25th April 2004, 10:51 AM
Quote:Putting words in my mouth, Weltall. As far as we know, we are the highest intelligence; but the universe is unexplored, there could be highly developed aliens out there.
I would say it is likely, actually. Look at the animals on the Earth! Oh, sure, none of them come close to us in intelligence... but the most intelligent apes are as smart as very young children. That should say that we aren't necessarially the smartest possible creatures in the universe...
But God is a different issue. Weltall doesn't just want something smarter than us, he wants it to have influence on us as well... something smarter but far away and unconnected to us doesn't solve the "problem".
It doesn't answer that (self-centered, and, IMO, not too logical) point religious people seem to have about how how everything couldn't have gotten to how it is without aid... how the universe it ordered and created just right for us, or something like that. That, to me, sounds just like in the Middle Ages when they said how we were in the center of the universe! Clearly because we exist we are perfect, the epitome of development...
Seriously, how self-centered can you get? Okay, so the universe is governed by rules that allow life. Why? No one knows, I'll give you that much. But taking that farther, to saying that somehow some greater being not only created the universe but that we are so special that something HAS to have helped us along... sheer ego. Nothing more.
Quote:Nothing--nothing at all, it's stark, comparatively sad, and miserable. Thusly unpopular. But doing things because they're pleasant, if not true, is no reason to be done.
As I have said many times.
Quote:You're quite right again; life IS indeed pointless. Produce; spread your seed, and then die. Do you want to know why we have no point? Because we weren't designed; we evolved from the simplest organic compounds, without direction.
Most people just would not be able to cope if they believed that there is no greater purpose, I think... it is a depressing thought, for sure, but as you say... deluding yourself for the purpose of happiness... I don't know. I don't like it. Religious people do, obviously, but I'd rather stay in the real world.
Is it harmful (to believe)? If you keep it to yourself, no, not really. As I've said, there are definite benefits... the problem is that that's impossible, it seems. Belief breeds unthinking, and unthinking breeds hatred of other beliefs... a cycle that leads to endless religious conflict... and nice helpful people showing up on your doorstep every so often with the good news that you can be saved if you join now! :)
Quote:Soviet Russia quest to destroy religion was tyranical , They would grab hole families put them at gun point and say sign this papper stating that you dont believe in god and swear loyalty to the mother land, If they didnt want to give up their faith, They would take away their children and they would be orphaned and never see their parents again, The parents would be put away to siberia and they would be forced to work in a labour camp and have all their possesions ,families and freinds striped from them .Some would be even tortured to extract information. I studied all about this , Ive read and watched documentory films and books all about that. Some of the families never got to see each other untill 30 years after being seperated.
The Russian orthodox church was hard and trickier to break down, But those genius athiest had a wonderful idea , Lets replace christian orthodox traditions with communist party figures and engage in modern day Emperor worship, They had Lenin mummified and used him as the new Religion.So infact they tried to replace God with a Man.Russia became another example at how a dream of utopia can be twisted into horrible things.
The soviet union is history,Acording to bible chronology it was the king of the North after the Nazi reich as said in the book of Daneil (of course you have no idea what I am talking about )
The Soviet regime was tyrannical in every way. It was just a new dictatorship from a renamed Czar... same thing really, just new names. Oh, and even MORE killing their own people... the Soviets killed tens of millions of people inside its own borders! So it shouldn't exactly be surprising that they used force to try to stop religion... or that that approach didn't work.
The Nazis were probably more successful at subverting religion, I think. They didn't try to get rid of it but tried to change it for their own ends... and seemed to do pretty well at getting people to believe.