The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving, control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. --Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
NoToJoe wrote: >>>The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving, control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. --Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion<<<
The Mormon apostles from Horny Joe right through the widow-lovin' schmoe could be characterized using most, if not all, of Dawkin's description of God.
I really enjoy Sagan's writing. My favorite quote is this one from "Billions ans Billions."
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides."
Great book! Mormonism stunted my critical thinking, and this book was my introduction of how to be a critical thinker. It opened my eyes in so many ways. I no longer have a copy, because I keep buying them, and giving them away to people!
No, he never mentions Mormons. But his baloney detection kit alone will make a TBM squirm.
...but I got it. "Grasp the universe as it really is" is an incredibly arrogant mouthful if it's meant to indicate some choice which people (as they currently take themselves to be) have. The phrase itself still implies a subject-object relationship, and that's part of our personal delusion about who we ourselves are.
If any universal truth can be "grasped," it is because of the holographic nature of the whole, where that truth is also the truth of each one of us. But ultimately, any phenomenon ("appearance"...to some kind of separate observer) is an illusion created by our own delusive standpoint.
I was The One who protested against including 6 hours of glorified violence (why all that pre-adolescent hardware... if "There is no spoon"?). But I got voted down.
That would be true, unless a person has (metaphorically) stepped outside the universe "as it is", and seen another reality. And this reality showed how the previous "universe" reality is all delusion. And then the person returned to the "universe as it is" to say, "It's all delusion".
"But evidently this 'delusion' has some explainable and predictable elements to it that we might as well not delude ourselves about."
As the Mormons have demonstrated, you can parse the false, but it remains false. That is, you can analyze the universe with an eye to improving your existence, but you will just make yourself comfortable in a falsehood. You will remain bound.
Yes, we play the game with grace, but as I see it, your comment could well have been said by a hamster (with a "positive attitude") on an exercise wheel.
When the hamster finally gets tired of running on the wheel (and he will), then he'll be ready to explore his extra-cage options vis a vis "reality".
"The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides."
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2011 02:41AM by steve benson.
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. it is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.)" -The Demon Haunted World
The price exacted by the haven-dweller is that he contrive to delude himself into believing that he has found a haven. It would seem unless one looks more deeply at the phenomenon, that most people are able to delude themselves and get through their lives quite happily. But I still believe that the unexamined life is not worth living: and I know that self-delusion, in the service of no matter what small or lofty cause, is a price no writer can afford...