As Above, So Below - the religion thread (formerly: People of California, beware)

I think I just argued quite extensively against that very notion?



Ahhh, now that's a different kettle of dolphins.
Give it time, mate, give it time...

Why????
<Honestly, completely and utterly >

As Demetris said. Having unlimited possibilites means also an unlimited responsibility for the WHOLE universe and that's very scary, since look at the idiots who often rule the world. I guess the fear of this responsibility and the security that is connected to the feeling that some power above us is ruling the world is one of the reasons behind the creation of religion.

Yes, this is what is a problem on many levels. We may be discussing now if we can know all, but on a different level this has a lot to do with what we think is normal and right. What we learn by culture is what we consider normal and other cultures are labelled as weird or wrong. On an even smaller scale the same happens in upbringing. For a long time we think the family we grow up in is normal and different families are weird.

Unfortunately too many people grow up still thinking they are normal and right and everyone else is weird and wrong...


Hm, well, I understand what you mean, but I also try to see things in perspective. 100 years ago the possibilities of the internet would have scared many people to death as well (and it does so nowadays too to some people) just to name one thing.

The only difference with these days is that our technological development seems to increase exponentially so we should make sure our moral development can keep up!! In the older days when things were developping a bit slower we could adjust morally a bit easier perhaps...

Yes, I understand, but that's not what I mean.
I don't know how else to explain the kind of limit I'm talking about. Maybe with this question:
Do you think there will be a time when we will be able to understand things from a non-human point of view?

I don't think so, our point of view will be limited. No matter what we will discover and understand in the future, we can never go beyond being human. Even if humanity evolves in ways we cannot think of now, it's still humanity! Being human itself is the limit I'm talking about.

Kieslowski once said that he follows a heavily unpopular religion - faith in people.

In general, I believe in people and have achieved pretty much due to that. I started to learn that people tend to give you what you expect from them.

But on the other hand, if we look at history and see people like *cough* Hitler, Stalin *cough*, Ted Bundy or others, we can ask question what would happen if we had limitless possibilites, that could be VERY painful.

The science also goes into making life easier for people. Great, but it's two-sided. With the help of machines and stuff, people become weaker and weaker. They think less. Let's look at IT.

At the earliest times, when computers literally took rooms of space, programming demanded knowledge of the computer's architecture and, also in most cases, the machine code. Today binary and hexadecimal numeral systems, which, of course, is still obligatory for people who want to use assembly language (the famed assembler) with its code based on both knowledge of the processors registers, interrupt requests and memory. (for example, I might be mistaken, but I want to show the general idea:

MOV ah, 4Ch
INT 21h

That moves (puts?) the value 4Ch (h stands for hexadecimal) in the higher byte (ie. 8 bits) of the AX register and invokes interrupt 21h which was reserved for the MS-DOS system. If memory serves me well, this was the "exit to system" command - interrupts always performed commands given to that byte).

Other, MUCH simpler programming languages were created and even basic school education (at least that was the case in Poland) teaches the base of structural (e.g. based on functions and procedures - certain structures performing a bunch of necessary operations) programming, mostly for algorithmic thinking purpose. If you have, e.g., Visual Basic, you can create a decent Windows application in literally minutes.

Another thing is the evolution of operating systems. At first they demanded, again, the knowledge of disk structure and basic written commands. Today you do THE SAME stuff with a mere click or double-click dependant on system. Hell, even UNIX (mostly known in the form of open-source Linux) , which was the most difficult (admittedly) system to learn due to some of the commands not really based on basic English word (rm as DELETE, for example, it doesn't take much time to notice it means REMOVE, not to mention that I think the alias DEL is used in the console, but still, it may be pretty hard to learn for some users) has its own graphical user interface (GUI) which can be entered directly after booting!

Of course, we also have Macintosh computers, which sport a mouse and icon based interface since their beginning (the famous System, now renamed as MacOS) and if I remember well (will do my research about it if necessary) Microsoft actually collaborated with them for a while and there was some controversy about MS Windows, I think. I know for sure that Microsoft was supposed to develop OS/2 for IBM, but they backed off to work on their own 32-bit system.

This little, maybe sometimes erroneus and hard to follow, essay is supposed to prove that technical development, while discovered by really intelligent and often genial people, is supposed to dumb people down. I, for one, got an Atari emulator once just because... I wanted to do some Basic. I also have a DOS emulator for old games. Sometimes I want to spend some time on Linux console, just because I am bored with mouse. Call me an idiot, but yes, I do have that kind of thing.

"The Lord took him!"

A good example of that would be GPS in the car... people have no idea anymore where they are!

But I don't agree on thinking less. There was quite some thinking involved in creating these machines and technology and people have to keep thinking about how to use technology the right way.

No, they don't know! People trust GPS blindly, almost literally. When that thing breaks down some people have no idea where they are at all. They follow the directions without looking around and thinking about where they are and which way they are going.

GPS has the same effect as being a driver's mate. When you have to drive yourself you remember where you drive. When you are in the passengers seat you don't pay attention. The same with GPS, you don't pay attention yourself at all.

This happened to me the other day. Someone picked me up from the station by foot and we walked to her home. When I had to go back she said 'you know now how to get back to the station right?' and I thought 'oops... forgot to pay attention on the way over here'. So she gave me the directions and I walked back and I did not recognize a thing... just because we were talking on the way over there and I was simply following her and not looking around.

I am awful with things like that. Sometimes I ask how do I get back? An then people say, the exact same way you got here! But I never understood that because it all looks different from the other side right?? When you go somewhere you don't look behind you... well, that's what you see when you go back! So I think 'the exact same way' does not make sense at all... hehe


Anyway, I just hope people will keep reading maps and following signs on the road, just to train the coordination a bit. Just like we keep exercising instead of hunting food.

Check this out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7681914.stm

Hmmm.... You know I'm not too fond of atheist or antitheist humanism.

In the Netherlands the 'Humanistisch Verbond' (Dutch Humanist Association) had a campaign like that. Not on busses! But in newspapers and such. They also used slogans that were joking with religion a bit.

Now, since humanists don't agree on many things (one of the reasons why humanism is hard to define) this campaign was also causing some discussion. Personally I see myself more as a plurifum humanist and I like diversity and I hate moralising. Sometimes it scares me a bit though when I'm not too sure people are able to think independently and focus on life here on earth and make moral decisions based on human feelings, thoughts and experiences.

Anyway, personally my slogan would be simply 'Don't worry, enjoy your life' but I understand they wanted to react to the religious campaigns that were all over the place apparently.

Yes, that was my point as well. When you want other people to be against something you are as much telling someone else what to do as when you want people to be pro something.

But the problem is humanists don't get much support because they don't have many specific statements. So the reason they chose a point of view like this is so it gets noticed. It's a true dilemma in humanism. In the Netherlands 60 % of the people agree with humanist values and beliefs. But the number of people who support humanism or call themself a humanist is very low. Humanist often don't like labels, so basically they are digging their own grave. For instance because many are pro pluriformity, it's hard to define humanism and have a campaign. Other humanists therefore argue they need to make more clear and distinguishing statements they stand for. And that's why there are campaigns like this, they want to show a point of view opposite to the other point of view, otherwise they won't get heard.

But like I said, many humanists don't agree with campaigns like this.

I really understand what you say and I agree.

But this is about humanist organisations. They need support. Many humanist values are seen as just western values and are taken for granted.

I already explained it a bit in my other post, but the paradox is that humanists don't like the idea of organising, they like to be independent and free, something the organisation is fighting for!

So the organisation does not get enough members and money.
One example of why it's a pity is the broadcasting networks. Each religious group gets time on TV to broadcast and the more Hindus, the more time Hindu TV gets. The same with Muslims, Christians, etc. So, they look at the number of 'humanists' and see there are not many. While 60% of Dutch people agree with humanist live view. So HUMAN does not get much time on TV and that's a shame.

Other things the Dutch Humanist Association has been fighting for in the past is equal rights for women, homosexuals, human rights in general and now autonomy and euthanasia are hot items. They just need members and support for that.

Well, the thing is that humanism is far more a state of mind than it is a belief system.
Humanism doesn't have a Book Of Truth. Humanism doesn't have clearly defined guidelines.

In humanism you would be perfectly justified in practising the slogan "don't worry, just enjoy your life". I on the other hand (being slightly () more moralising) would add "do the right thing as per social agreement and/or law"...and that would be perfectly alright too!
And of course both standards could lead to hour-long discussions and provoke as many positive as negative reactions within humanist-minded people.
It's just not as clear-cut as "kill witches" or "don't eat pork".
And we all know that man in general loves clear boundaries to live his life by. So it's no wonder an amalgam of man-centered considerations doesn't find a clear and defined audience...no matter how many people subscribe to its core values.