Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [RELIGION] another problem with religion...

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Just accept that if there is a God then obviously there is a God and if 
not there is nothing to stop someone, probably me, from becoming God. 
Once God exists then God will have always existed as obviously to be God 
they will need to be able to move through all space and time without 
limitation. Therefore there is a God.

Actually I sort of imagine society, human or otherwise, eventually 
evolving to the point where there is something like a universal 
collective that becomes closely enough nit to be able to be classified 
as an individual and that individual would evolve into God. Or maybe a 
society of the individuals created by our level of species as our 
society becomes that close nit. The point being that each level of 
existence builds new individuals out of it's components with every level 
still evolving onward. Eventually one of those levels will reach a level 
that is powerful enough to recreate the cycle.

Of course for that concept to work for you you need to believe that it's 
possible for evolution to create God. My theory is that the meaning of 
life is to create an endless loop where God keeps recreating itself and 
that effectively it's impossible for God to not be the logical outcome 
of evolution at work. Of course that means extending evolution outside 
what we commonly think of as biological life to encompass all of 
existence but it seems to me only logical to do so as everything seems 
to follow the basic premises of evolution - reproduction w/ mutation and 
elimination of the unsuccessful.

As someone that follows logic to it's obvious conclusion, despite it 
being less limited than standard concepts, I therefore have no choice 
but to believe in a God. I don't think life, the universe, God, etc 
sprung out of anything. It only makes sense for the natural state of 
things to be that everything exists in one form or another and is just 
constantly in flux as it loops back in on itself. Even modern physics 
such as string theory seems to follow this sort of idea. The concept of 
anything coming from nothing is just a concept that doesn't work - every 
theory points backwards to an unknown something that existed before it.

I don't really care if anyone believes or not. The majority of people 
are caught up in the prehistoric concepts you mention and most of the 
rest are unable to find any truth because they are blinded by the fog 
surrounding those archaic religions. Also theories where human beings 
could be as insignificant as our cells are to us or molecules are to the 
cells they form are unlikely to mesh well with the emotional needs of 
the masses - people want to feel special either by thinking they are 
meaningful to God or that they are so significant that they don't need a 
God.
> One of the biggest problems with religion is that it is a huge waste 
> of time and intellectual capital.  Just think of the decades that many 
> smart people have spent spewing ridiculous ideas about the Nature of 
> God and such.  Altogether, from all that, we have achieved almost 
> nothing at all. There is no agreement that there is a "God," no 
> agreement on what the nature of this "God" is, and the fundamental 
> problem is that the whole issue was created by prehistoric people with 
> almost no understanding of the world in which they lived.  We can do 
> much better today than to rehash ancient problems to death in an 
> endless series of arguments that can never be resolved.
>
> Of course the religious people will disagree with me.  I know that.  
> They can write thousands of books, literally(!), on this topic without 
> making any progress, and they will write thousands more (probably a 
> thousand or more books per year - truly).  They will argue with me 
> about it until they have breathed their last breath, but it will get 
> them nowhere.  That doesn't matter to them.  It's a real sickness that 
> humanity is suffering from.  People can't break out of it because the 
> social pressures are too strong.  In fact, the more extreme your 
> religious views, the more obviously loyal you are to the religion, and 
> this establishment of loyalty helps people to achieve higher social 
> status in their religious group. It's pathetic and sad, in a way.  I 
> think of it as pathological, but it is human nature, the worst part of it.


_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion