[extropy-chat] No Joy in Mudville

[Jef Allbright]

Damien Broderick wrote:

> At 07:00 AM 11/4/2004 -0800, the Spikester wrote:
>
>> Isn't it shocking?  Religion Incorporated seems
>> to be making a raging comeback in our modern world.
>
>
> In all sorts of brands and guises. It's bitterly ironic (to me, 
> anyway) that avowedly hi-tech widely educated societies such as the 
> USA and Russia have so many citizens reaching for the god pill, while 
> their antagonists are swigging madly from the god bottle, all factions 
> boiling away with contrived and almost arbitrary iconologies of 
> bigotry. It starts to look as if people really *do* find secular 
> scientific cultures too `cold' and `impersonal' and even `inhaman' to 
> sustain the glow of life. True, there are parts of Europe and 
> Australasia where Religion Incorporated has been sidelined for a few 
> generations, but I'll bet it comes ripping back in the clutches. Time 
> for humanism and transhumanism to start thinking seriously once again 
> (as Bertrand Russell and Wells and others did nearly a century ago, 
> without getting anywhere) about some sort of secular equivalent of 
> worship (ugh; whatever) and mutually supportive emotionally enriched 
> fellowship. But I don't imagine it will emerge from any bunch of INTJs 
> like this list...
>
> Damien Broderick

I think I see how it could be done in a completely honest and pragmatic 
way, as many scientists know the experience of awesome beauty, the 
feelings of humility and oneness, and the practical advantages of a 
scientific and rational approach to understanding our place in the 
universe.  I think INTJs and INTPs are the personalities most in touch 
with this and would have little problem developing it and presenting it 
to similar types, which, however, amount to only a few percent of the 
population.

<appearance of arrogance>
The difficulty is in how to present such concepts to a wider audience, 
as a path of inspiration and growth,  in such a way that they aren't 
distorted and diluted beyond recognition.
</appearance of arrogance>

- Jef
http://www.jefallbright.net