From: Brent Allsop (allsop@fc.hp.com)
Date: Tue Jul 03 2001 - 17:12:49 MDT
"J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com> answered why we should want
to "debunk" religion with:
> Because we won't move into a better future until we defeat
> religiosity, which is the most regressive force now operating in
> society.
To me, religion is simply "a way of life" so everyone has one.
Mine happens to be extropianism.
But this is all probably just semantic differences. To me all
theistic religions should definitely be "debunked", fought against,
considered evil and hopeless. It's for the simple reason, that if
there is already a God (or any powerful ET out their hiding from us),
then what extropians want to do (eliminate all bad [or evil>]) cannot
be done, even if we become as powerful as these Gods. For if they
can't, or shouldn't, or don't help us overcome it faster/sooner we
can't or shouldn't or won't help our children and others we find in
the universe the same way.
My definition of God is simply: That for which when it exists,
there will be no more evils like isolation, suffering, dieing... To
believe there is already a "God" while there is still such evils
cannot be "faith" or "hope" but instead is the ultimate in giving up
in faithless despair. For that means something like God is impotent,
evil, or that evil is for some reason so necessary, even God can't
overcome it.... with the implication that we too, will not be able
to overcome it all even if we become as powerful as that God supposedly
is.
Only an atheist can have true faith an hope. Believing in
God is not only "faithless", but it results in many other
fundamentally evil beliefs and behaviors like hate and so on (as in
Christians hate their devil, the people that crucified Christ...).
You cannot, thereby, both believe in God (or ETs or anything else that
is powerful and out there hiding from us) and be an extropian. The
two are logically mutually exclusive.
Brent Allsop
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