God

Mark D. Fulwiler (mfulwiler@earthlink.net)
Sun, 11 Jan 1998 14:05:06 -0700


"M. E. Smith" <mesmith@rocketmail.com> wrote:

> Subject: God
>
> Respecting the statement on the Extropy Web site's
> FAQ that religion is "a touchy subject", I have
> resisted until now expressing this, but I would like
> to briefly support what David Musick said about some
> people's knee-jerk reaction to the God meme in all
> its forms.
>
> It really annoys me when people automatically react
> with vitriol when the concept of God comes up, even
> when it comes up with a heavy dose of irreverance and
> scepticism. How utterly boring their reaction is!
> They keep re-hashing issues and fighting old battles
> from centuries ago. The fact that the existence of
> "God" is unproven, probably unprovable, and may be
> rationally doubted has long been a consensus of
> Western philosophy. That's old news.
>
> Face it, since the God meme is as flexible as it is,
> meaning to some "the indescribable absolute
> underlying all reality", it will always have a place
> in the meme pool. Why then do some people still react
> so emotionally when the mere subject comes up? What
> about it bothers you so much? Like it or not,
> religious thought will survive into posthumanity. Get
> over it.

When people talk about things like "the indescribable absolute
underlying all reality" they are talking nonsense. (If I'm wrong, please
explain a statement like that to me.) That's why some of us get a bit
hot under the collar whenever the "god meme" comes up as this is
supposed to be a board for intelligent discussion.

Mark Fulwiler