In the Bullshit Department, a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman. 'Cause I gotta tell you the truth, folks. When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims: religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told.
Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man -- living in the sky -- who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!
But He loves you.
He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!
-- George Carlin Politically Incorrect, May 29, 1997
Or that it evolved up from a Pentium to a Pentium II to a Pentium III etc...just through force of will and eons of time?liveforphysics said:Would you assume this was created by random chance, despite the refined basic compounds used to create it not existing anywhere naturally on the planet, so the pieces wouldn't even be possible to get randomly assembled?
Not really since the study of genetics has allowed us to track and observe the genetic mutations by which life develops to ever more complex states. What you ought to explain is why the initial phase of increasing molecular complexity and self replication should have a fundamentally different dynamic to the mutations which drive the rest of biological evolution. Unless of course you're with TPA on this and reject the overwhelming evidence for biological evolution. Why would some conscious entity go to the effort of creating single cell organisms and not go the whole hog. Er, perhaps hog is the wrong word here. :lol: No offense intended. The significant thing to appreciate is that the methodology of religious thought is the inverse of the scientific method. There is a very good reason why the moto of the Royal Society is 'Nullius in verba', roughly translated as 'Take nobody's word for it'.liveforphysics said:I mentioned nothing of purpose, religion, or evolution. They are mute points until the occurrence of life is accounted.
Why would it surprise you that the discovery of evolution and the study of genetics require an enormous amount of effort? :?TPA said:But only Life evolves and advances to a higher state?...oh, the mental calisthenics that are needed to avoid creationism.
The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.
Engels says: “Hegel was the first to state correctly the relation between freedom and necessity. To him, freedom is the appreciation of necessity"
TylerDurden said: