Starboy

Gee Amos, we should all grow up to be just like you?

Amos

No, but probably the worst presumption we can have is that science will solve our problems or haven't you noticed that with every scientific breakthrough we take three steps backwards because we discover so much more of our own ignorance. This is simply based on the natural equalibrium between pleasure and pain.

This does not make science wrong in itself but our dependency on it is what is wrong about it.

Bible Humper

The three steps backwards are the regression through the three aspects of the chess position for the religious mind due to scientific advance.

Space, Structure and Material must each be taken into account (with Time, which is change). The religious mind finds itself outdated by science because since the classical days of Steinitz the wild speculative openings of the Romantic era were proven to be unsound (God in the gaps retreats deeper into the gaps) while scientific analysis allow techniques which have brought about the extinction of certain of those unsound speculative openings such as the Danish gambit (belief that the stars were holes in the sky with heaven shining through.)

You only saw the superficial aspect of it, the equilibrium is actually between the transitory and the enduring. In the opening, the pleasure is found in an advantage of Time and Space (transitory) and pain in Structure and Material (enduring). These roles reverse in the endgame when the enduring elements become pleasure and the transitory elements become pain (because of loss of these factors) thus giving us an equilibrium within an equilibrium.

We have entered the late middle game of human development so it is time to embrace the scientific instead of the speculative.

Actually, the game is late and so dependancy upon scientific principles of technique applied to Structure and Material have replaced the dark ages (opening play) when deities were considered a reasonable concept (speculative sacrifice offers advantages in Space and Time but is ultimately unsound).

Starboy

Amos,

You surprise me. Perhaps your intent is to communicate rather than confuse. I agree with you science is not a replacement for religion. IMO religion as it exists today no longer fits the needs of these times. I do not know what should replace it but I am very sure its time has come and gone.

Starboy

Kosh

But why didn't Egypt or China notice the flood? Oh, you mean that the Egypt and China we now know aren't the same ones that existed before the flood?

Dark Jedi

We're starting to wander a tad. Good work trying to pull it back on topic.

Amos

But without the omiscient mind of God where will science get its inspiration from?

I hold that religion as it is today never did have a place in society not did it ever serve mankind in a positive way. The good times ended with the Reformation and we've been going backwards ever since.

If, as it is held, artistic expression is a good indicator for the well being and happiness of a civilization no further proof is needed and when cold science must replace the warmth of artistic expression we are in big trouble.

The reason for this is that only beauty and thruth are real with beauty being the continuity of truth and the proof of this is that science can be exhillerating because it extrapolates from thruth.

CX

I we could, let's please ease up on the polemical tone. This is a place to discuss BC&A not preach against a particular point of view. Thanks.

Starboy

Amos,

You can blame science for this if you wish, but perhaps you should consider the possibility that the religious do not understand the purpose of religion and thus have fouled it up completely. I contend that the blame for the disaffection of our times should be laid at the feet of the religious.

Starboy

Amos

But if there is an ultimate truth one of two opposing religion must wrong and the other right. If that is the case, which I hold to be true, only one of the religious is wrong and you can't blame the people for not understanding the end of religion if they have not arrived at the end. That is why, in this case, the protestors must be wrong and the prove of this is that they will never come to realize that they are wrong and so the decline of our civilization will continue and first began with the Reformation.

So for sure, the religious are to blame but now don't tell me that they should have stopped it because they tried!

[ October 07, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>