Cornered the charity market?? Oh my, too silly, good for a laugh, thanks.Thing is, the Catholics cornered the market. For some time it was actually not easy for secular helpers to even gain employment in the sector.
This is the same old thing every ideology always says. "We are on the move, ascendant, soon everyone will realize we were right all along, and then the utopia will come etc etc." Except that it never happens. Atheist communists used every available method to try to stamp out religion in Russia and China, and look what happened. Communism lasted mere decades, and religion is now once again blooming in those countries, just as it has for endless centuries.I think of religion's benefits as diminishing returns as they approach the end of its useful life. The developed world is expected to be almost entirely secular in around two hundred years.
America is one of the richest countries in the world, and Christian churches are on every third corner in every city across the nation. Religion typically addresses the fundamental human condition, which has little to do with one's bank account.It is the underprivileged who will retain, and benefit from, religion. When life is hard enough, hope that a better one awaits in the afterlife might be all that keeps a person going.
I can agree, they are just skillfully serving a very widely held culture wide assumption that "more is better" when it comes to knowledge. That assumption was very true for very long, but does not take in to account the revolutionary nature of the knowledge explosion now underway. The times have changed, but we have not.I don't see the science community as the problem at all.
If one challenges that dangerously outdated assumption, you will quickly be labeled a Luddite. But it is really those who insist on thinking the same old way about knowledge as we have thought about it for thousands of years who are clinging to the past. They are unable to adapt to the new environment being created by the knowledge explosion, and we are all likely going to pay a dear price for it.
Ha, ha, yes, I agree, theists are the cause of all problems everywhere at all times. Oh, and atheists are universally utterly blameless in every case, period!The issue is conservative politicians and media moguls, mostly theists, and some with significant vested in fossil fuels, who are deriding and undermining scientists' warnings. Some of them are no doubt welcoming the apocalypse and the Rapture because then all wrongdoers will be punished and the righteous (ie. them and theirs) will be rewarded with eternal life.
And yet they keep developing new knowledge at an ever faster rate, a process which is simply not sustainable. Human beings can only successfully manage so much power, which means the knowledge explosion is a process of racing towards that moment when we find out where the limits of our ability are. The science clergy doesn't get this, because to face it would be to undermine their own cultural power.Scientists have been warning about sustainability since the 70s, at least.
I think you are far too liberal with your urge to label all of organized religion as being bad. Seems like an emotional bias to me. It's too big an enterprise to define so simplistically. That said, I'm not really disputing your point above.I think what we can take from spirituality - which I see as largely separate, and often antithetical to, organised religion - is valuing of inner experiences.
Here's how it works though. At the moment we try to explain experiences we think of as "spiritual", at the moment we reach out to others who hold similar explanations, the seed of organized religion sprouts a few new green leaves above the ground.
If we wish to avoid organized religion at all costs, then these experiences are best kept private and unexplained, even to ourselves. Some mystics have walked this path, but because it is a quiet private path free of explanations, they will not influence the larger culture. Thus, those who organize efforts to sell their explanations will come to dominate the culture.
Point being, to the degree that you insist that "spiritual" experiences not become organized religions, you are surrendering the field to those you most oppose. The Catholics have dominated western civilization because they are willing to explain, organize and sell. If you decline to compete, they win.
You can of course continue to sell the atheist dogmas. But that will persuade only your fellow atheists, who are already persuaded. Preaching to the choir.
You'll never win over the religious by repeatedly telling them that what they've been doing for thousands of years is engaging in ignorant superstitions. It's entirely illogical for atheist ideologues to cling to such an ineffective strategy. And that's a problem if what you are selling is logic.
Ormond wrote:This is true, but again, you're doing the same old thing of ignoring atheist crimes
Nope, nope and nope. I've learned that having that conversation with those who can't see the history of atheist crimes for themselves is entirely pointless. You're on your own here, see it or not, up to you. If you wish to declare victory, so be it, no complaints.Could you name one please? Preferably more.
Yes. To put it more precisely, it's going to collapse because we all cling to an outdated "more is better" relationship with knowledge, which the science community skillfully serves.Civilisation is going to collapse because of science?
It is science which is empowering humanity to do more of the stupid things we've always done, but now on an existential scale. The easiest example is warfare. We've always had wars, but they were local affairs and not a threat to global civilization. And then the physics fellows decided they would "help" and now war is a threat to global civilization.It seems to me that you are blaming scientists for the problems they are working so hard to overcome.
Please don't get stuck in arguing the blame game. I'm not interested in blaming scientists or making them the bad guys. They are just doing what we hire them to do.
The threat arises from bad philosophy. The entire culture (not just scientists) is clinging to an outdated simplistic "more is better" relationship with knowledge that was once true, instead of adapting to the new environment that's been created by that assumption. The world we inhabit is changing radically, and we are not. Failure to adapt to new environments typically results in species extinction, whatever the species is.
That wasn't the question. How will Higgs Boson research kill parasites, or provide any other medical benefit? Point being, we are wasting huge resources on research that provides no benefit to human beings. We are largely unwilling to be discriminating, insisting all knowledge is good no matter what.I suggest that medicine - devised via the scientific method - will help to cure infants from parasites.
We can't afford it anymore. We have very pressing existential problems which will kill us soon if we don't get our act together, thus ending all research for ever. That lack of understanding lies with those who think we can keep on doing the same old thing forever, with those who ignore the reality of where knowledge development has brought us. You think you're arguing for the future, but really you are arguing for the past, for continuing to think and do the same old things, blindly ignoring that today is no longer the past.A serious problem for the scientific community is lack of understanding by laypersons of the usefulness and significance of "blue sky" research.
Apologies, but you are not qualified to have that conversation. Happy to engage you again should that change.Please provide the "atheist" crimes. I take it that any crime committed by a non-believer is considered an atheist crime?
-- Updated May 26th, 2016, 9:22 am to add the following --
More mindless self serving rationalizations from the science clergy.Somebody wrote:. While the discovery of the Higgs may not have any discernible applications just yet, they might just be one "Eureka!" away.
What he didn't say is that we had the option to spend that money on research which we know for a fact would benefit us. What he didn't say is that we didn't need to wonder if maybe someday we will receive a benefit for the billions spent. Duh!!!
See Greta? The words you quoted are just nonsense, but you suck them in willingly and without question because they come from the science clergy, the new unquestioned holy authorities of modern culture.
That lack of questioning is the same relationship we had with Catholic clerics in the 8th century. You think you've transcended all that, but really you've just jumped from unquestioning worship of one authority to unquestioning worship of another authority.
This is what I'm bellowing against. Not science or scientists, but our unthinking unquestioning relationship with them.
Scientists typically have the best of intentions and pursue their goals with great skill. But they don't see where they are leading us. And if we worship their authority without questioning, then we won't see what's coming either. And if nobody sees the coming catastrophe, it's going to happen for sure.