Introducing the Hunter process.

=2014-02-10=
Hi Guys

Just a comment on why this thread morphed into a religious discussion.

Personally, I believe that religious beliefs are in large part concerned with the possibility of existence AFTER the bodies we inhabit die.

Since the idea of continued existence is, to most of us, is vastly preferable to the alternative, religious beliefs are extremely important to ALL of us.

I think that, in the interests of trying to get along with others in this life, a good approach to religion based discussion is to limit ourselves to stating our own point of view and listening to other people's point of view WITHOUT ATTEMPTING TO IMPOSE OUR VIEWS ON OTHERS.

But what do I know ??

I am not a preacher, have no degrees in religious education, or any training as a writer or a public speaker.

I DO have my beliefs, however, and do not mind religious discussions having actually learned things during some of them, (finding face-to-face conversations MUCH preferable), but strongly dislike confrontations and fights (both verbal and physical).

RFC is a preacher, so I understand, and I think he's got it right.

So, I expect this is the last post you guys will ever read from this wuss !!

Good luck to you all !!

R
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biochem wrote:One interesting thing, is that Langhorne must be an atheist. No true Christian (or Jew, or Muslim etc) who genuinely believed in the Lord would ever dream of deliberately inventing a falsified religion.

As PeterZ wrote, he could be thinking that his need to preserve the human race from the Gbaba is something that G-d requires him to do. Of course, his megalomania could also have stepped on any religious beliefs he might have held.

I would imagine that as the end came closer, people either were closer to their religious beliefs or became atheists, feeling that G-d had let down the human race by letting it be destroyed.

As an aside, I'm still curious if the recordings of all the living humans when the arc was sent are hidden somewhere, if they were ever sent off Earth. Could they be under the Temple?

-- Bob G

Well the Safehold series does involve religion and lots of us have strong opinions concerning religion both pro & con.

MWadwell wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:Hey!! I'm not that bad!!! (I hope )


Heh - I was referring to the topic....

Every forum has different "tar baby" topics (i.e. 20 years ago on a.b.d-w it was gun control, 10 years ago on the Future Tech boards at Baen Bar it was the Kyoto Treaty, etc) - and having seen two flare-ups in a couple of weeks here over religion - I'm guessing that religion is the tar baby topic here....

Well there has been speculation that some of the remaining "archangels" recording themselves and that may be part of the "return of the archangels".

As for recordings of people who remained on Earth, I doubt that Langhorne would have saved such recordings since they (if activated) would object to Langhorne's plans for Safehold.

IMO a man who was willing to "nuke" the Alexandria Enclave would be willing to wipe or otherwise destroy such recordings even if doing so would have violated Federation Law.

robertamgottlieb wrote:

biochem wrote:One interesting thing, is that Langhorne must be an atheist. No true Christian (or Jew, or Muslim etc) who genuinely believed in the Lord would ever dream of deliberately inventing a falsified religion.

As PeterZ wrote, he could be thinking that his need to preserve the human race from the Gbaba is something that G-d requires him to do. Of course, his megalomania could also have stepped on any religious beliefs he might have held.

I would imagine that as the end came closer, people either were closer to their religious beliefs or became atheists, feeling that G-d had let down the human race by letting it be destroyed.

As an aside, I'm still curious if the recordings of all the living humans when the arc was sent are hidden somewhere, if they were ever sent off Earth. Could they be under the Temple?

-- Bob G

Highjohn wrote:SWM
Earliest atheist:
First: Buddhism can be an atheistic religion. Not always though, but Buddhism is extremely old. So you might consider that.

Second: Socrates, was executed for teaching 'atheism' among other things. Of course he might not have existed so moving on.

Third: Celsus was the author of the first comprehensive argument against Christianity. It should be noted that he might not have been an atheist, only partial point here.

Fourth: Jinasena, a ninth century Jain teacher who wrote Mahapurana.

Five: Diagoras of Melos 5th century BCE.

Sixth: Al-Maʿarri 11th century BCE.

Seventh:ABu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq alRawandf 9th century 'former' Islamic scholar. Called Muhammad liar.

Eighth: Abu Nuwas, declared he was an unbeliever inside a mosque. When dragged to the authorities, he was asked to spit on picture of the prophet Mani(Different religion). He then did them one better and vomited on the painting. The authorities let him go with realizing they had an atheist.


There are more but the list is getting long. You are partially right though as before modern times most 'non-believers' were deists, not atheists. Widespread atheism(Also including disbelief in anything supernatural) is relatively modern.

SWM, if you do want to know more I suggest Atheism for Dummies.

None of your examples qualifies as "early civilizations".

You have already stated that you have not studied this subject. I have studied it as a sideline. And, by the way, I am an atheist, as well as the son of a preacher. I have examined the issue very carefully over many decades. I do not need "Atheism for Dummies". I suggest that you keep your arrogant assumptions to yourself.

runsforcelery wrote:Wow! Did this topic ever swerve!

I, however, can swerve with the best of them. So . . . .

First, Langhorne's belief that technology could be permanently "turned off" at all represents a triumph of desperate hope over logic and historical experience. While one can find specific eras in human history which appear remarkably stable and remarkably anti-technology, there's seldom been a time in the last several thousand years when someone, somewhere on the planet hasn't been advancing human knowledge and understanding of the world about him.
....

Could this reply please be added to the pearls of Webber and/or the FAQs for SafeHold? It hits on several of the issues that are often debated, and it would be convenient to have an easy to find place to reference it.

Thanks

biochem wrote:One interesting thing, is that Langhorne must be an atheist. No true Christian (or Jew, or Muslim etc) who genuinely believed in the Lord would ever dream of deliberately inventing a falsified religion.

Not really, Origen, who was one of the founders of Christianity if I understand things correctly, explicitly said not to take Genesis at face value, yet many people in the US do exactly that today, in fact I suspect that Longhorne was supposed to be a Take That at these people

SCC wrote:

biochem wrote:One interesting thing, is that Langhorne must be an atheist. No true Christian (or Jew, or Muslim etc) who genuinely believed in the Lord would ever dream of deliberately inventing a falsified religion.

Not really, Origen, who was one of the founders of Christianity if I understand things correctly, explicitly said not to take Genesis at face value, yet many people in the US do exactly that today, in fact I suspect that Longhorne was supposed to be a Take That at these people

Perhaps not at face value. Yet as Tonto posted in another thread, the similarities are much greater than many would credit. Who is writing this "Take That"? Our Christian author?


http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3292&start=160
Tonto Silerheels Wrote:
I don't blame you for not wanting to get into an argument about biblical truth. I don't want to, either. All I want to do is discuss mathematics, logic, and whether invisible, pink unicorns exist.

However, you provided a very good list of contradictions between your interpretation of Genesis 1, and current scientific understanding of cosmology, so I wanted to respond by showing the correlation between my interpretation of Genesis 1 and cosmology. That will give you an idea why I claimed that Christianity (and, by corollary, Judaism) stands up well.

Time: 15.75 billion years ago to 7.75 billion years ago. Contemporary cosmology: Space, time, and matter come into existence. The matter is so energetic and dense that it exists in a form of plasma through which light cannot propagate. Space expands enough to allow the plasma to condense into hydrogen and helium. Those atoms can cool by emitting photons. Bible: Genesis 1: 1-5. Creation cosmology: God created space and matter. God created light, and made it distinguishable from darkness.

Time: 7.75 billion years ago to 3.75 billion years ago. Contemporary cosmology: Matter collects into stars and planets. Bible: Genesis 1: 6-8. Creation cosmology: God created the stars and the earth.

Time: 3.75 billion years ago to 1.75 billion years ago. Contemporary cosmology: The earth cools to the point that liquid water can exist. Bacteria and algae appear. The first forms of plant life appear. Bible: Genesis 1: 9-13. God gathers water into seas. God creates grasses, herbs with seeds, and fruit trees with seeds.

Time 1.75 billion years ago to 750 million years ago. Contemporary cosmology: Earth's atmosphere, which was translucent, becomes transparent. Bible: Genesis 1: 14-19. Creation cosmology: God makes it possible to see stars at night. God makes it possible to discern the sun and the moon. (n.b. "made" here is not an active verb in the original text.)

Time 750 million years ago to 250 million years ago. Contemporary cosmology: Cambrian explosion--huge number of new species of fish and animal life appears. Bible: Genesis 1: 20-23. Creation cosmology: God creates nefesh life, which is self aware, and has emotions and a will. God creates fish and flying creatures.

Time 250 million years ago to recent past. Contemporary cosmology: An extinction event eliminates about 90% of all species. A large number of new species appear in their stead. Bible: Genesis 1: 24-31. God creates neshama life. God creates cattle, creeping things, and beasts of the earth. God creates mankind.

SWM

I gave the earliest explicitly atheist examples I could find, I didn't claim they were "early civilizations". I gave them to show 'atheism' wasn't a modern phenomena.

Also I said I didn't work in the field, not that I got this information five seconds ago.

Also with the suggestion of Atheism for Dummies, I was giving a book which you could read if you had very little knowledge on the subject. I don't see how recommending reading material is supposed to be arrogant. I didn't say, "Your a moron and I am a genius, go educate yourself" I said here is where I have gotten some information and if you would like to examine that information, you can go here.

Finally. I don't need to find references to early civilization atheists. People learn beliefs. Your not born with them. So at some point someone had to 'learn' about the concept of god. Until then there wouldn't have been any theists.

P.S. If you want to actually address what I've said you can give me some references to look up. I don't assume people who are giving me information sources are arrogant.

PeterZ, There are people who take it literally. Six 24 hour days. 7000 or so years ago.

Note: The 7000 years is from adding up generations and I know of nowhere where an explicit date is mentioned.