Quote:
Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination
Holy shit Blonde, you're way off here. It's fine on some level to be skeptical about anything the government says, but your hatred of religion is clearly clouding your reasoning.
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I can agree with this, I was mostly just venting the rest of my frustration with the rest of the world on this particular topic.
Not to go off-topic, but I really do see religion and the kind of thought process that leads to religious belief as being a gigantic hindrance to the human species. I don't really care that much about the Bin Laden thing as much as I care in general that Beebs is correct, that simply not burying a dead terrorist in the "proper" way in this day and age would put a large population of the world in uproar, but everybody seems fine letting so much else slide -- wars, genocides, female genital mutilation, sex trafficking, racial superiority, hell, class superiority, just so much general disrespect for each other and then people get angry about the most meaningless shit when it comes to "high profile" people. It's incredibly frustrating to see things like people lobbying for an assassination, then taking then having the gall to pretend like they have any sanctity for respecting the culture of a man (who they have been on an international manhunt to kill for years), or in the case of people who publicly cheer many state-executions, but then call themselves pro-life. Obviously I could go on and on. I was mainly just venting about human society in general, which, in the grand scheme, is awful.
Bottom line in IMHO is that religion and desperately and emotionally clinging to "cultural customs" is holding us back immensely. I may be emotional on this issue but at least i'm
trying to at least reason and outline some form of future. When it comes to conservatives, all over the world, I simply do not understand the concept of permanent stasis and "traditional values" and keeping them throughout generations.
I've been reading a lot of Arthur C. Clarke lately, and while he's all over the place in his different books regarding the future of humanity, I read a part recently in
Childhood's End (in which a (so far, haven't finished yet) benevolent alien species rules over Earth, becoming like our parents. At one point, the Aliens respond to the humans at a press conference because they have been complaining that the Aliens wont' let let them explore space:
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"And there are other reasons why we have restricted the human race to Earth. Watch."
The lights dimmed and vanished. As they faded, a milky opalescence formed in the center of the room. It congealed into a whirlpool of stars -- a spiral nebula seen from a point far beyond its outermost sun.
"No human eyes have ever seen this sight before." said Karellen's voice from the darkness. "You are looking at your own Universe, the island galaxy of which your sun is a member, from a distance of a million light years."
There was a long silence, then Karellen continued, and now his voice held something that was not quite pity and not precisely scorn.
"Your race had shown a notable incapacity for dealing with the problems of your own rather small planet. When we arrived, you were on the point of destroying yourselves with the powers that science had rashly given you. Without our intervention, the Earth today would be a radioactive wilderness.
"Now you have a world at peace, and a united race. Soon you will be sufficiently civilized to run your planet without our assistance. Perhaps you could eventually handle the problems of an entire solar system ---say fifty moons and planets. But do you really imagine that you could ever cope with THIS?"
The nebula expanded. Now the individual stars were rushing past, appearing and vanishing as swiftly as sparks from a foge. And each of those transient sparks was a sun, with who knew how many circling worlds ...
"In this galaxy of ours," murmured Karellen, " there are eighty thousand million suns. Even that figure gives only a faint idea of the immensity of space. In challenging it, you would be like ants attempting to label and classify all the grains of sand in all the deserts of all the world."
"Your race, in its present stage of evolution, cannot face that stupendous challenge. One of my duties has been to protect you from the powers and forces that lie among the stars --- forces beyond anything that you can ever imagine."
The image of the galaxy's swirling fire-mists faded: light returned to the sudden silence of the great chamber. Karellen turned to go: the audience was over. At the door he paused and looked back upon the hushed crowd.
"It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for man."