counter-thought:

what if in a future humanistic society, some professor is saying, 'hundreds of years ago, a deity apparently revealed himself to a sacred priestly class known as the televangelists but we haven't heard anything since free psychological counseling was available to pre-schizophrenic schoolchildren'

the whole dot-com bubble does not exactly support your assumption that modern communication media brings the end of non reliable transmission of beliefs. remember the guy who sold a book called 'dow 36000' in nov 2000? talk about some wackp revealed truth...

Religion can easily survive modern communication. Whether an idea sticks has nothing to do with the medium, but the mindset of the viewer. Witness how relatively recent political and social events are forgotten or altered almost week-to-week.

And, at least according to the Vatican (among many others), folks are seeing Jeebus or Momma Mary all the time. The Vatican just recently sainted some girl for seeing Mary.

I believe humans are innately religious. It has evolved in us due to its positive survival value, and even further I feel we have evolved to actually be self-ignorant. We do not engage in rational behavior, we engage in rationalizing behavior. The majority of people will always be religious regardless of the "facts". Remember, most of the people in the US believe in angels; you know, the kind with wings.

- Lorne

Ummm I have to disagree that humans are "innately" (or whatever word was used) religious. If that were true, you wouldnt have to shove it down peoples throats over and over again.

Think of it this way. Animistic and primitive elemental beliefs were easy because people were constantly in the elements, and always exposed to the "gods" they were creating.

Most modern "God" belief systems require CONSTANT maintenance of the god message as well. Think how many times a year someone goes to church. How often they are supposed to read the bible. How many times they have to spread the message, by bombarding people with it.

If it was natural, innate, everyone would just do it. There would be no need to constantly indoctrinate and repeat your message, as people would be naturally inclined to participate in your movement. As it is, there is the constant battle against people "losing their faith", the negative view of waking up and realizing God is less important than a banana.

As far as the communication thing goes, I think it depends on how the communication is used. If it is used to make us more civilized in a real way, then theism will drop to the way side. If it is used as another tool of propganda and indoctrination, then it will promote religion as another tool of oppression.

Interesting. I try not to have an opinion on eastern religions, because people are always saying how they are different and all.

But it seems from a lot of what I read, that its sort of similar. I mean, what is the point of God except we are nothing before him. And what is the point of Zen except we are nothing. Maybe a more direct message, and some elements are different, but very like minded.

I know the usual arguments, no guilt in Zen, etc. I am not really bashing any type of religion, remember, I am sort of against them all.

I generally prefer more humanist systems, where it seems a real effort was put into figuring out how people actually are, rather than some view of how culture tells us they should be. The real problem with most religions is they should be transitory, but they end up enduring as some of institution no longer applicable to the times. A good humanistic "way to live" that does not proscribe typical human patterns of behaviour, yet rather promote them. A "way to live" that works for everyone, not just some people.

As long as Im dreaming, I want to make out with Salma Hayek too.

How about the "Turd Rule". Treat other people as you would treat your own crap.

Well, I was more trying to be ironic than expressing an actual philosophy or advancing my personal ethical imperative. The "Turd Rule" is the view I currently see the majority of culture taking, both with its oppressing capitalistic drives, American foreign and domestic policy, etc. This sort of mentality is sustainable as long as the majority of America buys into administration and religious propoganda, and continues to move away from humanistic realities. Eventually we will all be poor and hungry enough to attack the people who have used us so basely to build them beautiful homes and to build them large armies with lots of guns and toys.

Thanks for handing me my ass though. Some days I cant find it, but today I know exactly where it is.

Yeah, I have to argue that my making just about (maybe a little less than) 3 times the poverty level compared to 880,000 times the poverty level pay (median CEO pay at the 100 largest companies in Fortune's survey, according to www.raisethefloor.org/press_c...ped.html ) for a high level CEO.

I mean, should I wish to be more towards the bottom so that they could be more towards the top?

If its a matter of degree, I cant hope to try and make anything better for anyone else until I am in at least a comfortable place. I have lived at and below the poverty line, and you cant do much but try and eat.

You know I encourage you (Kage, my roomate) to activism, and that I participate myself. I would certainly, happily, forgoe any sort of rise in my level of comfort, if the CEO's mentioned above would forfeit half their incomes to 440,000 of their OWN employess who were making poverty level income. Of course the CEOs would still be at a rate of pay 146 times greater than mine. Am I still somehow at fault?

It is an institutional stance to shift the blame away from those at the top of the pyramid to thise at the middle. The less people who are in the middle, the less they will fight those at the top as they are too afraid of losing what comforts they have. Those at the bottom are left to their own impoverished devices. The more you flatten out that pyramid, something rarely if ever done in modern society, the more people you have in the middle. The eventual goal being, of course, for a nearly level line in which everyone has enough, not more or less than, some arbitrary amount of goods and services.

Of course you know all this, Kage. I just like lecturing you to see what sort of response you come up with.

If "God reveals Himself" to yourself nowadays you are:
A. defined as a schizophrenic and probably medicated, or
B. on drugs (self- medicated)

Why would god need to reveal himself is my main question. If he were neccesary, wouldnt his presence be readily apparent as in animism?

What you are talking about is the "immediacy" of information...but not the "reliability" of information. We live in a society of the spectacle, and although we can experience many things from around the world, we are increasingly "experiencing" them through more and more levels of intermediation. Now think of the guy on the camel. Do you think you are closer to the source of information than say, the guy 3 towns away? I would challenge that assumption. I would say that we are even MORE removed from the truth even though information is easily and immediately accessible. Because most information "wants to be worthless". Just look around at recent world events to see what affect hearsay, assumption, and exaggeration still have on our entire world.

I found an interesting quote the other day: democratic societies are often the MOST easy to fool, since their populace is convinced they cannot be fooled and therefore have their guard down.