In 1K years, will they look on today's religions as we look on mythology?

Personally, I think so.

With age comes enlightenment?

What's taking everyone else so long?


Keith’s Barbeque Central

:beer:

:thumbsup:

I had my doubts but November 2, 2004 changed all that.

Religion gives them hope of controlling things they can't control in this lifetime and the promise of life after death. Fear is what drives most of today's religions. Some people just can't live without such a security blanket.

Me? I wish I could believe in the claptrap sometimes, that I'll live after I die, but I have to be true to my own intellect. There is no proof in religion. That is why faith is so highly acclaimed. Unfortunately, once a person believes in a sky being, that the earth was created 6000 years ago, that a man was born of a virgin birth, that a snake talked to a woman and got her to eat a piece of fruit and it screwed us all--once someone can believe those things, they will believe anything. That's why shrub's base is full of fundies. They'll believe anything he tells them because he's a "good Christian man."

"Faith is not the result of fuzzy thinking. It is the cause of it." --Dan Barker.

a person could make this statement. Very good point.

"The difference between them and us is they have tales and mythology and we have scripture and history."

That said, I tend to agree with Campbell that the metaphors they contain will always be important.

Attribution gets difficult in today's clime.

In 1000 years will all the religion bashers look on themselves as deluded?

deluded those of us who require PROOF before we believe something are(imagine that...proof) ...:crazy: :eyes:

:boring:

...that the rapture already happened and we are the left behind! ;)

When I was a child, one of my first books was a children's volume of Bible stories. I read it several times and looked for something as enjoyable. What I discovered next was science fiction.

--IMM

As a Deist, I have evidence that Deity exists (proporatnate shape of galaxies which many are very similiar in proportion and properties of light). Faith still exists that I am right but still, at least I look at the Universe and wonder unlike fundies. As for life after death, best to wait and see.

"my way or hell's high way" ones, then I would say they will not.

enlightened means being certain that there is no certainty.

or disrespect.

As a socio-religious environ, it was very different to today in the fact that there was a much smaller exposure to other faiths.

Your statement?

Half the stories there, especially in Genesis, are lifted straight from Egyptian mythology. The few that aren't are closely related to a pack of interrelated stories from Hittite, Sumerian, and Babylonian sources (which all borrowed heavily, thematically and factually, from the Egyptians).

:evilgrin:

to nevernose that the Sumerians pre-dated the Egyptians by a couple of thousand years, not the other way around.
And I'm baffled by the lack of interest and some hostility to my postings of ancient stories. Inanna, Enki, Enlil, Elohim, Annuniki, are written about and depicted as looking no different than humans as they came and went in the sky in their 'chariots'.
Let US make them in Our image......indeed
Ancient Holy sites all across the globe postioned on the 30th parallel line which is also the line that the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx happen to be placed upon. Not myth, fact.
The wonderment is 'who' on this earth, many thousands of years ago, had the capacity to so delineate this planet in this precision.

At least for a thousand years or so, especially during the old kingdom years.

There are some easy arguments against the theories of VonDaniken (sp?) and later theorists. Such as: what about all of the ancient holy sites that AREN'T on the 30th parallel? (Nazca lines, North Am. Mound Builders, Northern European Henge buiilders, etc.) And even so, could it be that the reason that so many are on or around the 30th parallel is that because the climate there was more conducive to developing civilizations?

While I'm not trying to make fun of these theories or start an argument, I usually follow Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation is usually the best. Aliens (oe whomever) may indeed have had a hand in developing civilizations on planet Earth, but that might just be denigrating the capabilities of our ancestors. They lived a long time ago and werw not as technologically advanced, but that doesn't mean they were stupid or incapable.

Personally, I subscribe to a viral language theory of the birth of civilization, and I also suspect that our ancient relatives had a great deal more contact with each other than is commonly acknowledged.

kill us all we will.

I used to think that humans were a social pack animal, but I was wrong. The majority of humans gravitate towards being social herd animals. Given our imagination and desire for something more than the miserable existence the majority of us lead, combined with desire of those that are in power to stay in power (the herd leaders), and you have yourself the makings of a religion.

My friends and I were just discussing how Scientology came about in the last couple decades. You would think that by now there would be no new religions, and we'd just be waiting on the older ones to die out. New ones are trying to spring up all the time! I am absolutely convinced that organized religions are a social virus that is intentionally seeded amongst the populace.

Unfortunately for us, education and free thinking will always be the enemy of organized religions. Now I have no problems with people having their own spiritual beliefs. I cannot raise myself to the point where I can deny that there is more to life than flesh and blood. But we have got to wake up and realize that the Falwells, Robertsons, and Bushs of the world are laying a trap that we are blissfully walking into.

The biggest argument against intelligent design is that those that were "created" could think it was intelligent design.

Shows how little you actually know about the subject, I'm afraid.

If you look at organized religion, taken as a whole throughout history, religion that starts organically is always started to explain that which we don't understand. The problem is, when the explanation is found, those that are in power will fight like hell to never give up the power that that religion gave them.

Innovation is a threat to the status quo.

except for your other post.

than all of us here. Please share your insights with us so that we may be enlightened as well. Essay form is preferred.

FYI- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are not organic religions. They all arouse by borrowing from other religions in their spheres of influence. In many cases, this "borrowing" was done consciously and with the exclusive intent of forcibly converting people in the lands where the borrowee religion was located.

which believe in a God who acts and has acted in human history. They believe in God who is the fulfillment of human history. Christianity views itself as a completion or fulfillment of Judaism, while Islam views itself as a fulfillment of both Judaism and Christianity.

(I'm really not even sure what an "organic" religion is- but I make a general distinction in world religions between religions of nature and religions of history.) And yes, I have noticed that its the historical religions which seem to cause all the trouble. As my atheist father put it- "the worst decision God ever made was getting into real estate". :shrug: Yes, the historical religions come into conflict with each other because they each believe that they have a more special relationship to God than the others.

I would never use the word "borrowing" to describe the relationship of one to another. It tends to imply a kind of "plagiarism" which doesn't really make sense when applied to those times. Having said that- the idea that God "dictated" the Bible is not required for relgious belief. The Hebrew Bible is a collection of histories carefully transmitted from generation to generation by a particular people, some in written word, but for centuries before that in spoken word. The ugaritic language, the epic of Gilgamesh, and even the traditions of foreigners have their imprint on the Biblical literature- it did not develop in a vacuum.

Christianity was written into the New Testament over a much shorter period of time, but it too is stories and letters and dreams written down by people whose lives were impacted in a fairly direct way by the historical event of God becoming human in Jesus.

These books were not meant to be dissected and used as particulate weapons, they were meant to be pondered as sacred texts. The tools for understanding these texts include the study of ancient language, literature, and history. There are scholars of religion who use these tools to try to uncover the intentions of the Biblical writers - and sometimes that goes against the meaning of texts that has been accepted for centuries.

I fear that people completely understand the word myth and the kind of truth that is in a myth. It is not a falsehood or an absurdity or an old wives tale, but a pervasive worldview which affects every area of one's life. There is an "American" myth which depends on our history, and most of us still believe in it even though we recognize the genocide of the American Indian and the racism of slaveholding and the imperialism we continue to show around the world. Through the tarnish of our own history we still see the longing for freedom of belief that brought people across and ocean to start a new life, and the brilliance of our founding fathers.

The waters of religion are deep, and no lifetime is long enough to wade into more than a few or to drink deeply from more than one. Some people never get past feigning religion or using it in a quest for power. But the people who truly find a relationship with God, in whatever religion, are utterly transformed by it, intellectually, morally, and emotionally speaking. The proof of the reality of God is in the transformation of a human being, not in rational argument.

I didn't see the insult in the post, really.
I try to put qualifiers in my rants on religion because I separate the religion from the believer, but sometimes I don't realize how harsh I sound.
I can happily bash religion all day and night without once intending to bash a believer.
You seem to know a good deal about the subject and I respect your opinion in this and other issues.
Please know that most atheists don't hate believers or even beliefs, it's what has been done with them that we hate.


Peace.

:thumbsup:

Okay... Historical event? Of GOD becoming human? In Jesus?

Empirical evidence please.

Come on. In a rational discussion, do you really expect that to go unchallenged?

These are historical religions which believe in a God who acts in human history, and for Christians the event of God becoming human is THE CENTRAL EVENT in human history. I am not making a metaphysical argument here, I am describing Christianity from the point of view of the believer.

On those qualifications, you could profess that three headeded worms will eat us all.

Or wait... Let me check revelations.

Nevermind. Wrong number of heads.

I guess the point is that "the believer" throughout history has fallen into the realms of superstition or mythology.

If you want to go with your belief system of the day, that's great. There's a lot of great things taught in it. Love you, man. That's simply human.

And you're not listening, really. You just love to argue.

I'll be watching LOST. :popcorn:

Why? Is it an "attack" on your religion?

as having the same defects, and some have pointed to an intellectual defect. This is inaccurate.

If your own belief system (whatever it may be) feels threatened or impinged by this, I am sorry, that was not the intention.

education and free thinking will always be the enemy of organized religions
Ever been around Unitarian Universalists? We're organized, educated, thinking freely, and debate our religion so much it's 2nd nature.

Mr. Caria and I often discuss how best to teach Caria jr ABOUT religion (so she'll be politically savvy & culturally literate) but raise her as an atheist. Suggestions from those of you who have BTDT are welcome!

Atheism is the default setting.

though not religious.

Its possible to expose a child to many different belief systems including atheism without "raising" them as if they are "supposed" to think one way or another. My parents did not agree about religion- but even my atheist parent did not object to his children going to Sunday School and finding out what it was about. And my religious parent did not pressure us to attend church or to believe.

If you mean they'll believe anything and have vivid imaginations, that does not mean they are not atheists.

Atheism is not a belief system and it does not tell anyone how or what to think.

You are confusing it with religion.

Well I don't agree with that.

Just as Chomsky says there is a "language organ" in the brain, I think there is also a "spiritual organ" -- i.e., we are perhaps preprogrammed by countless generations of natural selection to pursue spiritual "truth", "salvation", "peace", and "meaning". To deny that pursuit with zeal or conscientious devotion is equally an expression of that preprogrammed given in our natures, albeit in disguised form.

Joseph Campbell describes 4 major cultural functions for religion (IIRC): (i) to engender sustaining and grounding "mystical" experience in a few (the founding roots of religions), (ii) to provide order and meaning that allows a political/economic system to florish, (iii) to establish and justify a ruling priestly class that benefits a few and maintains the general order, (iv) to function as a screening myth that keeps system-contrarian truths from the minds of the non-privileged classes. There is nothing wrong with item one; it all goes downhill with the latter three. That preprogrammed pursuit of the spiritual gets hijacked again and again for sociopolitical purposes that maintain, sustain, and benefit selfish hierarchy -- and at complete variance (usually) from the "mystical" experiences that served to found the religious order in the first place -- steers us into discussions of our natures that spill far beyond just the "religious" in us.

Having said that, my wife (Kriss) is a devout Christian. I can say unequivocally that her church (a small charismatic church) is filled with men and women of good spirit who turn to Sundays for nourishment, comfort, and community. The values and ideals upheld are positive and healing. During the rest of the week more than a few do much community work to alleviate the suffering of others. In and of itself there is nothing negative with this at all; on the contrary, this is a beautiful thing.

If I can wax metaphorically here I think there are levels to consciousness, spheres turning slowly within spheres. Up above are the spheres of transpersonal experience (mystical, spiritual, revelatory). Down below are the spheres of the wounded child, the detritus of our tragic personal histories. In between are the spheres of the everyday self that balances the checkbook and clocks in at work. A retreat into any one at the cost of the others is disorder, disease.

The transpersonal in flight from the weight of the everyday or in denial of our woundings can lead to imbalance and fanaticism; a retreat below can lead to depression, emotional chaos, continuance and increase of pain. And a retreat into the everyday in denial of the above/below can lead to ennui, emptiness, and meaninglessness. What's called for, and the words of the many spiritual leaders across time have called for this, is balance and integration of all spheres.

To the extent that religion orders and integrates it can be tolerated (by me). I understand that many of us are strong enough to stand alone, separate from the ordering community of religions (Tillich's the courage to stand apart vs. the courage to participate, two poles of the courage to be in a world where God can seem very absent -- the many of us fall at various points along this valid continuum). But I am also fully aware how the sensitive spheres can be hijacked for banal (even evil) purposes. And I am aware how the screening myths of religions can distract from and postpone the fight for corrective social justice and equality. On this contradiction I don't pretend to have answers, but unlike some I neither embrace naively nor reject wholly the fundamental drives that lead men and women to bond together in intended good will under the banners of various religions.

But, hey, that's just me <---- lost in Samsarra, swimming in our Ocean of Tears...

(Let me, um, confess, this is a copy of a post I made on urban75 about a year ago.)

Very intelligent and well thought out.

But atheism is still not a belief system.

If'n you don't believe me, come on over to our evil lair and ask a few more of us. We love company.

But I wouldn't start out by stating your assumption that atheism is a belief system or religion, them's fightin words to most of us.

well said.

If my teenage kid decides on their own that they want to go to a certain church, that's fine. But as a non-believing parent, i'm not going to push them toward anything.

And if one parent is religious and the other isn't, why would the religous side win out exactly?

For them, it was a resolution of the conflict between them. I think before kids are of driving age they have limited opportunity (unless with a friend or relative) to see what its about. We were given the option to go and we stopped as teenagers. A child, like an adult, may go to church primarily because they enjoy the social activity or the attention- so it isn't even completely about belief.

I guess my parents didn't see it as the religious side winning out because they really didn't reinforce it at home. My atheist parent saw it as harmless- and he didn't say much, but I knew he didn't believe. When we got to confirmation age we were required by the church to attend sunday school, church, and confirmation class or else bring a note from our parents. Since my parents didn't even go to church I thought this was pretty weird, and that's when I stopped going.

You raise your children how you want, and assume what you will about their "natural" inclinations.

And I will do the same, thank you very much.

Personally, I think teaching a child to think critically for him or herself is directly antithetical to indoctrinating them in most of the mainstream interpretations of Western theistic religions. But that's just my take on it.

An open mind is all I ask from my kids, but an open mind, to my thinking, doesn't translate to "of course there's a higher power"

Really! Several times to look at art & architecture, or to listen to music. And once we went to a service because she was curious.

Agnostics say we don't know. Atheists say we know there's not a God.

The default setting would seem to be "we don't know."

I should know. :evilgrin:

I posted this before:




from Defining Atheism by Austin Cline
http://atheism.about.com/

You must mean the old argument that we're all born atheists. Well, I think that's wrong. Having no concept of a god or spiritual force does not equal denying them.

but I'll repeat it one more time for you.

Atheism is not the denial of gods.

You must be thinking of the THEIST's definition of atheism.

That is the one that's wrong.

If you wish to learn more on the subject, let me know.

I am just more used to hearing atheism as the denial of god(s). Thanks for bringing me up to date.

There is so much info out there, it's impossible to keep up.
Some atheists do deny the existence of god(s) but they are few and far between.
IMO, it's not possible to refuse to believe in something that can't be defined.
I'm really not very good at explaining it, that's why I use that article.

:hi:
Peace, Catbert836

There are so many arrogant assholes who won't, those who do are very valued.

n/t

"How did we get here?" and "Is there life after death?" and such does a child become religious. They are spiritual but no set beliefs. I think they are areligious by default with spiritual leanings.

is taught, not inherited.
That was my point.
We are all born atheists.

Just areligious. Atheism is an answer to the question "Are there god/ess(es)?" If that question is never posed, children won't have an answer. Thus areligious. Atheism isn't a religion but it is an answer to one religious question.

But then, most non-atheists don't.

Atheism isn't an "answer" to anything.

"Areligious" is the same thing as atheistic, it just sounds better to theists.

What is atheism other than saying there is no god/dess(es)?

I've got it standardized ! :D

it will take the rest of society to come to the same conclusion.

Three of todayas have one lasting advantage, dogmatic books. But we may be seeing a rise in paganism now. So even the books may become a reference to an old religion one day.

What the hell is your definition of Paganism? Personally, I would think that there has been more of a rise in scence and reality.

And it is the fastest growing religion in the US now. Science has grown in knowledge, but it is not in competition with all religions. But as we have seen too many times reality is relative to the perceiver.

Personally, I would think that there has been more of a rise in science and reality.
I think there is a rise in Deism. People are accepting science, reality, and take myth as fables. Some liberal Christians, once they have a reason to believe in god/ess(es), they are Deists on a technicality.

Personally, I would think that there has been more of a rise in science and reality.
I think there is a rise in Deism. People are accepting science, reality, and take myth as fables. Some liberal Christians, once they have a reason to believe in god/ess(es), they are Deists on a technicality.

it's been 2000 years since the time of Jesus. And far from being a myth, there is strong evidence that Jesus was a historical figure.

Myth
#

1. A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society: the myth of Eros and Psyche; a creation myth.
2. Such stories considered as a group: the realm of myth.

# A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal: a star whose fame turned her into a myth; the pioneer myth of suburbia.
# A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.
# A fictitious story, person, or thing: “German artillery superiority on the Western Front was a myth” (Leon Wolff).


The bible fits the definition, even if every word is absolutely true.

Same story different names.

Hercules, half man, half god...

okay....

The life of Jesus is not.

I don't take every word of the bible literally. But there is a flaw in your logic when you say that even if every word in the bible is absolutely true then it is still a myth.

proof?

"I don't take every word of the bible literally"

How do you decide what ones not to?

A myth or the term mythology, refers to a collection of stories that make up a cultures origin, history, deities, hero's and ancestors. The term it self does not imply they are false. There are 4 entries for the definition of myth, only one of them states that it is a fictional story. The definition I was referring to is
#

1. A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society: the myth of Eros and Psyche; a creation myth.

This is the definition of myth in reference to any religion. All religions and cultures have their mythology. There are courses of study based on that. But the term myth does not preclude them being historical.

Sad but true to the modern man.

flies in the face of that theory... :9

While I think we have had periods of enlightenment, I don't believe that there is necessarily a progressive direction to history- that we are getting better at organizing our social experience. If that were true wouldn't we have developed a political system which made it impossible for someone with limited intelligence and moral fibre to become president?

I believe that we as human beings can also move backwards and even destroy our race.

to destroy themselves, I also believe that they have a predilection to learning much like some animals use tools to open shells for food.

What was once considered "magic" or "God's Will" is now considered natural. What we don't comprehend today will suffer the same fate.

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

US and most developing nations have to catch up.

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" (April 11, 1823).

do you know where he made it? just curious.

In fact, this week I'm re-reading Joseph Campbell's "Power of Myth". You should check it out!!! Totally mind-blowing if you aren't already open to the idea that today's religions are myths.

can see the outlines of the religious future in the spirituality that is developing outside organized religion: an interesting hybrid
of East (Zen/Taoism) and West (the resurrection of the Goddess/renewed Aboriginal spirits-of-the-land Traditionalism) -- something we don't have a name for yet because it is much more than merely Neopagan fadism or the (ultimately doomed) "New Age" effort to elevate self-centeredness into theology. One of its most interesting elements is that it is literally post-patriarchal in that it is utterly devoid of doctrinal hierarchy. (True, there are local in-group hierarchies, but these are more matters of personality than belief, and in any case they are far more circular -- or spiral -- than linear.) Indeed we may be moving back toward something akin to the pre-Christian Aboriginal ethos, in which what we call "religion" or "spirituality" were so closely interwoven in the fabric of life they had no separate, categorical names at all and were known simply as practices and events: "vision quest," "sun dance," "rain dance," "salmon dance" etc. ("Great Spirit" is a particularly vicious, maliciously false Christian mistranslation: the closest approximation we can achieve in English is "Holy Mystery.") Moreover this sort of a belief system would be particularly suitable for a dramatically shrunken (and consciously Gaea-dependent) human society that had managed to survive the impending and now inescapable petro-apocalypse -- a world in which Yehveh/Jesu/Allah would be despised as the god who failed, and in his hateful failure very nearly killed the planet. Nor do I think this is a coincidence: there are a number of examples of that suggest a powerful (and largely subconscious) human capability to prepare psychologically for the future.

As to the Yehvehistic or Abrahamic religions -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- I believe what we are witnessing today are their death-convulsions: not just their deaths but the death of the whole patriarchal system they spawned. I also believe that Fundamentalism is the one "real" Yehvehistic religion: that its more "liberal" expressions are merely window-dressings woven of pagan conceptual survivals and runaway human denial to conceal the infinitely murderous Yehvehistic core. And do not doubt the Fundamentalists are already in command: the connection between capitalism and Fundamentalism is the connection between toxic root and poison berry; Bush is merely now expanding Yehveh's reach (back) into civil affairs -- this specifically in reaction to the trends I summarized above. The question then is whether -- just as American troops did in Vietnam when they bombed a village into rubble and announced, "we had to destroy the village to save it" -- the Fundamentalists will decide (as their god has done at least once before) that all life is an "abomination" and nuke the planet -- Yehveh's theological microcosm of suicide bombings leading to his theological macrocosm of nuclear extinction.


Edit: addition of clarifying phrase, deletion of accidentally duplicated pronoun.

Patriarchal system spawned.

There's a head full.

You said things in a much more succinct way than I could have at the moment. Thanks for the post.

I just hope people read it.

It isn't worth it.

We have religions (all of the major religions) that are between 1000 and 6000 years old and they are all still revered by their adherents. Every once in a while an age of enlightenment comes along, but not that often.

5500+ years hasn't stopped us.

Time is not necessarily a qualifier or truth.


Then again, there;s another group that believes that some guy carried two tons of gold plated across the American Continent...

statuary from Crete -- the Goddess holding serpents in her outstretched arms. (Note in this context the ancient mythic connection between Britain and Troy, which was {possibly} a last surviving outpost of the old Minoan matriculture. Quoth Taliesin: "I am come now here to the remnants of Troya...")

By the way, thank you for what you said above.

between ancient mythologies and modern religions.

my own analysis based on something Graves (or possibly someone else) postulated about a connection between the Minoans and the Trojans, or I may have read the whole thing somewhere set out pretty much as I reported it; the connection between the Trojans and the ancient Britons is an oft-repeated assertion of British myth. In any case, there were many apparent pagan survivals alive in the Appalachia of my boyhood: "she's a wise woman" (meaning she's a witch) and "he's a cunning man" (meaning the same thing), also backwoods local rituals and/or festivals that probably survived both Inquisitorial and Cromwellian viciousness, of which I have probably forgotten much more than I remember. Some of my knowledge of these things came from living there (and working there as a young adult), some of it from folklore studies at college, some from reading before and since. One of the problems with getting old is that recollection of sources tends to merge into a kind of stew -- or perhaps more aptly a (witch's) brew. (Not that I'm a witch or Wiccan: that I most certainly am not. But the metaphor nevertheless seems apt, especially considering the subject.)

Edit: addition of details.

Lapatin's "Mysteries of the Snake Goddess" 2002
http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/booksellers/press_release/lapatin/
VERY good read.

have already written out an index card to remind me to check my (very good) local library for it.

By the way, the stated purpose of (allegedly Christian) Appalachian snake-handling and the conjectured purpose of Minoan snake-handling is identical: demonstrating that one is "in the Spirit" -- whether of Rhea or Jesus. (There is a theory among neopagans that these old methods work -- that is, they invoke the Goddess -- even if they are performed in the name of some other deity. Interesting in this context that some of the people who "get out the snakes" and also "speak in tongues" sometimes say that in their trances they commune with a woman they identify as "the Virgin Mary {or maybe the Holy Ghost}" rather than "Jesus." Non-snake-handling Christians of course say the snake-handlers really see "the Devil: the serpent incarnate" -- though the original pagan meaning of the serpent is identical to that of the Celtic salmon: bearer of wisdom and wisdom its self. Hence snake-handling {like sacramental drug use} is everywhere outlawed and is performed only in head-of-the-hollow privacy and there only in secrecy.)

In this century there will be medical breakthroughs that will greatly extend human life, perhaps indefinitely. At this point the religious promise of eternal life will lose its appeal, considering one has to die first before obtaining said reward.

"And, in a letter to John Adams, written shortly before both their deaths, on July 4, 1826, Jefferson said, "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

I don't see it happening anytime soon...nor a thousand years.

I feel it's inevitable that all but the most esoteric will suffer the fate of earlier belief systems.

Most of the classic bible stories are derivatives of much older mythology.

ages?

That's the real question, I think.

They will worship William Shatner.

myself.

...with the same awe and respect and intelligence Joseph Campbell had for the the long history of myth expressed in his 4 volume masterwork, The Masks of God.

Because you don't speak French does not mean that a French language does not exist, is not beautiful, and is not effective through its use at adding to the collective wisdom of the human race.

... religious myths are not a language.

Respect and intelligence? Are you kidding? How about disdain and scorn for the atrocities and bigotry and hate and murder and terror that's been done (and being done) in the name of religion? You think they will "respect" that?

They worship the dollar, or rather, all of them. And they seek to have all of them and for no one else to have any.

Bible thunpers sooo want this to happen, there will never be peace.

(including the poster who self-deleted his question above), I have been studying these matters since the late '50s, when I began questioning the spiritual implications of the folk-music renaissance based on its curious time paradox (seemingly irrelevant antique music spontaneously reappearing in a modern setting) and on the fact much British traditional folk music originated as ritual dance and invocation -- lays of magic by which the pre-Christian Celts invoked the Goddess and the various gods.

As for Fundamentalism, I grew up mostly in Appalachia and other parts of the South, and got to witness it and all of its infinite viciousness firsthand, including its manifestation as "the Saturday Night Men's Bible Study Class," the genteel Southern euphemism for the Ku Klux Klan. As to my argument that mainstream or "liberal" Christianity is mostly merely Fundamentalism cloaked in pagan humanism and wrapped in denial, note not only the blood-drenched history of Christianity, but also the modern examples of both Jonestown (which started as "liberal" religion but quickly reverted to form) and the present-day sexual assault by the Roman Catholic priesthood on young boys: each is a classic expression of patriarchal will to power and exploitation. The critical point here is the violent potential characteristic of Yehvehistic core texts: the Charles Manson paradox: sing of love but kill without mercy. The civilizing influences that have softened Yehvehistic religion -- democracy, civil liberties, humanitarianism, the value of the individual -- these are all pagan survivals, in origin either Graeco/Roman, Celto/Germanic, or both. Marx and Engels were especially aware of this fact.

As for bibliography, in my one completed piece of full-length writing on the topic, it ran over 25 typewritten pages: books, articles, lectures, personal interviews (and that was nearly 30 years ago). Original keynote authors included Marx, Engels, Max Weber, Sir James Frazer, Margaret Murray, Karl Jung, Erich Neumann, Joseph Campbell, Robert Graves, Gerald Hawkins, Alexander Marshack and of course Heroditus and Lao Tzu; today I would surely add Barbara Mor, Marja Gimbutas and Riane Eisler to that list. There are many more who were just as influential but whose names don't come immediately to mind.


Edit: addition of authors' names.

Elvinians, as the fathful followers of the prophet Elvis will be flying spacecraft into spacestations to convert those Infidel Scientologist.

Scientologist on the other hand, will invade Mars in retaliation and arrest their martian leader for "having weapons capable of blowing up the sun"

Given the environmetal catastrophe we've been working on since the Agricultural Revolution, whatever happens to us will be so devestating that we'll be remembered by the race who comes after us like the dinosaurs are remembered by us. If we want to survive, we will maintain have to do a lot of strange things that most people never even thought of.
To read about these strange ideas, read "Ishmael", "The Story of B", and "My Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. Raising awareness is the first step.

The Freethought Zone
Science and Reason Over Religion and Superstition
http://freethought.freeservers.com /

Freedom from Religion Foundation
http://www.ffrf.org /

Secular Humanism
http://www.secularhumanism.org /

Secular Web
http://www.infidels.org/index.shtml

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason - Online
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/index.shtml

Complete Works of Robert Ingersoll - Online
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/index.shtml

Wouldn't it be nice to live in a time where people did NOT worship mythical imaginary deities?

Prometheus stole the fire from the gods and gave it to Man. Secular Humanism is the appropriate religion for our time.

Secular Humanism
http://www.secularhumanism.org

The Freethought Zone
Science and Reason Over Religion and Superstition
http://freethought.freeservers.com

Freedom from Religion Foundation
http://www.ffrf.org

Secular Web
http://www.infidels.org/index.shtml