert, do you think he would be imploring them, 'Men, in the name of Allah, DON'T HYDRATE!'?"

Then I began ragging his religiosity with drills.

__________________
Quit hitting me with your Christian "hate!"
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=759907
A_J, the Minority

 

[amicus]

It (prayer) got the original sackers of Jerusalem right wound up...

... fasting seems to help too.


I was training a UAE officer when I stopped for water. He was looking at me saying he wished he could drink. "Ramadan," I stated.

"Yes," he beamed with pride and the joy of finding a Westerner who knew of such things.

"Tell me if it were Ramadan when Saladin walked the Templars out into the desert, do you think he would be imploring them, 'Men, in the name of Allah, DON'T HYDRATE!'?"

Then I began ragging his religiosity with drills.

__________________
Quit hitting me with your Christian "hate!"
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=759907
A_J, the Minority

~~~

Not much of a social person but it is nice to know some aspects of your existence. I often think about the hundreds of thousands of service men and women who do their duty and return home. Although I read extensively, I still wonder what they and you, bring back from that desert world steeped in antiquity that is so alien to most Americans...thank you for the small insight...

ami

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The problem for you and me is that there are three types of Atheist:

1. Us - driven by reason, content to let sleeping Christians lie.
2. DCL - driven by ego and the idea that's he the paragon of human evolution and thus driven to proselytize.
3. The ACLU type with a chip on his shoulder and a corncob up his butt looking to be "offended" by the superstitious "stupid."

 

[eyer]

I've read your effort and a few parts even three times now; every word of Rand's you offer here I can't even count how many times I've pondered before (to my knowledge, I have read everything Rand has authored at least once - excluding her individual newsletters, although I have read many of them as they've been amended into other publications).

I do sincerely appreciate your effort, amicus - thank you.

I cannot offer you the open mind you ask for; indeed, if you recall, Ms. Rand opposes the thought of open mindedness herself...leaving one's mind open is like leaving the lid to the trash can open...

I believe Ms. Rand is incorrect re: a higher power than ourselves. And I believe she is as incorrect re: life evolving within the womb.

I do not share your view that accepting Christ as Lord and Savior is in any way connected with the political sacrifice of oneself to the collective; Christ made the sacrifice for me; all I must do is accept it as the gift of God He is. The relationship Christ makes possible is purely spiritual, it has nothing to do with the political things of this world.

My "poking" of you in this regard is your incessant insistence that anyone who believes in God is no different than a slave to the collective. I understand you believe that, but I would hope you understand I don't and that so many of the creators of this nations' most liberating founding political thoughts and documents believed in a Creator, too. If what you and Rand claim is true, how could men both you and Rand salute as heroes of individual liberty be anything but the slaves of the collective you both insist their belief in God automatically sentences them to?

A declarer of independence cannot be a socialist, too, can he?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

They were enlightened slaves who sought to free us of they tyranny of unreasoning government and religion.




They threw off the bonds of the collective, but only by degrees.

Remember von Mises began as a Socialist and he shed it in stages only becoming more or less fully Libertarian after he had been in America for some time...

 

[eyer]

Jefferson authored and proposed a bill once while a Virginia legislator that would not penalize a prisoner for trying to escape if, in the process of that attempt, he harmed no other...

...TJ's logic was that a man's nature to be free was inherent and, thus, should not be held against him.

That is some of the most natural reasoning I've ever known...

...the bill was not enacted into law.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

I read something earlier this week about how bad incarceration is especially to minorities.

We're too full up on drug offenses, it's time to admit we lost that war.

I like a system where you are not put in for a time, but to achieve goals to get out, that way those wishing to rehabilitate can and those who are incorrigible get to stay with their peer group and leave us alone.




Here it is: http://reason.com/archives/2011/06/08/prison-math

 

[Saint Peter]

becoming more or less fully

 

[Bidin~Time]

Just a thought:

When the importance of expressing one's belief system publically, becomes just as important as quietly living that belief system, it will begin to 'look' exactly like religion, even if it is a non-religious belief system.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

He never really got quite as far as Rothbard, but certainly farther than Hayek.

 

[Saint Peter]

He never really got quite as far as Rothbard, but certainly farther than Hayek.

I got it. Just a funny sounding string of words.


So, if we have to replace God, do we have to recycle or just put him/her/it by the curb?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Just a thought:

When the importance of expressing one's belief system publically, becomes just as important as quietly living that belief system, it will begin to 'look' exactly like religion, even if it is a non-religious belief system.

#s 2 & 3 in my above post.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

I got it. Just a funny sounding string of words.


So, if we have to replace God, do we have to recycle or just put him/her/it by the curb?

I grok...

 

[Saint Peter]

I grok...

 

[Ishmael]

Just a thought:

When the importance of expressing one's belief system publically, becomes just as important as quietly living that belief system, it will begin to 'look' exactly like religion, even if it is a non-religious belief system.

The one form being indistinguishable from the other. ie. "There is no distinguishable difference between the science of AGW and the religion of AGW."

Ishmael

 

[Bidin~Time]

#s 2 & 3 in my above post.

They needed clarification.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

I grok...

You have GOT to be kidding me...

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

They needed clarification.

But chef, it's still butter...

 

[Bidin~Time]

But chef, it's still butter...

When serving lobster, Cap'n . . .

ya know

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

I don't eat cockroach of the ocean...

 

[zipman]

To understand / from Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.

 

[Powertone]

To understand / from Stranger in a Strange Land by Leon Russell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjy7RAu8TJ4