[extropy-chat] I keep asking myself...just curious

[Russell Wallace]

Robert Bradbury correctly answers the factual side of the question; now that
I'm awake, I'll take a shot at the methodological side.

God and the Singularity are not substitutes for each other. Whether there is
or isn't a God and Heaven is something we can't influence either way (apart
from live a moral life to improve our chances of getting into Heaven; but we
should try to live a moral life anyway because it's the right thing to do).
Furthermore, if there is a God, the one thing that's clear is that He
expects us to solve our problems using our faculty of reason, not sit on our
arses pestering Him to solve them for us. I don't say you should believe in
God or that you shouldn't, but that whether or not you do shouldn't
influence your attitude to the Singularity.

As for astrology - honestly, what's the _point_ in believing in that? What
can you do with that belief? Start shifting the planets' orbits around to
improve their influence? But even if you could, which way? For every
astrologer who says move Mars a million kilometers north there's another one
who'll say move it a million kilometers south. What do you get out of
believing in astrology? Nothing.

The Singularity isn't just something to passively believe in, it's something
to _work towards_. Even if you don't believe in it as something that'll
actually happen in our lifetimes (and I'll certainly grant we can't put a
knowable date on it), it can be thought of as the horizon of the long road
of progress - and every step we take down that road is one worth taking for
the benefits that step can bring us, for the lives it can save and enrich.

Maybe "close" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades - but "forward"
counts in life.
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