An interesting read.

[iamtrip]

I've read the Da Vinci Code and Illuminati, but admittedly, I haven't read Angels and Demons yet.

They're good books, but what he says I don't agree with.

 

 

 

Science saves lives.

Science takes lives.

 

It's down to man to decide what to do with the technology.

What does religion do besides create an extra reason for men to use science to take a few more lives?

 

 

Would Dan Brown have us paganly worshipping the Sun god and Bert the god of Mud?

The arguement that science brings immorality is proposterous.

The argumment that Organised Religion brings corruption and darkness is not.

Lets not forget that the organised church was initially (and arguably still is) a mode to create subservience from the uneucated masses.

 

I agree, you can look at the sky and think there has to be something bigger than us. It's a generic human instinct and to deny this would be to deny your own meaning.

I believe there is a 'God', but I sure don't believe I need to wave my hands around and follow an orthodox regime to believe in it.

 

 

Science is a means, not a way. What we do with science is our own choice. But to say that the Church, the organisation which aided sovereignties to opress their people in countless countries past and present would guide the use of science by their morals (if they have any) is idiotic.

[Spider AL]

Ok, I shall speak to the deliberately deaf one last time.

Your tone has not altered from pious disrespectfulness through the entire thread, and you have not surprised me at the last. How predictable.

 

The answer has been given again and again; loss is irrelevant to the non-existent.

That's not an answer. It doesn't address the point at all. Those who do not know they have lost, have still lost. YOU wish to make them lose. That is not compassionate. It is malicious. YOU are not therefore altruistic in your motives. You have claimed to be. Your claim was false therefore. QED.

 

A reason has been given.

No it has not. See above.

 

And thus we touched the topic of choice, another illusion. An illusion bound to "free will", which must be the number one romantic notion of mankind.

EVERYTHING is an illusion, as we have agreed before. Your comment is redundant. In an illusory existence, illusory concepts have the same substance as the world. Our world is created by our minds. You can choose to have free will in the first place or not, as you see fit.

 

A point rendered irrelevant following my point.

Meaningless tosh. I see you got confused again at this point...

 

I know little of Freud's teachings and he has no bearing on my views.

You and he would get on really well I think. You have the same flawed reasoning and narcissistic world view.

 

Condescending crowdpleasing applied by you for the nth time. It shall be addressed last in this post.

LOL! Well, that's the one original thing you've said. Nobody's ever accused me of being a crowdpleaser before. I congratulate you heartily. One would have to be pretty paranoid to consider Spider comparitively beloved by the crowd, but hey. An "A" for originality.

 

Though irrelevant in non-existence, isn't it?

You don't have to know you've lost something to have lost it. And you never ever figured out anything close to an answer for that, did you.

 

And being freed from my "physical restrictions" I suddenly turn into this beautiful spirit flapping away into eternity with a big grin frozen onto my incorporeal face, huh? What romantic folly.

I agree wholeheartedly, as I have stated before. I think all aspects of religion are idiotic, including the idea of an afterlife. Indeed, romantic folly.

 

However, this is rich coming from you, a person whose life and death is ruled by your own romantic folly. Your own fear of the utterly laughable idea of jehovaspankage and your own grandiose sense of self-importance. You state that the only reason you don't top yourself is that you fear Teh GoD.

 

No confusion about it, and your question has been answered more than once.

You're correct, you've answered my question more than once, every time you've posted in fact. You're here because you like the look of your own text. Let's face it, from the minute I arrived and pointed out the gaping flaws in your reasoning, you weren't here for a debate...

 

Again you presume to ordering the how of my proceeding when not knowing the why of my situation.

The why's irrelevant, as you yourself have agreed in this thread that others have done better, when they've started with less than you have.

 

As I started out in this post, this will be the final in this thread, from me in any event. I've tolerated your condescending crowdpleasing, in abundance I might add, because any audience (if we have any), who lets themselves be manipulated by such cheap and hollow opponentbashing is an audience of oppinions I care not to heed.

In other words, you consider anyone who doesn't agree with you to be irrelevant chaff, ripe fodder for your l33t global annihilation-plan.

 

Bwahahar.

 

Sitting in the bus home I contemplated why I kept feeding your ego, and the simple answer was of course that I was feeding my own by cutting down your continious opposition.

Oh please. Your attempts at logic are laughable, your arguments are based only upon your own arrested teen angst and your opinions are the worst kind of generic, mass-produced lowbrow gothic drivel. The only thing you have "cut down" during your time posting on this board... is the lifespan of your keyboard.

 

But no more; your ego has been fed quite enough, and you have again and again proven that you, like the vast majority of the world, absolutely must ridicule me in order to keep your illusions intact that you may hide that primal fear of oblivion from your consciousness with masks of pride, reigion, defiance, etc.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but I must absolutely ridicule you,.. because you say that you want to kill everything on the planet. I mean come on, surely even you must see the funny side. I mean... imagine the headlines:

 

"LUCASFORUMS POSTER ERADICATES ALL LIFE ON THE PLANET THROUGH SHEER FORCE OF ANGST!"

 

The delusions that you through your life have been dealt and those you have built yourself will keep you from ever understanding me,

And how many self-aggrandising angsty teens have said exactly that? I appear to understand you better than you understand yourself.

 

but nevertheless you ought to be capable of accepting that I am as I am and no amount of religious or societal dogma will change that, for you have indeed changed nothing in my views.

My goal was to disprove your arguments logically, which I think I've done fairly well.

 

*Snip loads of insulting nonsense typed by Jubatus*

 

This single fact remains: I do crave for the annihilation of all existence.

Yeah, good luck with that. But remember, I've proven that there's no logic behind the reasons you gave for wanting this apocalypse to happen, and also logically I've proven that your motives are not altruistic.

 

Also, your spelling and grammar are mediocre, and therefore a hindrance to your attempts to be taken seriously. Something to work on there. Have a nice life, I'm sure you'll enjoy it despite your aura of gloom.

 

I'll refrain from entering these discussions which I know from the beginning are futile.

But... I thought you considered EVERYTHING futile... how is debating online more futile than anything else?

 

Now look, I'M getting confused...

[TheLiberator34]

Ug. It looks like this thread has well and truly dejenerated. Hear that slerping sound kids? Thats the sound of the black hole this things going down into.

 

But what the hell, once more into the breach!

 

This all seems to be going back to the existenstial question "If a tree is struck by lightning and falls to the ground, yet no one hears it fall, has the tree died?"

 

Just because our perceptions don't pick up every instance and loss in this universe doesn't mean those loses don't exist. If the universe were to be wiped out then it would still be a LOSE. Even though human beings wouldn't be able to percieve it(because we wouldn't exist anymore)

 

As for free will being an "illusion" how do explain how humans do anything then? People make choices everyday, even if it just means sticking to their usual routines. Are there consequences to these choices? Yes, no person is a proverbial island free from the consequences of their actions. However that does not mean the actions of human beings has no effect on the world around them.

 

As for religion being idiotic, I don't agree. On an individual level, religion can seem dumb, but on the level of societies and civilization religion act as a common bond, a "glue" that holds together society. More importantly religions teach individuals to put value in ideas like empathy, compassion, and morality in general. To dismiss religions as silly or nonsensical is to dismiss the positive impact religions have on the way human civilization has formed. Are religions always perfect and correct? No, religion is like EVERY OTHER HUMAN INSTITUTION, imperfect and ridden with instances of hippocracy and flaws. But the only way to oovercome the flaws in any institution is to participate in it and work to reform the rules under which said institutions govern themselves. Policies can always change if you put enough pressure under them.

As for the idea of life after death and other things like that, those ideas are meant to reinforce the moral training and attitude of religions. If we had a perfect justice system we wouldn't need them, but until that happens the promise of "divine" retribution and reward will have to do.

[Kurgan]

Originally posted by Reborn Outcast

Just thought I'd point out something interesting.

 

The amount of humans on the earth today is greater than the total number in history. (I only have 1 link, but I'll try and find more.)

 

If you look at the table of human growth, you would realize that 6 billion different people were not born in 40 years, that's just a grand total. So out of the 6 billion people on earth today, many of them are probably still living from the 3 billion in 1960, which makes the 6 billion pretty close to the total amount of humans living on earth ever. Just a little interesting thing.

 

But what I'm trying to say is, no one should think of themselves as insignificant. Everyone IS capable of making a difference if they put themselves to it. (Man, that was corny wasn't it? ) But science partially makes it seems as if we have no effect whatsoever because of how insignificant we care compared to the rest of the universe.

 

 

 

 

He's not saying we should be in awe of lightning specifically. It's just an example. Of course there are much more powerful things in the universe, but what he is trying to say is, if you don't have any respect for the power in the universe, it could come back to bite you in the butt. (I hope that wasn't to confusing.)

 

 

 

Could you show me the sentence where he specifically says that? I didn't really see any place where he says that the church is the deciding line.

 

 

 

Yes, I believe that is the word I'm looking for. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

And, just so everyone knows, I'm finding it hard to type out my stance on this, because it makes it seem like I'm trying to say science is of no use which is the exact opposite of what I think. I just need to clarify that because when I read over what I type, I kind of seem like a science-abolishing zealot, when I'm really not.

 

 

I'll checkout the link, but I find the notion that there are more humans on earth today than in the past dubious. I myself read (in high school) that there were something on the order of 30 people in the past for every one person now living.

 

However the phrasing of the question may be the clincher. After all, we haven't always had "history." History is that which is "written down." So you could trace that to the beginning of (known) writing.

 

Our species has been around a long, long time, and while the current population of the earth in human terms has never been higher, there are a LOT of dead people in the past compared to how many are now living. I mean every hour hundreds if not thousands of people are being born and dying.

 

Anyway, I'll see if I can find any contrary data...

[TheLiberator34]

And I thought I'd finally managed to lay this thread to rest. I guess I just can't win can I? I suppose I have no choice but to call in the proverbial airstrike huh?

 

Plus you managed to get it back on topic! Bravo!