It's not really a fair analogy to invoke animals in my opinion. For one, they don't have the capability to destroy with small likelihood of consequence as we do (my dog isn't quite yet trained with firearms). Second, I don't think my dog can rationalize lying, stealing, killing, etc like humans can. Third - there certainly are animals that will kill with disregard for your family (a bear for instance).
That said, however, you've now invoked a simple trust in human nature to keep chaos from erupting as everyone decides to be their own God and do what makes them "happiest". Take away religion and I'm not sure that balance is going to work out for you. The 20th century was the bloodiest on record - and most of this was at the hands of atheist leaders (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc). I'm not so worried that everyday people would just start killing each other, but I am worried about powerful world leaders that can justify genocide and ethnic cleansing simply because they only have to answer to themselves and those that are on the right side of the killing equation. There really is no argument against a Hitler in an atheist worldview other than "sucks that he didn't choose to be a restrained person of his own good nature".
You may not agree with religion, but I think you vastly underestimate the violence and destruction that will come of a society that completely eradicates a notion of religious morality. It's proven quite dangerous time and time again when those who lead us find themselves unaccountable to God. You are hoping that they all decide to act like tame dogs; I'm worried they will be wild bears.
The world needs you to stick up for what's right, not what makes you feel warm at night at the expense of others.
That's an interesting statement, and it points out a troubling problem with agnosticism/atheism. Without a God, what is "right"? How did you decide? You argue for a notion of what is "right" or "true", but without any universal basis to claim such. This makes statements like this meaningless. Why should I care what you think? Obviously religious folks disagree with you. Those in Ireland apparently feel threatened by your claims, so how do you tell them you are "right" and they are "wrong" and have any objective basis to underpin your argument? In the absence of God, you are simply elevating yourself to the position of God in allowing yourself to set objective truth.
Nietzsche saw this problem. People like to stop with the first 3 words of his most famous quote. They should really read to the end:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Hitler was essentially carrying out Nietzsche's argument to it's natural conclusion. He decided he could choose what was right and chose to murder millions of Jews. How would you argue against him, and what makes you "right"?
If you are going to hold to a universe with no God and cry out for the rest of humanity to join you - you need to consider what to do next. What will be the basis for laws and justice. Who gets to decide?
Actually the 2GHz requirement is overstated. We (ich bin ein IBMer) have run the simulator on laptops in the 1GHz range without any problems. But don't let me ruin your excuse to get a nice new computer!
It struck me one day after many years of intense education and arrogant presumption of superiority, that never once had learning a physics equation made me cry (out of sadness or joy). Never once had a scientific journal article inspired me to sing. Evolution and big bang theory seemed nice but rather bleek.
One week spent building a home for an abused mother brought tears, joy, singing and many others emotions out of me very quickly.
When I thought about it more, I realized that I was spending a lot of time doing what ultimately seemed very meaningless. In time, I found that the teachings of Jesus resonated deep with what I was experiencing. I'm getting off topic, though...
You make a good point. I'm not trying to say that one comes at the exclusion of the other. I think what is important is which one means more to you.
If knowledge is first, then you may seek to replace a relationship with God with increased knowledge. In other words, you may conclude that christianity is bogus because you may conclude Genesis conflicts with Evolution. You would most likely get very upset with anyone teaching creationism or intelligent design over evolution, etc. It seems many on slashdot are indeed upset!
If relationships are first, then the whole argument of creation vs. evolution is rather silly. You would be much more concerned that parents are spending so little time with their children, much less educating them, then you would with a difficult debate on the origins of the universe. Knowledge is still important, but it serves the relationship - not the other way around.
I'm trying to say that it comes down to what motivates you more. The fact that we get so caught up with who is "right" vs what are we to gain from knowing one another, shows that much of our society is setting knowledge as the first priority. As an aside, I believe this is why so much of the corporate world feels so cold and bitter; knowledge/power is key and relationships are more of an afterthought.
I feel the parent poster was making a common mistake (in my opinion) of thinking that somehow "knowledge" was the true enlightened view. From this bias, I believe he or she inaccurately judged the parents fear as a fear of knowledge and therefore irrational.
I think you have come to the wrong conclusion that "these parents FEARED knowledge". I'll try to explain.
Christianity (and many other religions) centers its philosophy around relationships - with God, each other, and self. Life is about getting to know your creator and his son and finding love and joy in relationships with others. Hence, christians like to be with other christians. We like to read books, listen to music, go to store and restaurants where we are likely to meet other christians who share the same philosophy of life. This is no different than comic book lovers congregating, etc.
There is another group (that seems popular on slashdot) that thinks life is all about knowledge. That somehow each new fact we learn will improve our lives and therefore our happiness, etc. They also like to congregate with like-minded people and try to achieve a higher level of knowledge. It seems this course you were a part of shared this knowledge-centered philosophy.
It seems natural to me that these parents wanted to continue their relationships with their children since this has very sound meaning in their life. If their children take on a philosophy where knowledge is so important that it supercedes their relationship with their parents, then I can understand the parents being upset. The fear is not of knowledge - the fear is of losing an important relationship.
I find it curious that you seem to implicitly define knowledge as the most worthy pursuit in life. Having personally pursued this myself, I have found that relationships have proven to be much more enjoyable as a philosophy. I don't see knowledge as a bad thing - I just put relationships first.
This is why when people ask me what I think about creationism vs. evolution, I prefer to turn the question back to them. I get to know something about them first (which is the most important goal). Whether or not I learn something is simply a bonus.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not really a fair analogy to invoke animals in my opinion. For one, they don't have the capability to destroy with small likelihood of consequence as we do (my dog isn't quite yet trained with firearms). Second, I don't think my dog can rationalize lying, stealing, killing, etc like humans can. Third - there certainly are animals that will kill with disregard for your family (a bear for instance).
That said, however, you've now invoked a simple trust in human nature to keep chaos from erupting as everyone decides to be their own God and do what makes them "happiest". Take away religion and I'm not sure that balance is going to work out for you. The 20th century was the bloodiest on record - and most of this was at the hands of atheist leaders (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc). I'm not so worried that everyday people would just start killing each other, but I am worried about powerful world leaders that can justify genocide and ethnic cleansing simply because they only have to answer to themselves and those that are on the right side of the killing equation. There really is no argument against a Hitler in an atheist worldview other than "sucks that he didn't choose to be a restrained person of his own good nature".
You may not agree with religion, but I think you vastly underestimate the violence and destruction that will come of a society that completely eradicates a notion of religious morality. It's proven quite dangerous time and time again when those who lead us find themselves unaccountable to God. You are hoping that they all decide to act like tame dogs; I'm worried they will be wild bears.
The world needs you to stick up for what's right, not what makes you feel warm at night at the expense of others.
That's an interesting statement, and it points out a troubling problem with agnosticism/atheism. Without a God, what is "right"? How did you decide? You argue for a notion of what is "right" or "true", but without any universal basis to claim such. This makes statements like this meaningless. Why should I care what you think? Obviously religious folks disagree with you. Those in Ireland apparently feel threatened by your claims, so how do you tell them you are "right" and they are "wrong" and have any objective basis to underpin your argument? In the absence of God, you are simply elevating yourself to the position of God in allowing yourself to set objective truth.
Nietzsche saw this problem. People like to stop with the first 3 words of his most famous quote. They should really read to the end:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Hitler was essentially carrying out Nietzsche's argument to it's natural conclusion. He decided he could choose what was right and chose to murder millions of Jews. How would you argue against him, and what makes you "right"?
If you are going to hold to a universe with no God and cry out for the rest of humanity to join you - you need to consider what to do next. What will be the basis for laws and justice. Who gets to decide?
I find that for me jogging 3 miles has the same bowel-moving effect - and much healthier to boot.
Actually the 2GHz requirement is overstated. We (ich bin ein IBMer) have run the simulator on laptops in the 1GHz range without any problems. But don't let me ruin your excuse to get a nice new computer!
Thank you. I'm glad to have some company :-).
It struck me one day after many years of intense education and arrogant presumption of superiority, that never once had learning a physics equation made me cry (out of sadness or joy). Never once had a scientific journal article inspired me to sing. Evolution and big bang theory seemed nice but rather bleek.
One week spent building a home for an abused mother brought tears, joy, singing and many others emotions out of me very quickly.
When I thought about it more, I realized that I was spending a lot of time doing what ultimately seemed very meaningless. In time, I found that the teachings of Jesus resonated deep with what I was experiencing. I'm getting off topic, though...
You make a good point. I'm not trying to say that one comes at the exclusion of the other. I think what is important is which one means more to you.
If knowledge is first, then you may seek to replace a relationship with God with increased knowledge. In other words, you may conclude that christianity is bogus because you may conclude Genesis conflicts with Evolution. You would most likely get very upset with anyone teaching creationism or intelligent design over evolution, etc. It seems many on slashdot are indeed upset!
If relationships are first, then the whole argument of creation vs. evolution is rather silly. You would be much more concerned that parents are spending so little time with their children, much less educating them, then you would with a difficult debate on the origins of the universe. Knowledge is still important, but it serves the relationship - not the other way around.
I'm trying to say that it comes down to what motivates you more. The fact that we get so caught up with who is "right" vs what are we to gain from knowing one another, shows that much of our society is setting knowledge as the first priority. As an aside, I believe this is why so much of the corporate world feels so cold and bitter; knowledge/power is key and relationships are more of an afterthought.
I feel the parent poster was making a common mistake (in my opinion) of thinking that somehow "knowledge" was the true enlightened view. From this bias, I believe he or she inaccurately judged the parents fear as a fear of knowledge and therefore irrational.
I think you have come to the wrong conclusion that "these parents FEARED knowledge". I'll try to explain.
Christianity (and many other religions) centers its philosophy around relationships - with God, each other, and self. Life is about getting to know your creator and his son and finding love and joy in relationships with others. Hence, christians like to be with other christians. We like to read books, listen to music, go to store and restaurants where we are likely to meet other christians who share the same philosophy of life. This is no different than comic book lovers congregating, etc.
There is another group (that seems popular on slashdot) that thinks life is all about knowledge. That somehow each new fact we learn will improve our lives and therefore our happiness, etc. They also like to congregate with like-minded people and try to achieve a higher level of knowledge. It seems this course you were a part of shared this knowledge-centered philosophy.
It seems natural to me that these parents wanted to continue their relationships with their children since this has very sound meaning in their life. If their children take on a philosophy where knowledge is so important that it supercedes their relationship with their parents, then I can understand the parents being upset. The fear is not of knowledge - the fear is of losing an important relationship.
I find it curious that you seem to implicitly define knowledge as the most worthy pursuit in life. Having personally pursued this myself, I have found that relationships have proven to be much more enjoyable as a philosophy. I don't see knowledge as a bad thing - I just put relationships first.
This is why when people ask me what I think about creationism vs. evolution, I prefer to turn the question back to them. I get to know something about them first (which is the most important goal). Whether or not I learn something is simply a bonus.