1,000,000 Years: Political and Religious Unification of the Planet

[freeztar]

I have always been attracted to the founder of the Baha'i Faith's exhortations in discussion to "speak with words as mild as milk," with "the utmost lenience and forbearance." This form of dialogue, its obvious etiquette of expression and the acute exercise of judgement involved, is difficult for most people when their position is under attack from people who are more articulate, better read and better at arguing both their own position and the position of those engaged in the written attack than they are. I am also aware that, in cases of rude or hostile attack, rebuttal with a harsher tone may well be justified, although I prefer humour, irony and even a gentle sarcasm to hostile written attack in any form. Still, it does not help an apologist to belong to those "watchmen" the prophet Isaiah calls "dumb dogs that cannot bark."(Isaiah, 56:10)

 

Hmm...

 

Am I an apologist, Ron? Sorry for asking.

How would I know?

 

:dog:-bark

[HydrogenBond]

An interesting consideration about political and religious unification, 1 million years into the future, has to do with longevity. Things that are faddish, will never last the entire million year duration. These are like a hit song, which will quickly become history, and not be there, live, in 1 million years. Many religions have made it thousands of years. This is not quite a million years, but it shows the correct pace to make the entire duration.

 

The image today, of anything that will also be around in a million years, are things that move as slow as a snail. This will appear to crawl along in slow motion, not appearing to change much in the short term. These are the only things that exist today that will be recognizable in a million years.

 

A good analogy is a snail crawling using time lapse photography. The bulk of the world is changing quickly in the background. The snail, is moving along. Each snapshot of time, has its own generation with all the answers. This always changes into night and then into another day, for another generation. But few of those songs, will become the classics. The ones that do, are put into the little wagons, the snails pull.

[InfiniteNow]

That's quite a stretch, HydrogenBond.

 

The whole of humanity only stretches back about 200,000 years, roughly 1/5^th your propsed time scale of a million years. Within that 200,000 years covering the entire existence of humanity, Christianity has only been around for about 2,000.

 

2,000 is only 0.2% of a million... zero point two percent of your proposed time scale.

 

To suggest somehow that religion will prevail five times as long as the entire human speicies has ever existed is rather laughable, and is more demonstrative of your own bias than it is of some objective truth.

[RonPrice]

The history of apologetics is along one, but for our discussion we could use a simple definition of an apologist from one of the several online dictionaries: "a person who defends, in speech or writing, a faith, doctrine, idea, or action." I suppose, freeztar, in this sense then just about everyone is an apologist.-Ron

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Religion can be defined in many ways, InfiniteNow. When you make the point that it is laughable "that religion will prevail five times as long as the entire human species has ever existed," and that this "is more demonstrative of my own bias than it is of some objective truth," there is some truth in your point of view. Religion can also be defined as "a set of values, beliefs and attitudes" and, in this sense everyone has a religion and always has as far back as the clan and tribal societies. I must run-guests have arrived....I shall return.-Ron

[TheBigDog]

An interesting consideration about political and religious unification, 1 million years into the future, has to do with longevity. Things that are faddish, will never last the entire million year duration. These are like a hit song, which will quickly become history, and not be there, live, in 1 million years. Many religions have made it thousands of years. This is not quite a million years, but it shows the correct pace to make the entire duration.

 

The image today, of anything that will also be around in a million years, are things that move as slow as a snail. This will appear to crawl along in slow motion, not appearing to change much in the short term. These are the only things that exist today that will be recognizable in a million years.

 

A good analogy is a snail crawling using time lapse photography. The bulk of the world is changing quickly in the background. The snail, is moving along. Each snapshot of time, has its own generation with all the answers. This always changes into night and then into another day, for another generation. But few of those songs, will become the classics. The ones that do, are put into the little wagons, the snails pull.

I tend to agree with the analogy. One of the things that marks many of our modern world religions being practiced is that they have survived the most dramatic changes to humanity and society in recorded history. The rate of technology increases today is a matter of months for what used to be generations or longer. Modern religion has found a home in the turmoil of that change.

 

There are also studies that suggest that man has a genetic predisposition to being religious. Not to say that everyone will be religious, but if this is true we cannot expect to see an end to religion in one form or another until we have bred it out of the human stock.

 

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

And yet religious belief is down across the board.

 

 

Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds - USATODAY.com

When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.

 

The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.

 

These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.

 

<...>

 

Don't blame secularism for driving up the percentage of Americans who say they have no religion, says Barry Kosmin, co-researcher for the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS).

 

"These people aren't secularized. They're not thinking about religion and rejecting it; they're not thinking about it at all," Kosmin says.

 

<...>

 

The 2008 results, to be released today, are based on 54,000 interviews with a margin of error of plus or minus 0.5%. It finds that, despite population growth and immigration adding nearly 50 million more adults, almost all denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS data was released in 1990.

[RonPrice]

I shall return to the point I was making before my guest arrived. Religion can also be defined as "a set of values, beliefs and attitudes" and, in this sense, everyone has a religion and always has had as far back as the clan and tribal societies, arguably, 70,000 years ago. Units of social organization beginning with clans and chiefdoms, then tribes, city-states and then nation states all had some kind of "beliefs attitudes and values." They all had religions in this sociological, anthropolgical, sense. Animistic religion has been around for many 1000s of years. Everyone believes something and this belief is their "religion, even atheists, agnostics and simple theists. We all make assumptions about the nature of reality. In many ways these assumptions are givens and not proveables. That was the point I was making or at least one of the points.

 

To get back to Darwin, before I have to make dinner tonight, let me quote him from his chapter 'recapitualtion and conclusion.' Darwin writes that: "I view all beings....as the lineal descendents of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system(which we now know was about 500MYA)...(and)...they seem to me to become ennobled." He goes on in that same page: "we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken....and all coporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection."(Arcturus Pub. Ltd., London, 2008, p.362) Aned so, when I said earlier in this thread that man was there in potential at the first sign of life, I think that view holds some water in Darwin's text. For now I rest my case and am off to get that dinner ready. it's always back to basics: dinner, sleep, drink, sex and its been that way for some time whatever the unit of social organization, whatever views, whatever religious system has prevailed...seeya lateRon.

[Theory5]

To get back to Darwin, before I have to make dinner tonight, let me quote him from his chapter 'recapitualtion and conclusion.' Darwin writes that: "I view all beings....as the lineal descendents of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system(which we now know was about 500MYA)...(and)...they seem to me to become ennobled." He goes on in that same page: "we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken....and all coporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection."(Arcturus Pub. Ltd., London, 2008, p.362) Aned so, when I said earlier in this thread that man was there in potential at the first sign of life, I think that view holds some water in Darwin's text.QUOTE]

 

Whoa Whoa Whoa, hold on a second. If I understand what you are saying, you are saying that man is perfection. Whatever we are, we are in no way perfect. In fact, thanks to medical advances since the first witch doctor realized herbal tea helps the body, we have broken out of the natural selection loop. And thanks to our indifference to other animals lives, we have screwed up an unfair portion of the world. Now when we are able to cure genetic defects and cancer and everything else, that will completely render natural selection obsolete, but now we are just damaging eco systems.

If we were perfect, we would use logic to solve every problem we come across. But we dont, in fact, even when you dont realize it, emotion plays a big part in your life and decisions. Now Im not saying vulcans are perfection (spocks race is vulcan right? I forget lol), you still need emotion. But logic must balance out emotion and cause you to think rationally.

[Pyrotex]

I shall return to the point I was making before my guest arrived. Religion can also be defined as "a set of values, beliefs and attitudes" and,...

Ron,

when you water down the definition of a word so far that it describes damn near anything and everything, then your argument is equally diluted.

 

Religion is any belief.

 

I believe I prefer chocolate ice cream over vanilla.

 

Therefore, chocolate ice cream is my religion.

 

NOT!!!!

[Theory5]

Therefore, chocolate ice cream is my religion.

 

wouldnt it make more sense to say that chocolate ice cream is your god? :)

 

mmmmmmm, chocolate ice cream would be a good god..... until I eat it ;)

...then it would be an even better god...

[Pyrotex]

wouldnt it make more sense to say that chocolate ice cream is your god? :( mmmmmmm, chocolate ice cream would be a good god.....

EATING chocolate ice cream would be my religion.

 

Tonight, I will worship a quart! Salvation is mine!

 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! :lol:

[RonPrice]

You guys are beginning to get my point vis-a-vis what is "a religion." For some, for millions, sport is their religion; for still others it is eating and sex, the catering to their instinctual natures and on and on one could go....for now I rest my case to take care of my own instinct for food--in this case my breakfast. The subject is a large one and difficult to put into a little box.- Seeya lateRon

[Pyrotex]

You guys are beginning to get my point vis-a-vis what is "a religion." For some, for millions, sport is their religion; for still others it is eating and sex, the catering to their instinctual natures and on and on one could go....for now I rest my case to take care of my own instinct for food--in this case my breakfast. The subject is a large one and difficult to put into a little box.- Seeya lateRon

No.

We are making fun of your point. Our replies were a parady. Sorry about that.

 

Our point, levity aside, is that if you are going to use the word "religion" in any significant way in your argument, then the word must have a significant definition.

 

Defining religion as just "any belief" or "any set of beliefs" renders the word meaningless and useless in any significant discussion.

 

Taken to an extreme, religion than becomes a synonym for philosophy, opinion, point of view, idea, tradition, process, procedure, experience, thought, concept, happening, event, etc, etc, etc.

 

Religion is not THAT complicated, and can be put into a convenient box with only a little effort.

[TheBigDog]

I think I see the point that Ron is making, Pyro. One of the things that I tend to do is look for "unifying theories" that satisfy my own need to make sense of the world. They don't really need to make sense to anyone but me, which often becomes hugely apparent when I try and explain them. I think what Ron is attempting to do is find a unifying definition of religion to satisfy the "why" of religion. He is attempting to share that with us, which is going to be a challenge.

 

I have done the same thing with the meaning of "God". I have rationalized a definition that satisfies my need to understand the broader concepts of deity that fits with my own beliefs. What this does it allow me to rest my mind on the issue and move on to some other unsolvable puzzle.

 

Ron, am I close in my understanding of what you are trying to communicate?

 

Bill

[RonPrice]

Well done, Bill.....advance 3 squares and pick a card. I also do the same with my approach to God....but more of that later. Time for breakfast.-Ron

[RonPrice]

Bill's got it, Pyrotex, although you raise a problem....the subject can go on and on--as often threads do on the internet until people become exhausted with the hairsplittings and casuistry.-See ya...lateRon

[freeztar]

I also do the same with my approach to God....but more of that later.

 

That's fine, but please read our rules regarding the Theology Forum.