[ExI] The void left by deleting religion

[John Grigg]

Spike wrote:
  Those Cosmos episodes were a total mind blowing experience.
>
   
  I was thirteen when I first viewed Cosmos and totally enthralled.  My religious mother saw the value of  the show and watched them right along with me.  The mix of science, history and science fiction/speculation (coupled with excellent production values and special effects) sucked me in like no other program I have ever seen.  I would eagerly watch the series again every time it was rebroadcast.  I think I have seen it at least three times.  It has been at least a decade since my last viewing so I should go to my local public library and check them out!  I have not watched them since my exposure to Extropianism.
   
  Spike, I really enjoy how you share about your life and personal quest for truth.  You and Max have a sense of humanity I don't always get from everyone here.  I think part of the reason so many people see God as a dealer of punishment is that for most God is viewed ultimately as a parental/father figure.  My own father was totally absent during my life (except for the last few years) and I think this affected my own personal views about God.
   
  John  
   
         
  


spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
  > Max More wrote:
> > A question for those, like spike, who found religion to be "an
> > extremely positive experience"--especially those of a Fundamentalist
> > belief system... period of
> > aggressive, sometimes obnoxious, atheism. I'm curious how others felt
> > as they struggled out of those chains. Max


At age 20, in college with a new and wonderful sweetheart, I was very happy
and life was good. A professor used one of those nifty new inventions
called the video tape recorder to tape Carl Sagan's Cosmos. We viewed these
each Wednesday evening at our physics seminars. Those Cosmos episodes were
a total mind blowing experience.

In one of the chapters there is a short section about evolution that hit me
like being whopped side the head with a 2 by. Max you once mentioned that
you often had to waste time in your philosophy classes explaining the very
basics of evolution to your students. It occurred to me after seeing
Sagan's pitch that I had gone to public schools thru high school and had
never heard a decent explanation of the whole concept. The teachers
introduced paper tigers or avoided the topic all together. I didn't dig
into it earlier because I was more of a physics/math/space/machines kinda
guy, never did much with biology.

I spent the next several months totally engrossed in studying evolution to
try to debunk it, totally neglecting everything else including my
engineering classes and the new sweetheart. I am amazed she didn't throw me
back. I had been told that the evidence for evolution was scant and filled
with inconsistency. Found to the contrary that there is a mountain of
evidence for evolution, filled with consistency.

Spent the next couple years trying to unify fundamentalist religion with
evolution. I could not. Spent the next decade trying to decide if it
matters. It does. The sweetheart married me anyway, 23 years and counting.
{8-] Then the internet came along and changed everything. Then extropians
showed up on the internet, and I found that there are others like me. 

If you have never seen Sagan's Cosmos, get that and do so forthwith.

spike







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