HalcyonDays : Religion in the 21st century

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Religion in the 21st century

Lately I have been pondering the recent uprising of the Christian right in America. I am cynical enough to believe that it is only the last gasp of a dying group of people, but is it? We have seen schools in Kentucky being made to teach "Intelligent Design" (what an oxymoron that is) by Religious people who are fed up with religion being taken out of school. We have also seen President Bush doing everything possible to hurt the area of stem cell research, his advisors are of course led by Leon Kass whom we all know and love.

It is my argument that these so called christians are nothing of the sort. That they are not following their beliefs but are instead following a new form of religion, one based on extreme nationalism, extreme xenophobia, mixed with a good portion of luddism.

I was a christian for 17 years, and in all of those years not once did I ever read of Jesus being a political activist. Sure he denounced the way people lived, but did he ever once say to do something about it? I know some people would mention the money changers and throwing over their tables, but applying that little story to justify forcing prayer and the teaching of creationism in the guise of intelligent design is a bit of a stretch.

Christians are supposed to be in the world but not of it, they are not supposed to be calling for assassinations of foreign presidents, or campaigning for political leaders, they are supposed to worry about living their lives righteously. It strikes me as most unchristian like to go around forcing people to live the way you want them to live.

Now what does any of this have to do with Transhumanism? Well, some christian leaders, those that know of our movement, believe we are the greatest current threat to humanity. They fear that we will remove what makes humans human. I don't know what that is exactly, other than our genetic code, and if that is the case then sure. I have no problem removing my so called humanity. If it makes me better, faster, stronger, smarter, more ethical (in a humanist sense). Basing a lifeforms worth on if it is human or not is rediculous in my mind. Intelligence should be the main factor in worth, and even then I have a problem with killing whales, and other higher mamals including the great apes. It will be a great day when we no longer need to rely on animal testing to continue to progress scientifically (neccessary evil at the moment).

I know I am an idealist and a dreamer, but I like to think of a time in the not too distant future when humans have allowed themselves to evolve past our current limitations, when sickness and death are essentially a thing of the past and we have returned our planet to it's natural state and moved on into the cosmos. I know that humanity is capable of this feat, but it will take a great deal of effort on our part, a great deal of support from all of us to make this happen. Because we have all those religious and secular bioluddites who can't stand the idea of humans being anything more than we already are.

Published Tuesday, August 30, 2005 1:37 AM by HalcyonDays

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	adbatstone wrote on August 30, 2005 6:46 AM Most Singularitarians may have to rethink their guesstimates for when the Singularity happens. There has been alot of newfound skepticism over the past week or so regarding the feasibility of a near-term Singularity (2020-2050) as shown by the recent findings here... http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,102288,00.html It appears that merely simulating the human brain takes up orders of magnitude more computing power than previously thought. From "Modeling the Brain" from Robotic Nation Evidence (http://roboticnation.blogspot.com/) "If the human brain has a million of these 10,000 neuron columns, then the brain has 10 billion neurons. Using the techniques described in this article, then, we would need about 27,500 quadrillion FLOPS to simulate the human brain. That is much higher than previous estimates." Better start saving up for your cryonics chambers, guys.
	ferrouswheel wrote on August 30, 2005 3:58 PM I especially like the bit about how the "Christians" of today are not really living up Christian values.
	Mr. Farlops wrote on August 30, 2005 6:36 PM Can we find the "skeptics gene?" Is there a neurophysiological cause behind skepticism? Can we predispose people towards a mentally healthy acceptance of the scientific method and unshakable skepticism? Some people seem predisposed towards mystical thinking, group think and easy acceptance of political and religious dogma. Can this be isolated and removed without damaging other desirable forms of intelligence? Personally, I think not. Certain aspects of these modes of thinking blend together in too many other facets of the human brain. It's a systems problem--if you remove one piece the whole thing collapses or becomes greatly diminished. Still, it's an interesting thing to think about.