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Fri Dec 4
28 posts in the last 24 hours
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"We are well aware of the venomous public assault on Christianity and scientific challenges to faith from militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens."
As an atheist, I'm not going to argue the douchebaggery of Dawkins and Hitchens. They are jerks, and they give people like me a bad name.
But seriously. "Scientific challenges to faith"? Really? They're just pointing out the fact that the earth is MUCH older than 6,000 years. You know, FACT. Ugggggh. Stubborn fundies.
Also, action/adventure, science fiction, comic books--especially in the simply, pulpy stuff you read when you're a kid, is one of the single most important vectors through which morality is transmitted.
@braak: I love your comment, so I am going to poke it with a stick. Don't you think it's possible that the attitudes of the people who raise you- however many of those people there are and however you're, in effect, raised- do more to influence your sense of morality and place in the world than the stories you absorb? To try and make that a little clearer: child A and child B are reading the same book, but are in completely different social settings being raised by people as different as... two things that are really different and don't sound totally cliche... sugar and salt? ... but back to the question: In that case, mightn't child A and child B end up seeing the book in such radically different ways that they end up taking two completely different lessons from it?
@SavoryDee (is on Team Cake Fat): A good question. I have no idea, I guess you'd need some kind of science experiment to figure it out.
On the one hand, a lot of people who were serious readers when they were kids cite as a reason for it a feeling that they didn't fit in with the people around them. On the other hand, not every parent is as involved with raising their child as every other--does your parents' moral code influence you more than Sesame Street? On the other other hand, let's say child A and child B grow up in different environments and read the same book--do they see the book differently because of their enivronments (probably)? Do they see their environments differently because of the book (maybe)? Does dissatisfaction with the environment lead to the book or the other way around (I think this is both)?
Of course, part of the way that your parents raise you is by giving you books to read early on (or by not giving you books to read), so can we even distinguish them?
I will say, probably the most important vector for transmitting morality is your direct social sphere when you're a kid. The second most important vector is the kinds of things you do for entertainment--which, for a lot of kids, can mean that science fiction is still hugely influential.
@braak: As big a part Science Fiction plays in my life, it's still just a hobby that I spend Far Too Much time and thought on.
Then again, I was brought up in a very irreligious family. Not feverent Maureen O'Hair-style Fundamental Atheists, just people who never felt any need or dislike for Religion. I suppose some of my conceptions of right and wrong come from the heroes and villians of SpecFic going way back to childhood exposure of Star Trek and House of Secrets.
But it's not like I light incense to an altar of Iain (M.) Banks. Often.
@corpore-metal: Naw, you're not. That tone runs through out the entire article (by which I mean, not just the excerpt), and it runs through a lot of Evangelical media. You also hear it from Survivalists, the far-right and far-left wings of american politics, and pretty much any fundamentalist religious group in existence. The cultivation of an embattled mentality, where everyone inside the group is constantly fending off the wicked influences of anything outside the group, helps the communities in questions to maintain a belief in their own specialness (or otherness) and thereby helps to keep the community closer together. It also makes the group easier to control, a la FLDS communities like Hildale and Colorado City.
@SavoryDee (is on Team Cake Fat): Yeah, I just now read the article all the way through and I take issue with some of the ways he characterizes some things.
@corpore-metal: SF be ebil!!11! since it gives "story that helps us make sense of our place in the cosmos" and "story that gives ultimate meaning" without the Big J.
Fundies are literally incapable of seeing any good in anything that explains the universe and man's place in it that doesn't revolve around Jesus.
@Evil Tortie's Mom: Yeah well, this what happens when you fail to realize that your One True Religion is actually comprised of myths and traditions from dozens of other, older sources.
(Which, of course, were all planted eons ago in primitive humanity's subconscious by our benefactors, the Space Brothers.)
@beercheck: Of course, I neglected the one non-sucky religion to come out of sci-fi and the Great State of Texas, the truly awesome Church of the SubGenius. Praise "Bob"!
@beercheck: Fundies don't want anything to do with that sci-fi nonsense. Gives people ideas about different ways of life, gender equality, hope for the future, and all that.
@beercheck: Yeah, he's presuming that no American Christians have ever even heard of "Matrix" and "X-Files". If they're already that cut off from the mainstream culture, then anything SF does isn't going to impact their world.
Of course, considering he says Matrix and X-Files are "subtle"... I <3 me some Mulder and Scully, but "subtle" the show wasn't!
@ShubNecktie: True but there was a lot of back and forth with it, with Heinlein and others. And maybe it really isn't a religion as such but I still think it's a really silly political ideology.
@corpore-metal: You can't tell me that Ayn Rand wasn't a (very bad) science fiction writer. The Fountainhead takes place in a parallel USA where the national pastime is architecture criticism, while Atlas Shrugged envisions a radically different version of capitalism that is indistinguishable from Soviet Realism. Seriously, if any would-be genius attempted a "mind-strike," they'd be a) kicked off the board by the shareholders faster than they could blink, and b) dramatically undercut by less-principled rivals. And of course, as videogames have taught us, savvy underworld types would quickly take control of personal genetic engineering via the black market. If Rand were right about anything, we'd all be living on artificial islands in the South Pacific by now, driving Tucker aircars and watching Jim Henson's Anthem Babies on SuperBetaMax. Also, Alan Greenspan would have been bodily assumed into Heaven by now.
You ignore the actual religion that's been spawned from science fiction. Or at least greatly advanced.
Transhumanism.
The matrix addresses it. Star Trek had two shows with transhuman characters.
The idea that we're just biological robots and deterministic machines is a largely science fiction concept. It's also the predominant 'religion' of atheism if there is one.
We are machines. If we're machines we can be improved and rebuilt. We can be reprogrammed. We have evolved and we can continue to evolve.
@im.thatoneguy: Heroes as transhumanism? I think it's more accurate to say that it's a distillation of crummy Marvel/DC cliches from the past twenty-odd years, served to a mainstream audience that is for the most part blissfully unaware of said cliches.
Also, I wouldn't consider transhumanism a proper religion so much as a movement with political and spiritual applications, like environmentalism or vegetarianism. There may be quasi-religious aspects to it, but the ideology as a whole doesn't revolve around a central unifying figure or group of tenets. You can't fully reconcile the folks who expect to be defrosted 1,000 years from now with the ones who want to upload their personalities into the matrix when their bodies die.
Finally, Star Trek may have featured transhuman characters, but the show's concept of what qualifies as truly human is laughably conservative. Space travel is so antithetical to baseline humanity that you can be sure if we ever venture beyond the inner solar system, our astronauts will look a lot more like the Borg than Captain Kirk.
@lightninglouie: Poor Ayn Rand is responsible for books written in direct opposition to her experiences under the most violent of Soviet regimes. Her works are violent in precisely the opposite manner. But the problem is that Westerners have been taking her at face value, and using her works as bolsters for their own egos. So her books are only pompous idiocy if you allow them to be. If you regard them as violent protests against an equally violent system, they seem more balanced.
11/10/09
[gizmodo.com]
Huge ship. Check it out.
#tips
#lego
#carlsagan
#gizmodo
02/06/09
"We are well aware of the venomous public assault on Christianity and scientific challenges to faith from militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens."
As an atheist, I'm not going to argue the douchebaggery of Dawkins and Hitchens. They are jerks, and they give people like me a bad name.
But seriously. "Scientific challenges to faith"? Really? They're just pointing out the fact that the earth is MUCH older than 6,000 years. You know, FACT. Ugggggh. Stubborn fundies.
02/06/09
02/06/09
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02/06/09
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02/06/09
On the one hand, a lot of people who were serious readers when they were kids cite as a reason for it a feeling that they didn't fit in with the people around them. On the other hand, not every parent is as involved with raising their child as every other--does your parents' moral code influence you more than Sesame Street? On the other other hand, let's say child A and child B grow up in different environments and read the same book--do they see the book differently because of their enivronments (probably)? Do they see their environments differently because of the book (maybe)? Does dissatisfaction with the environment lead to the book or the other way around (I think this is both)?
Of course, part of the way that your parents raise you is by giving you books to read early on (or by not giving you books to read), so can we even distinguish them?
I will say, probably the most important vector for transmitting morality is your direct social sphere when you're a kid. The second most important vector is the kinds of things you do for entertainment--which, for a lot of kids, can mean that science fiction is still hugely influential.
02/06/09
[www.telegraph.co.uk]
If the media we choose to consume effects our subconscious enough to shape our dreams, do not underestimate what it can do to our morality.
02/06/09
02/06/09
Then again, I was brought up in a very irreligious family. Not feverent Maureen O'Hair-style Fundamental Atheists, just people who never felt any need or dislike for Religion. I suppose some of my conceptions of right and wrong come from the heroes and villians of SpecFic going way back to childhood exposure of Star Trek and House of Secrets.
But it's not like I light incense to an altar of Iain (M.) Banks. Often.
02/06/09
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02/06/09
He's all "woe is us, the wicked Sci Fi is out to destroy our One True Path Of Truthy Truth, beware!"
02/06/09
02/06/09
Fundies are literally incapable of seeing any good in anything that explains the universe and man's place in it that doesn't revolve around Jesus.
02/06/09
(Which, of course, were all planted eons ago in primitive humanity's subconscious by our benefactors, the Space Brothers.)
02/06/09
02/06/09
"Many of these powerful shapers of culture are unfamiliar to Christians."
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02/06/09
That line makes it seem as though this dude was either speaking to the lowest common denominator, or was simply immensely condescending.
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02/06/09
The subgenes want SLACK!
02/06/09
Of course, considering he says Matrix and X-Files are "subtle"... I <3 me some Mulder and Scully, but "subtle" the show wasn't!
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Not at all.
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02/06/09
1. Scientology.
2. Objectivism.
On the basis of these two examples, SF should be banned forever, the end.
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02/06/09
Transhumanism.
The matrix addresses it. Star Trek had two shows with transhuman characters.
The idea that we're just biological robots and deterministic machines is a largely science fiction concept. It's also the predominant 'religion' of atheism if there is one.
We are machines. If we're machines we can be improved and rebuilt. We can be reprogrammed. We have evolved and we can continue to evolve.
What's Heroes? Transhumanism.
02/06/09
Also, I wouldn't consider transhumanism a proper religion so much as a movement with political and spiritual applications, like environmentalism or vegetarianism. There may be quasi-religious aspects to it, but the ideology as a whole doesn't revolve around a central unifying figure or group of tenets. You can't fully reconcile the folks who expect to be defrosted 1,000 years from now with the ones who want to upload their personalities into the matrix when their bodies die.
Finally, Star Trek may have featured transhuman characters, but the show's concept of what qualifies as truly human is laughably conservative. Space travel is so antithetical to baseline humanity that you can be sure if we ever venture beyond the inner solar system, our astronauts will look a lot more like the Borg than Captain Kirk.
02/06/09
02/06/09