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Agnosticism: Lazy Man's Atheism?
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I'm just really looking forward to the day we discover aliens and they look nothing like us.
That will basically make all organized religions crumble.
1. The aliens don't have souls and so aren't in need of salvation (like non-human animals).
2. The aliens obviously have, or are waiting to have, their own alien Jesus.
You can thank C.S. Lewis for popularizing #2. Seriously.
To be honest if a super advanced race came down that was not just atheist but actively dismissive of our religions, I think that would be pretty close to a deathblow. Priests lose out on authority against super clever aliens I think.
That's basically what religion does over time. It's how it evolves as an ideology, by repackaging itself into whatever is the dominant worldview.
For example, look at all the crazy Aztec and Maya shit that to this day exists in Central and South American strains of Christianity. Those people got conquered by a vastly technologically superior culture dismissive of their beliefs too; they "converted," but vestiges remain.
Just look at how rich people throughout history have twisted Christianity into "Rich people deserve to be rich because they're God's elect."
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
If intelligent aliens were discovered, that may shock them into oblivion.
To be fair they were conquered by a supernaturalist culture. I'm assuming these aliens are pretty much materialist heroes >_>
If people do figure out how to become effectively immortal, and how to alter and transform their consciousness—or if we figure out how to create new consciousnesses just as smart as us—what would be the point of heaven? We would have saved ourselves.
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
Just call it the Rapture!
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I actually think, in many respects, our modern society has completely surpassed ancient people's expectations about heaven/"the carrot" to begin with.
The earliest parts of the Bible were written by a group of people who thought the entire universe was about the size of the Mediterranean Sea. They believed the sky was a solid dome, and the stars were little points of light that hung from it like lamps. The most powerful weapon they were familiar with were iron chariots, which were so dreadful that they believed their deity himself would have trouble defeating them in battle. They repeated and exaggerated stories about natural disasters in ancient Egypt and attributed them to their god. They believed the reward for following this god wasn't even an "afterlife" per se (the idea of heaven would come later), but rather just getting a good harvest, a pretty wife, strong children. God promised them a "land flowing with milk and honey," which if you've ever eaten milk and honey comes across as "If you obey me I'll give you ice cream."
If one of these ancient Hebrews was transported into my modest apartment, with my air conditioning, plumbing, magical illustionary entertainment devices, and freezer stocked full of Ben and Jerry's, they would seriously think I was a heavenly being, one of Yahweh's subservient pantheon living in "the firmament" of the Sky.
There are wonders in my daily experiences that I don't think the ancient Hebrews ever contemplated. Meanwhile, we have nuclear weapons that make Yahweh's magic and plagues look like child's play. The world is simply a much bigger, much more fascinating, and much more dangerous place than the ancient Hebrews ever dreamed about; their religion and god have had to "grow" a great deal to accommodate the fact that reality is way cooler.
Living in a modern city isn't too different from an ancient one. Its just a lot more sanitary.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Barely any contact with the outside world is very different from no contact at all; even if the individuals to whom you refer had zero knowledge about the specifics of modern technology, they would at least have had an idea, probably, of what a skyscraper is, for instance, and though the New York skyline might be overwhelming they would at least have the frame of reference that they are looking at large buildings. Unless hypothetical-Israelite had visited the Pyramids in Egypt (spectacularly unlikely given how much rarer travel was in the past) he would have no experience of man-made works even approaching this scale: his experience of a modern city would be like Lovecraft's description of the cyclopean monuments from At the Mountains of Madness. And I'd forgive him for assuming the supernatural here or later, when faced with internal combustion, refrigeration, flight, fission, information technology, or plumbing.
Perhaps he wouldn't actually lose his sanity; there's no way of knowing. I'd be willing to wager a small amount that he'd be at least a bit jilted from the experience. And even then, the vast cultural gulf between modernity and the transplanted Israelite's experience might make him seem insane by our standards despite being perfectly healthy by the standards of his time.
I mean sure new york was less impressive before it was filled with cars, but the most obvious is native america children being shipped to cities for education up to the end of the 19th century
To be fair, Christianity is pretty much the king of this. No other religion has been as good at riding the coattails of the dominant world power(s) and then taking everything of importance in a culture and making it "work" within its own theology.
By "modern" I mean post-air conditioning, information age modern.
I wonder if there has ever been something like this. There are barely any uncontacted people left, and even they might have some idea about what Western culture is like from hearsay.