BigBooster <fm1@amug.org>
> What do extropians consider to be the most common errors made by
> humans?
The biggest mistake everyone makes is thinking that one can
"hope" or "have faith" that there is already any kind of a higher
power. If one believes or accepts that there is already some higher
power (Gods, ETs or whatever) out there hiding from us, yet watching
and occasionally influencing our existence, while there is still evils
like isolation, suffering, death... is just the opposite of faith and
hope. Accepting that there is any higher power, while there is evil,
is the ultimate in giving up in despair. If such really does already
exist we are eternally screwed and we have no hope.
If one accepts that there is already a higher power, then one
must spend his days trying to theodicies or justify evil in the face
of this higher power. If one accepts this, they have no hope of
overcoming evil, even if they become as powerful as this higher power.
For if this higher, even all powerful being, can't do it, how can we
ever hope to do any better!? The theist spends all his days in the
futile effort trying to come up with various absurd theodicies in an
attempt to justify it and their already all powerful God. They can't
hope to overcome evil, so they must instead try to justify it and some
how attempt to try to twist it into being good. The theist can't hope
to overcome evil, but instead merely attempts to justify and accept
it.
But if you "hope" there isn't already a higher power, then and
only then can you have "faith" that perhaps such evils aren't all that
hard to overcome and aren't all that necessary. You can work with the
faith and hope that we are about to overcome all such evils.
A theists that claims to have faith and hope is a liar. The
atheist is the only one that can have true and honest faith and hope.
Despite how blatantly obvious this is, for some reason, no one
can see it.
Brent Allsop
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:56 MDT