[extropy-chat] Putting God to Rest

[Brent Allsop]

Keith Henson posted:

> 62% secular, atheist

> 24% religious (long list of types)

> 14% other/don't know.

Fascinating! Obviously higher percentage atheist than in the general 
population.

But I think we can and should know much more than just these types of 
crude numbers to way to general of a topic.

Anna, I really appreciated your comments! I’m a member of the Mormon 
Transhumanist Association. (http://transfigurism.org) All of them 
(except for me) definitely believe in God. (I just believe in their 
great culture, and that humans can become God. And there was some 
trepidation about letting me, a devout Atheist in. ;)

I wanted to use the word “Extropy” more in the organization and such but 
I discovered that they don’t like that term, primarily because they 
think all “Extropians” are atheists. They much prefer Transhumanist 
which they all definitely are – as much as they are Mormon.

As far as knowing much more quantitatively, precisely who believes what 
and why, that is precisely the goal of the Canonizer 
(http://test.canonizer.com)

As you can see, there is a structured wikipedia type topic there about 
God. (About the only real topic so far.)

Most MTA members are in this camp:

Agreement / Theist / Monotheism / Christian / LDS / Transhuminist

But I am in this camp:

Agreement / Traditional / Extropian

And to me the most important part of this “camp” about God is that if 
there is already a powerful God, while there is such evil as isolation 
and death… Then were are screwed, and even if we become as powerful as 
him, we will be as impotent as him at eliminating such evils.

I would be interested to know if there is any objection here to my usage 
of the term “Extropian” as a name for this belief about God. And about 
the general usage of the term extropy to refer to an Atheist 
Transhumanist. I would like to see this "Canonized" What do you all think?

And of course, I would like to know precisely what camp all of you, all 
transhumanists, and everyone else is in also. Wouldn’t it be great if 
you knew precisely who believed what, why and all that? And wouldn’t it 
be fun to see when people converted from one camp to another, and to 
find out why and everything? I bet we’d find some real surprises! And 
once all your POV is adequately documented, when the topic comes up 
again on the list, instead of going through the same old same old again, 
you could finally just refer the commenter to your camp’s statement page 
on this (or any other) topic right?!

Currently I have this structured Wiki functionality completed in the 
Canonizer so people can now add their POV. I almost have the 
functionality required to “support” or vote on a camp. I would sure love 
it if all of you would visit there, and each of you basically “cast your 
vote” on what you believe about God. If your POV isn’t contained or 
adequately described in that structure, wouldn’t it be great if someone 
entered a new camp in the proper location to justly represent that POV?

(And remember, it is still just a crude prototype work in progress, any 
and all feedback, and even more – any and all help, would be greatly 
appreciated and compensated [see the what is the Canonizer link on the 
side bar.].)

Just how diverse are all of your beliefs??? Wouldn’t it be great to know 
this precisely and quantitatively???

Brent Allsop