Comment A better paradigm (Score 1) 1171
>Perhaps a world in which people cannot police themselves needs a "god" and fear of eternal rebuke in order to keep them in line.
>If religion is this opiate that the masses need, and it is abolished, what do we replace it with? Meds?
How about personal responsibility, with no chance to gain salvation eternally just by "opening your heart" to figments of somebody else's inmagination? How about a realistic world view, without blinders to shield us from inconvenient truths, a view that shows us to the true scale with which we relate to the universe: tiny but infinitely precious. At its mercy, with nothing but chaos, entropy, and random chance determining things, and nothing but ourselves and each other to protect us.
Not living this life as if it's a practise run for an eternity in heaven or just another in a long run of incarnations, but the one chance we each have to make a positive impact on the only sources of compassion and memory & creativity we know of -ourselves and maybe a few other advanced life forms on this one mudball.
I think that giving up on bronze-age childish mythologies would be a very large step in the right direction to help ensure species survival.
No imaginary friends to help us or correct us, so we've got no choice but to go ahead and make history with sensible choices and hard work.
A far longer and brighter future awaits us, if we work for it Unless you prefer that a few of us ascend to heaven while the rest of the world convulses in some mad gods' nightmare for our fates. Some like this view, especially since they're convinced that they're the ones who'll be saved and go to heaven without dying -and that's the key to religion's drawing power: fear of death. Couldn't we do better?
Space waits for us to take what's been called the greatest step a species has taken since the evolution of the lung. But if we just go on fighting wars to protect our right to depend on foreign oil and keep true to our own mythologies, we may run out of the slight extra wealth and time we need to start seeds growing out there.
John Frazer
Boulder, Co.
marssociety.org
>If religion is this opiate that the masses need, and it is abolished, what do we replace it with? Meds?
How about personal responsibility, with no chance to gain salvation eternally just by "opening your heart" to figments of somebody else's inmagination? How about a realistic world view, without blinders to shield us from inconvenient truths, a view that shows us to the true scale with which we relate to the universe: tiny but infinitely precious. At its mercy, with nothing but chaos, entropy, and random chance determining things, and nothing but ourselves and each other to protect us.
Not living this life as if it's a practise run for an eternity in heaven or just another in a long run of incarnations, but the one chance we each have to make a positive impact on the only sources of compassion and memory & creativity we know of -ourselves and maybe a few other advanced life forms on this one mudball.
I think that giving up on bronze-age childish mythologies would be a very large step in the right direction to help ensure species survival.
No imaginary friends to help us or correct us, so we've got no choice but to go ahead and make history with sensible choices and hard work.
A far longer and brighter future awaits us, if we work for it Unless you prefer that a few of us ascend to heaven while the rest of the world convulses in some mad gods' nightmare for our fates. Some like this view, especially since they're convinced that they're the ones who'll be saved and go to heaven without dying -and that's the key to religion's drawing power: fear of death. Couldn't we do better?
Space waits for us to take what's been called the greatest step a species has taken since the evolution of the lung. But if we just go on fighting wars to protect our right to depend on foreign oil and keep true to our own mythologies, we may run out of the slight extra wealth and time we need to start seeds growing out there.
John Frazer
Boulder, Co.
marssociety.org
