[ExI] No gods, no meaning?

[William Flynn Wallace]

That religion is about control, being the authority, is exactly why the
Chinese fight it.  Religion is an enemy, another contestant for the hearts
of the people.  Look at the incredible influence the Roman church had for
hundreds of years.  Not only influencing politicians, but becoming
politicians as well.  Politicians had to bow to them.  That this is not
longer the case, for the most part, is a great and wonderful achievement
for the human race.  The church just got outrageous and got knocked around
and then down. But not out.   bill w

On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 1:04 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 24/04/2020 18:16, Jason Resch wrote:
> Various things.
>
>
> The problem is, the very nature of religion is about control, not figuring
> things out. Religions are about prescriptions and proscriptions. You have
> to do this, you can't do that. You must believe this, you can't question
> that. That's one problem, rather. Another one is that science is about *finding
> out*. Religion is about *believing*. In science, evidence is king. In
> religion, evidence is the enemy.
>
> You can say that the word 'god' can mean a lot of different things. Fine.
> Sell that to the religious folks, see how far you get. All the things you
> mention might (or might not) be reasonable, but none of them are any reason
> to worship, obey a set of commandments, or otherwise bow down and accept
> unquestioningly what some priest or ancient book tells you. And *that* is
> what religion is about.
>
> If you, or anyone else, wants to start a religion that's not about power
> and control, doesn't assert that magic (the supernatural) is real, that
> doesn't care who you have sex with or what you eat or wear, and doesn't
> tell you that you must believe certain things without question, great. Go
> ahead. I might even join it (of course, I'm already a member, on account of
> being an Omnitheist :D ). But I'd have to ask, what makes it a 'religion'?
>
> PS Please don't CC your replies to the list, to my email address. There's
> no need, and it's annoying. Thanks.
>
> --
> Ben Zaiboc
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20200424/c4701066/attachment.htm>