"john grigg" <starman125@hotmail.com>:
Thanks for the in depth response! When discussing these types
of things to my religious family, I try to use restraint, but you're a
great extropian who I really respect so I'm going to be a bit more
blunt with you, using harsh language. This is the kind of stuff I
always want to say to religious people, but I never get the chance. I
hope you can just ignore it all as me just venting here. Anyway, you
said:
> If there is an afterlife then they will be alright but if not then
> it will be a great loss. Have you told them about cryonics?
> Perhaps, they would surprise you by being interested.
Not only have I told them about it, this has become a huge
fight in our family. For the most part I've given up on them every
seeking after cryonics, they think Jesus has done it all for them.
I'm simply seeking to find some successful way to work around their
insistence that they will do anything legally possible to try to
prevent me from being cryonicly preserved. (So the little bit of
Money I'd like to not spend during my life and set it aside for this
can be taken used for those that survive....) What I really want most
is for an ET, or God or whatever to either come down and tell me my
family is right, that faith in Jesus is all that is required, or to
tell my family that one must do a little more than simply have faith,
and beg for some other being to do it for us while we do nothing
ourselves.
> you wrote:
> How smart does an ET have to be before he knows that that is the one
> and only most fundamental and important of all question or issue
> that must be dealt with first before anything else?
> (end)
> He just may not see things the way you do. A different perspective
> and value system that comes from a different culture and biology.
> Again, he/she/it may wish he could help us but it is better for us
> to make our own way and gain the confidence and experience that
> would come from that.
Ah, the old "God's ways are not Man's ways" theodicy or
justification of all this evil and attempt to accept all this shit.
Can we not have more faith that something better than all this is
possible rather than seeking to try to twist evil as if it were really
good and eternally necessary?
Why is everyone, instead of trying to hope for and think of
creative ways to overcome or do without all this shit so intent on
justifying it and accepting it as inevitable and something that must
eternally be? Why can't we hope that supper powerful beings can find
some better easy way to "gain the confidence and experience that would
come from that" or to do whatever reason you're trying to come up with
in an attempt to justify all this evil. Why can't we hope that supper
beings, when they reallly do exist, can find better, less evil and
painful ways to do all this like create some non feeling abstract
"simulator" to find out or accomplish whatever it is you feel can not
be done without real live and feeling beings going through all this
frustration and suffering!?
> And we both know that at least some religions teach that this life
> is just the blink of an eye to God and that we must simply endure
> and do the best we can until it is over. In the next life we will
> gain all the rewards we deserve and see this life as a very short
> but crucial learning experience.
Bull Shit! Even if I have only experienced this pain and
suffering for a mere "blink of an eye", if I'm up their in some heaven
watching others go through the same misery during a mere "blink of an
eye" eternally wishing that I could find some way to help them
(without going to jail?) so they wouldn't have to suffer like I we
did, that would be eternal hell just the same! I hope to be all
knowing some day, or at least as close to that as possible. To me
this would include experiencing, just what other primitive beings
were experiencing, as if I was suffering it myself. Again, if we must
give up faith for something better like you are attempting to argue,
then we are left without hope for anything better than eternal
hellfire and damnation for someone somewhere since if anyone is
suffering, really, everyone else must also suffer, if they are close
to being all knowing and all sympathizing anyway.
I hope to God you and all this hideousness are wrong, that I
will not have to sit up their in some heaven, hiding for an eternity,
(or going to jail for not hiding...) watching all the evolving
populations suffer through what we suffered. I hope we can find
reasons and infinitely better ways to do whatever it is we you claim
we are accomplishing on our own without all this suffering. That we
will be able to go in and help them do whatever it is we are tyring to
do on our own, infinitely faster and with less pain, frustration, and
suffering...
Again, why are you so faithless, and so quick to give up hope
that something better might be possible for our children and for
future discovered beings... and everyone? Instead of trying to
justify and accept all this, isn't it much better to hope that it can
all be completely overcome?
Maybe if there isn't yet such Gods, Maybe if there isn't yet
such supper smart ETs, then maybe, instead of spending all of our time
trying to find silly excuses like this to justify why they are hiding.
Instead of irrationally trying to twist all this evil as if it were
some how really good, can't we hope that something better might be
possible? If God doesn't yet exist, might evil be easier than we
think to be completely overcome and eliminated for everyone forever
more? It seems to me that if there is not yet powerful beings like
this, then we can have hope that not only might it be possible to
completely overcome evil, but that we are on the verge of finally
being able to do just that. But if there already is such Gods, then
we will forever have no hope, and must be condemned to an eternity of
watching someone somewhere suffer as we are now suffering.
Comments?
Brent Allsop
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:06:08 MDT