[extropy-chat] Atheism in Decline

nvitamore at austin.rr.com nvitamore at austin.rr.com
Fri Mar 4 15:57:11 UTC 2005 

Both of you make salient points, and I agree that there is something to the
ideal of having a system that brings together values and goals for the
deeper feelings of humanity and acts as a reminder, rather than a turnkey,
on how we present ourselves to the world.  Yet, when I look at each
religion, I find either dogma or downright silliness that takes the
positive and meaningful aspects of the practice and places it in cultish
behavior. 

When a person who presents "rational" views that are "objective" and comes
down hard on someone else who presents "mystical" feelings, it seems that
the former is bonking the latter for being foolish.  Yet, often the former
could use some of the insightfulness of the latter.

For me, worshiping a person seems ridiculous.  Respecting a person seems
appropriate.  What if Christianity respected Jesus rather than worshiped
Jesus?  Perhaps it is all the theatrical and exaggeration of a love for
holiness that makes humans seem like monkeys (and I apologize to monkeys).
Rather than intelligent capable people.  It is the fact that religions take
away the dignity of humanity that is offensive to me.

And then the other side of that is the fact that I am so tired of people
acting better than other people because they have something that they
consider more valuable than someone else (positon, education,
associations).  And, most of these people are religious - I work with them
and feel the tension.

Spirituality seems to have a better understanding of the *healthiness* of a
global community.  But what would be more appropriate for transhumanity is
an intended kindness, compassion and understanding of the people and the
world.  I wish we had more of this. 

I was so pleased when Jose' encouraged, and we put together the first
Transhumanist aid package.  When boxes came to the ExI office, I felt
elated.  Getting it to Sri Lanka has been a pain, but creating a charitable
event was important for me and I hope for others.

So, I'd take being charitable and kind over religion.  A benevolent
goodwill toward humanity.

Natasha



Original Message:
-----------------
From: Samantha Atkins sjatkins at mac.com
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 02:56:12 -0800
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Atheism in Decline


Perhaps religion or not religion are both cop-outs.   What would be 
helpful is an understanding of, an integration of what is true and 
important from religion/spirituality and science and all aspects of 
what we are and wish to be.  Clearly this cannot be shoehorned into any 
pre-existing religion or philosophy, especially any system that 
believes that the letter of its dogma is more holy than the actual 
attempt to understand and deeply integrate that the dogma is little 
more than the fossil record of.   It requires a new weaving to be 
honest and truly capable of making human "salvation" more likely.

I sometimes see some of the pieces of such an integration.  Sometimes I 
believe an actual religious movement to produce and disseminate this 
integration not as some vision from on high but as the living evolving 
highest understanding and goal/value structure of humankind is utterly 
essential to our survival.  Other times I am frightened of falling into 
old errors and making new dogma to saddle the world with.

Religion that is alive as above is not at all contrary to rational 
thinking.  If a candidate religious system is truly contrary to 
rational thinking then it is simply a deeply flawed attempt at what 
could be helpful.  As long as we believe that religion must be at odds 
with science we haven't a prayer of producing a viable religious 
movement.

- samantha

On Mar 3, 2005, at 7:56 PM, kevinfreels.com wrote:

> I have always thought that transhumanism should embrace its religious 
> aspect
> rather than distancing itself from it.
>
> If most people are indeed geneticlly inclined to be "spiritual", we 
> should
> work with their irrational minds rather than against them Religion is a
> powerful force and if we could tap into it properly, we could save the 
> human
> race.....Kind of reminds me of Dune now that I think of it. Who will 
> play
> the part of Leto II and set us on the Golden Path?
>
> Religion changes over time. Which religion would be the easiest to 
> change to
> something more transhumanistic? Or would it be better to create a new
> religion? What would it take to do that? Can a set of beliefs be 
> created
> that can meld any partivular religion into something more extropian?
>
> I know that religion is contrary to rational thinking, but I don't 
> think
> that getting rid of religion is an option. I'd be interested in 
> everyone's
> opinion in this matter.
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
> To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 2:51 PM
> Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheism in Decline
>
>
>> http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/breaking2453432.91875.html
>>
>> God not so dead: Atheism
>> in decline worldwide
>>
>> By Uwe Siemon-Netto
>> UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
>> Thursday, March 3, 2005
>> Gurat, France - There seems to be a growing consensus around the globe
>> that godlessness is in trouble.
>>
>> "Atheism as a theoretical position is in decline worldwide," Munich
>> theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg told United Press International 
>> Tuesday.
>>
>>
>> His Oxford colleague Alister McGrath agrees. Atheism's "future seems
>> increasingly to lie in the private beliefs of individuals rather than
>> in the great public domain it once regarded as its habitat," he wrote
>> in the U.S. magazine, Christianity Today.
>>
>> Two developments are plaguing atheism these days. One is that it
>> appears to be losing its scientific underpinnings. The other is the
>> historical experience of hundreds of millions of people worldwide that
>> atheists are in no position to claim the moral high ground.
>>
>> Writes Turkish philosopher Harun Yahya, "Atheism, which people have
>> tried to for hundreds of years as 'the ways of reason and science,' is
>> proving to be mere irrationality and ignorance."
>>
>> As British philosopher Anthony Flew, once as hard-nosed a humanist as
>> any, mused when turning his back on his former belief: It is, for
>> example, impossible for evolution to account for the fact than one
>> single cell can carry more data than all the volumes of the
>> Encyclopedia Britannica put together.
>>
>> Flew still does not accept the God of the Bible. But he has embraced
>> the intelligent design concept of scholars such as William Dembski who
>> only four years ago claimed to have been mobbed by pro-evolutionist
>> colleagues at - of all places - Baylor University, a highly respected
>> Southern Baptist institution in Waco, Tex.
>>
>> The stunning desertion of a former intellectual ambassador of secular
>> humanism to the belief in some form of intelligence behind the design
>> of the universe makes Yahya's prediction sound probable: "The time is
>> fast approaching when many people who are living in ignorance with no
>> knowledge of their Creator will be graced by faith in the impending
>> post-atheist world."
>>
>> A few years ago, European scientists sniggered when studies in the
>> United States - for example, at Harvard and Duke universities - showed
>> a correlation between faith, prayer and recovery from illness. Now
>> 1,200 studies at research centers around the world have come to 
>> similar
>> conclusions, according to "Psychologie Heute," a German journal,
>> citing, for example, the marked improvement of multiple sclerosis
>> patients in Germany's Ruhr District due to "spiritual resources."
>>
>> Atheism's other Achilles heel are the acts on inhumanity and lunacy
>> committed in its name. As McGrath relates in Christianity Today: "With
>> time (atheism) turned out to have just as many frauds, psychopaths, 
>> and
>> careerists as religion does. ... With Stalin and Madalyn Murray 
>> O'Hair,
>> atheism seems to have ended up mimicking the vices of the Spanish
>> Inquisition and the worst televangelists, respectively."
>>
>> John Updike's observation, "Among the repulsions of atheism for me has
>> been is drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position," 
>> appears
>> to become common currency throughout much of the West. The Rev. Paul 
>> M.
>> Zulehner, dean of Vienna University's divinity school and one of the
>> world's most distinguished sociologists of religion, told UPI Tuesday:
>> "True atheists in Europe have become an infinitesimally small group.
>> There are not enough of them to be used for sociological research."
>>
>> The only exceptions to this rule, Zulehner said, are the former East
>> Germany and the Czech Republic, where, as the saying goes,
>> de-Christianization has been the only proven success of these regions'
>> former communist rulers.
>>
>> Zulehner cautions, however, that in the rest of Europe
>> re-Christianization is by no means occurring. "What we are observing
>> instead is a re-paganization," he went on, and this worries Christian
>> theologians such as Munich's Pannenberg and the Rev. Gerald McDermott,
>> an Episcopal priest and professor of religion and philosophy at 
>> Roanoke
>> College in Salem, Va.
>>
>> For although in every major European city except Paris spirituality is
>> booming, according to Zulehner, this only proves the emergence of a
>> diffuse belief system, Pannenberg said, but not the revitalization of
>> traditional Christian religious faith.
>>
>> Observing a similar phenomenon in the United States, McDermott stated
>> that the "rise of all sorts of paganism is creating a false
>> spirituality that proves to be a more dangerous rival to the Christian
>> faith than atheism."
>>
>> After all, a Satanist is also "spiritual."
>>
>> Pannenberg, a Lutheran, praised the Roman Catholic Church for handling
>> this peril more wisely than many of his fellow Protestants. "The
>> Catholics stick to the central message of Christianity without making
>> any concessions in the ethical realm," he said, referring to issues
>> such as same-sex "marriages" and abortion.
>>
>> In a similar vain, Zulehner, a Catholic, sees Christianity's greatest
>> opportunity when its message addresses two seemingly irreconcilable
>> quests of contemporary humanity - the quest for freedom and truth.
>> "Christianity alone affirms that truth and God's dependability are
>> inseparable properties to which freedom is linked."
>>
>> As for the "peril of spirituality," Zulehner sounded quite sanguine. 
>> He
>> concluded from his research that in the long run the survival of
>> worldviews should be expected to follow this lineup:
>>
>> "The great world religions are best placed," he said. As a distant
>> second he sees the diffuse forms of spirituality. Atheism, he 
>> insisted,
>> will come in at the tail end.
>>
>>
>>
>> =====
>> Mike Lorrey
>> Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
>> "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
>> It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
>>                                       -William Pitt (1759-1806)
>> Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
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