Now seems like a good time to start what I consider an incredibly important thread. Rather than explain, let's jump right in.
Myth: Some great force is steering the destiny of mankind. No matter how bad things get, we'll be alright as a people because someone will save us from ourselves.
Response: Boy, this sure is a comforting thought isn’t it? By the thinking of some, it doesn’t matter what any destructive force does because they’re going to be saved at the last minute by some divine force. I’m sure that kind of comfort makes the collection plates fuller at the local purveyors of religious gratification but it’s way too convenient.
The fact is, there’s little or no evidence that the current religious fad is any more correct than the previous thousands that have come and gone. Typically, the throngs of the religious point to the bible as their ultimate evidence and proof that THEY (and only they) are in fact the ‘chosen’ people who are going to heaven. Let’s be clear, the bible is an ancient and historical document. Only a few dozen problems with the bible as a document of prognostication.
Firstly, the bible has been translated through half a dozen languages in series so inevitable transcription and translation errors have been multiplied and magnified over the years.
Secondly and more importantly, the bits and pieces of the bible we typically see are thoroughly picked over by the church (read that: Edited) to make sure the message conveyed is as close as possible to what the ancient church intended. What kind of audacity does one have to have to edit the very word of god herself?
Thirdly and more importantly of all, the bible does not constitute a consistent whole. The book is often contradictory, confusing and deals in a dubious level of symbolism. I mean come on… 7 days? Let’s get real. More on the ignorance of bible literalists later…
Secondarily but related to the religious masses are those that think we’re just days away from being visited ‘klaatu berada nicto’ style by extraterrestrials who are going to give us a lecture on how to get along and disarm all of our weapons of mass destruction for us. While this is a less popular opinion, the proponents of it defend it no less fiercely. Sadly, this theory fails muster on several points.
Let’s summarize the unpopular truth about non-terrestrial life forms:
Life is very nearly everywhere. The more we look at our own Earth, the more evident it becomes that life can survive, thrive and evolve in any environment. As we look more closely at Mars it will become obvious that the Earth is by no means unique. Don’t expect the government to report this to you until they are left with no other alternative. Trust me when I say that the government will not rock the boat in any way. The American public would not know anything about terrorism except that it served a political purpose. Our esteemed National Idiot Mr. Bush wanted a war and he managed to get one using September 11th to steer public opinion. Since the war in Iraq, there have been a dozen successful terrorist attacks on this country but luckily the media just called them accidents. We wouldn’t want to lower the value of anyone’s stock portfolio. Enough of that tangent.
Even though life is everywhere, there’s just too much space between us and the nearest star for anyone to bother to visit. There is no faster-than-light travel so anyone who does visit would have to invest such incredible amounts of time getting here that it would be hardly worth their while. If they did come here I can’t imagine they would want to play therapist to a backwards race like ourselves.
Lastly, if you had the ability to peruse the universe at your leisure, would you travel for a hundred years to visit an average, unremarkable, yellow sun in the middle of nowhere? If it were me, I’d visit someplace a little more scenic. No one goes on vacation to the suburbs to visit an average family in a typical home. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and there will be a galactic census soon.
In summary, we’re responsible for our own screw-ups. If someone does release a biological agent in an attempt to wipe us out then you can just fold up shop because there is no safety net. Once you’re dead, you’re dead and there’s nobody and nothing that can change that for you. If we can’t as a people decide to get along with each other then we don’t deserve to creep our way out of our primordial cesspool. Even if we don’t though, it’s no big deal. There are a million billion other races that are similarly or better equipped to handle life in the universe than we are. I certainly won’t be crying for us either way. We get what we deserve.
1 comment:
“Myth: Some great force is steering the destiny of mankind. No matter how bad things get, we'll be alright as a people because someone will save us from ourselves.”
By “myth” I assume you mean “an unfounded or false notion” and not a “popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially : one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society”. In either case, your statement of this “myth” is misleading by being overly simplistic; as in your posts on the Bible, you are constructing something of a straw man. Not that there aren’t people whose beliefs are this simplistic, but that this is a pretty easy belief to ridicule or argue against. You are painting with a very broad brush.
If my responses sound a little testy it’s because I am irritated by these same old double-standard arguments being trotted out ad nauseum. Double standard? Yes. Because there are atheists and agnostics whose beliefs are every bit as simplistic as the simplest and most provincial theist. But what does that prove?
”Response: Boy, this sure is a comforting thought isn’t it? By the thinking of some, it doesn’t matter what any destructive force does because they’re going to be saved at the last minute by some divine force. I’m sure that kind of comfort makes the collection plates fuller at the local purveyors of religious gratification but it’s way too convenient.”
First of all, there is the assumption that this sort of myth is comforting. But believing in a “great force steering the destiny of mankind” has very little to say about the destiny of little-old-expendable me. And the flip-side of believing in such a “force” is the accountability that mere creatures bear to such a “someone”. This is not at all a comforting thought. And the ignoring of this fact makes your “Response” a little like the pot calling the kettle “convenient”.
Next we have the statement of the straw man belief about the cosmic cavalry coming to the rescue. Yawn.
Lastly we have the cynical implication that this belief is only perpetuated as a means of profit. Now, I can understand this, especially in this country. I have long regretted the fact that so many Christians view their church as a vendor of religious goods and services that can easily be abandoned should a more responsive vendor be found. And of course if there are customers there will be producers. But in fact it is not those who preach a simple message of comfort and salvation in this country who rake in the most dough. It is those who promise that God will bless you if give them money.
But there are still many who sincerely believe a more traditional version of Christianity, resist the zeitgeist of commercialism, and focus on community. So again, you’ve chosen a stereotype that’s easy to disbelieve.
“The fact is, there’s little or no evidence that the current religious fad is any more correct than the previous thousands that have come and gone. Typically, the throngs of the religious point to the bible as their ultimate evidence and proof that THEY (and only they) are in fact the ‘chosen’ people who are going to heaven. Let’s be clear, the bible is an ancient and historical document. Only a few dozen problems with the bible as a document of prognostication.”
I’ll merely point out the obviously loaded language referring to the several thousand year Judeo-Christian tradition as a fad (and it is clear that it is Christianity that you are aiming at). I am more interested in the “Little or no evidence” giganto-question that you’ve dismissed before asking. What would you consider valid evidence?
Typically, I find that atheists are indignant that God hasn’t provided a mathematically precise proof of His existence, and therefore angrily conclude that He is a figment of the imaginations of the great unwashed masses. But this is a little like concluding that four-leaf clovers do not exist since your metal-detector with dead batteries didn’t find any in your basement.
And Christian apologists, typically, don’t realize that historical and philosophical evidence is not of the same nature as mathematical proof. (It seems that Gary Habermas does realize this, but I haven’t yet gotten around to reading any of his books.)
Agnostics, typically, I can stomach.
As for your “typical throngs of the religious”, I’m sure that their beliefs are neither more nor less simple than those of the typical atheist.
“Document of prognostication”? WTF?
”Firstly, the bible has been translated through half a dozen languages in series so inevitable transcription and translation errors have been multiplied and magnified over the years.”
I’m wondering where you got this information. Which languages would those be? I haven’t heard of even the most skeptical scholar refer to this.
”Secondly and more importantly, the bits and pieces of the bible we typically see are thoroughly picked over by the church (read that: Edited) to make sure the message conveyed is as close as possible to what the ancient church intended. What kind of audacity does one have to have to edit the very word of god herself?”
Well, if you view “the church” as a group of men who invented a set of beliefs to perpetuate their own power, then maybe you could call this audacity. But if this view of the church is correct, the Bible isn’t the “word of god herself” (oh, so clever). So where’s the audacity?
But if the Church is what she says she is, the Body of Christ, then the act of choosing the books that represent the most authoritative part of her written tradition is entirely appropriate. As for the editing, it kind of depends on what you mean by that. If you mean what I think you mean, then you’ll have to come up with some proof.
“Thirdly and more importantly of all, the bible does not constitute a consistent whole. The book is often contradictory, confusing and deals in a dubious level of symbolism. I mean come on… 7 days? Let’s get real. More on the ignorance of bible literalists later… “
Fundamentalists are ignorant, therefore we can dismiss the beliefs of even non-Fundamentalist Christians…..
I’ll ignore the rest of your post because it’s a relatively massive non-sequitur that I find totally uninteresting…and I’m tired.
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