[ExI] The Parallels and Convergences: Mormon Thought and Engineering Vision Conference

[Damien Broderick]

At 05:17 PM 3/24/2009 -0600, Brent wrote:

>religious people, for the first time, not waiting for God to reveal 
>everything and / or come down and save them, bet getting involved 
>and engineering heaven for themselves, all according to their now 
>progressing faith and hopes that grew out of their great legacy.

This is an encouraging development, but one I would hope is a 
transitional stage leading to escape from the bogosity intrinsic to 
all theistic religions (however admirable many of their adherents). I 
do have to ask: what is "their great legacy"? From what I've read, 
their great legacy was a highly oppressive patriarchal top-down 
system based on a colossal lie, with, for the longest time, racist 
exclusion of blacks, sexist sequestration of women to those with most 
power, followed by apparent renunciation of this unpleasantness for 
purely political motives, and with lesser assaults on reason such as 
the absurd concoctions concerning American prehistory and the status 
of native Americans... This looks to me like a sorry legacy that 
should fill adherents with shame and a wish to renounce it. So what 
am I missing here? They support family life, perhaps? So does any 
moral system based on empathy and common sense; I don't think any 
group gets special brownie points for not beating or abandoning or 
drugging their kids, murdering each other, or walking on their hind legs.

Damien Broderick