[ExI] Impending Newtonmass... what should I buy the atheist in my life?

spike spike66 at att.net
Wed Dec 24 02:31:57 UTC 2008


 

> ...On Behalf Of ben
...
> Just because I don't want anything to do with a commercially 
> hi-jacked festival of a religion that has torture and human 
> sacrifice as it's main theme doesn't mean that I want to 
> spoil the fun that other people get from it... Ben Zaiboc

Ben, the commercial hi-jacking of christmas is what makes it enjoyable for
me.  It represents the heartwarming triumph of unbridled capitalism over the
darkness of superstition.  

Besides that, I suspect that it was actually the other way around.  Religion
incorporated hi-jacked what had been a secular celebration of the beginning
of the return of the sun to its high point in the sky.  I can imagine a
smart old time mathematically minded ancestor of modern extropians, who
recognized that what the local shaman or shawoman was selling was bullshit.
Perhaps she numbered stones and put them at the peak of the shadow from a
distant rock.  She may have recognized that the number of stones in a cycle
was about 365.  Even though she may have been unable to explain it, she knew
the story the sha-person was dishing was nonsense.  But the return of the
sun would still be a time of celebration and perhaps gift giving, long
before it was taken over by religion incorporated.

That being said, look at the triumph of technology every time we go into
Walmart.  With a single paycheck, even a modest one, modern people can buy a
ton of cheap junk, all because technology has given us super advanced
manufacturing.  We can extrapolate to future proles being able to buy ever
cheaper junk with ever smaller paychecks.  Cool!  

It fills me with hope for the future of humanity to see the almighty dollar
overpower the almighty imaginary creator.

spike







More information about the extropy-chat mailing list