Why Atheism/Secular Humanism... Part II

[Mister Agenda]

My much anticipated response - but first...

I really not a troll I believe what I write, I don't have enough time to go around messing with people on the internet. I'd like to have an intellectual discussion about the issues which I actually bring up in my post.

A troll usually is not misrepresenting their position, although someone who does is certainly a troll. The more common troll just presents their position in a way likely to provoke antagonism, out of a desire to provoke antagonism.

On Judaism: You guys seem to be quite versed in the ways of Judaism (sarcasm). Let me explain.

In Judaism there is no hell with fire or brimstone - so all this nonsense of "If I don't believe in your God will I rot" has no merit. We are a religion that not only doesn't proseyltize we actually will try to turn you away if you try to convert.

Next, we do have a heaven but its not the Christian or Muslim heaven of a garden of Eden with infinite physical pleasures - these things are considered very lowly on the Jewish totem pole. Our heaven is much more vague, according to tradition, once we die, our souls leave our body and become one with God.

I don't feel like discussing this - that wasn't the point of my original thread. I'm the first to tell you that religion has very little logical support and must be taken solely on faith.

Agree, all of the above is irrelevant to your proposition.

This is my meat and potatoes: Is religion needed in order for the masses to sustain themselves especially when facing a future where mechanization and 'human evolution' threaten to destroy humanity as we know it?

I suspect agriculture and industry are much more important than religion in regards to sustaining the masses.

Can Secular Humanism (again now abbreviated as SH and synonymous with atheism) build a moral framework is which we can resist our carnal, worldy desires?

SH is not synonymous with atheism. Not all atheists are Secular Humanists and not all theists aren't. Since the main concern of SH is building a sound moral framework for our actions, and among its main goals is a thriving humanity, I don't see why not.

I believe the answer is no.

But are your reasons for believing that sound?

Before we go down the road of speculation, lets look at the present day. Europe to me is a very sad case of what happens when a people lose God. Europe's (and Japan's) biggest problem right now is stablizing and decreasing populations. To you noobs out there this might seem like a 'good' thing (less resource consumption right?) but in reality its devastating economically, not to mention pretty sad. When I toured Europe for 10 days in October I saw very few families, very few children - compared to Israel which has loads of both.

Maybe Europe should do more to encourage immigration and integration. There's no lack of young people amongst its neighbors.

Why don't people want to have kids? Pure selfishness, which brings me to my next point.

Are you sure you're not overgeneralizing? There are many reasons to limit the size of one's family, and not everyone is fortunate enough to find someone with whom they would want to reproduce.

Without religion it seems people are less likely to give to charitable causes or care about their neighbor. There's alot of talk in the SH community of these things, but that seems to be the end of the line. Religious people are much more giving with their time and money to both family and strangers because religion teaches self sacrifice.

This source is very supportive of your contention, and despite the very unsupportable tactic of only counting regular churchgoers as believers finds only a 25% difference in charitable giving:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/polic...ticle/6577

I believe this can be accounted for largely by the social venue for giving that churches provide. There's no reason why humanist institutions can't do the same. And I strongly suspect a real comparison between people who identify as humanists and people who identify as religious theists would reveal a much more even level of giving; the folks who attend church less than weekly may be dragging us down in that study.

Ok - none of these things are that bad, I suppose. And on these alone I suppose I don't have a huge issue with SH, its the future that concerns me.

Disclaimer: In order to play along you need to take my speculation as fact or close to it. If you're going to call me a moron and say none of these things are going to happen, it will be a waste of all of our time. If you'd like to see why I feel this way, I'll gladly direct you to my sources.

The extrapolations of current technology you're suggesting are not that far-fetched, I'm willing to play along for the sake of argument.

As stated in the last thread, within in the next 2-3 decades we will begin fusing with machines slowly but surely until our form will no longer be considered human (at least not as we know it). Compounding this will be the onset of full immersion virtual reality where users will be able to enter virtual worlds in which one can be a hero, villian, actor, porn star or anything else that suits their fancy. This world will in every way be superior to ours.

Well why not just live there - you might say. Much for the same reason why you guys refuse to be religious - "its not real".

Bingo.

However, because SH lacks religion, you guys have cave men priorities in a more technical society with a higher moral code (that is totally based on religion but this is a topic for another day). Happiness to the SH is the end all be all. Without religion I believe you will all become cyborgs, put your brains in tubes so you can live in a virtual world uninterrupted, etc etc.

Your misunderstanding of SH is profound...at best, you've got it mixed up with utilitarianism. From Wikipedia, with the caveat that humanists are diverse: The Good Book: A Humanist BibleThe Good Book, compiled by A.C. Grayling, features ten commandments in The Good 8:11:

1.Love well. 2.Seek the good in all things. 3.Harm no others. 4.Think for yourself. 5.Take responsibility. 6.Respect nature. 7.Do your utmost. 8.Be informed. 9.Be kind. 10.Be courageous.

These come with the post-thought that the reader "at least, sincerely try" and an addendum in (The Good 8:12), "Add to these ten injunctions, this: O friends, let us always be true to ourselves and to the best in things, so that we can always be true to one another."

You might at this point respond that it doesn't matter, "who cares if we're happy". And that's exactly what I'm getting at.

I think expecting this response is at the core of your misapprehensions.

Because you've forsaken religion, the great force of human morality, you will eventually forsake your humanity itself effectively letting the world be ruled by machines.

I don't think anyone can claim that religion hasn't been a seriously mixed bag when it comes to human morality. One of the tasks of humanism is to sort the moral wheat from the chaff and keep whatever is good and wise while discarding the rest. And I suspect the bulk of permanent virtual reality inhabitants will represent the in-betweeners: those who are neither devout theists nor devout humanists.

Hope this isn't TLDR.

I hope the same for my reply.