Albion

I think we've got some pretty major evolving to do before that ever happens. We're humans, not ants.

Samhain

Perhaps we should see if they do float in water, much like a duck, and cider, and very small rocks, and lead! Yes, lead!

Samhain

Ah, yes, of course, kick them while they're down. Quite a wonderful display of ethics, Vir.

Well, it is painfully obvious now that mathematics does not hold all the answers or keys to existence. Of course, I've never been of the opinion that it ever did in the first place. For all of your "logical" thinking, Vir, you seem to be quite willing to ignore your only option for success for your "utopian" society: people.

Perchance

Just in case you didn't get it the first time, I was NOT expressing approval of your plan. Did you miss where I said I find the idea of deliberately harming churches as bad as burning books?

Tell me, would you be up in arms if the place where a freethinkers' organization once met was turned into a church? If so, then you are being a hypocrite. Wouldn't religious people have a right to get upset if you turned their churches to the opposite of what they were intended to be?

I am really not sure how to take that "Stalin had a wonderful sense of humor" bit, unless you think he laughed while he was ordering people killed.

-Perchance.

Eudaimonist

You are right. The fairly rational atheists will support communism, and the very rational atheists will support capitalism.


No collectivists ever do... at first.

[ August 22, 2002: Message edited by: Eudaimonist ]</p>

Radcliffe Emerson

I just hope at this point organized religion falls. We can turn the churches into homeless shelters or children's houses, orphanages, or something like that, to put them to good use.

Lady MacDuff

The fall of religion will happen someday, but not for a long, LONG time, and it will happen gradually. After the last believers are gone, the churches of today will be to them like Greek temples and Stonehenge are to us today - interesting relics of the past. Future tour guides at cathedrals will say "Now here is where the leader stood. He was called a priest. He performed rituals and the people prayed to a man in the sky called 'God' for relief of their suffering. They also ate small crackers, which they believed were pieces of man's body who they thought was this 'God's' son. I know it sounds strange, but back then, people didn't know what we know now, so they created this God to satisfy their need for answers." The tourists will nod and think "how fascinating!" Over time, future rebellious teenagers will come home with crucifixes and announce they are now Christian, and their parents will roll their eyes and say "I can't wait for THIS phase to end! Last week she called herself a Druid, now this!"

Radcliffe Emerson

I hope I live to see that occur.

Ab_Normal

In my town, a former church building has been turned into a community center. (No, the former occupants didn't close down; they built a bigger building at another site.)

And Vir, you're scaring me.

Radcliffe Emerson

Where's Londo?