From: FutureQ (futureq@attbi.com)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 16:59:08 MDT
nanowave wrote:
>
> Now on to what FutureQ wrote.
>
> "belief causes people to believe exploiting the earth is their god given
> right
> which may lead to environmental destruction"
>
> Come, come now my fellow transhumanist; and I too am an atheist by the way.
> Every time you open your nostrils to suck air into your lungs, you are
> exploiting the earth. It's all a matter of degree, and it's exceedingly hard
> to find two people who agree on just how much exploitation is too much.
I think you know what I meant. There is a difference between exploitation and
use. I could have added more adjectives such as "wanton exploitation" but I
figured everyone here could figure out my meaning with fewer glam words.
You have the religious right wing wackos aligning with the
screw-the-environementalist-tree-huggers repubs, neither group well educated,
and all voting to keep on, ahem 'wantonly', 'blindly', disregarding their
childrens future--ly' exploiting. Oh and why not?! After all GAWD is coming
again soon to burn it all down and start over anyway!! Party time!!
> You write: "belief causes people to justify war, prejudice, hate and
> genocide"
>
> Well I suppose that *we believe* Saddam is a bugger and a threat, so that
> belief justifies war and thus by default prejudice (i.e. us good, them bad).
> But I don't suppose anyone is claiming we should hate the Iraqis in this
> case.
I don't hate the Iraqis... not for their ignorance nor their religion or lack
thereof, nor do I advocate it. It's unfortunate they don't seem capable of
uprooting the guy that will cause them so much grief.
> As for genocide, granted that seems to be generally confined to
> zealotry - except wasn't Hitler's Nazi Germany somewhat secular? I guess we
> might transpose the fatherland for god though.
Hitler was not secular. See here.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/william_edelen/religionviolence.html
[begin quote]
Hitler had religion and wanted more of it for Germany. He was a Roman Catholic
and was confirmed as a "soldier of Christ" in that church. He was steeped in its
liturgy. Hatred of the Jews was promoted in Germany by Catholics and Lutherans.
In his book MEIN KAMPF Hitler wrote: "I am completely convinced that I am acting
as the agent of God. I am now a Catholic and will always remain so." [end quote]
> You write: "belief in god and an afterlife causes people to cheapen the
> value of life leading to sending their young to war and stifling research
> into medicine"
>
> Maybe, but you glom too many things together here. Cheapening the value of
> life may be a good tactic for sending the young off to war and I won't argue
> that religion sometimes takes this tack, but war clearly benefits medical
> research in many cases - i.e. Hey, these guys keep dying when we saw their
> wounded legs off, now what on earth might be causing that? Or - if someone
> drops biological weapons on our guys (and gals) how can we protect them from
> harm?
I suppose we should have more war to ramp up the research engine toward
immortality then? Some will die so others may live... hmmm, sounds familiar
somehow. Pardon my tease. Again you knew full well what I meant. But next time I
will separate things better even if it means repeating something and more typing
for me more reading for others.
More precisely I meant the same attitude, "Why worry? GAWD is coming/has heaven
waiting/will cure you/is against this science stuff.", prevails in stiffling
medical research. I happen to need stem cell research to both walk and to escape
diabetes. I'm none to happy that religious folks are against such research on
purely ignorant reasons. Suffer me not the good intentions of fools!
FutureQ
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