Were you religious before you were atheist?

kylith

jimmytwotimes 2013 wrote: »

and if they are not?

Join a union?

Cabaal

jimmytwotimes 2013 wrote: »

and if they are not?

Unfair dismissal case on the basis of beliefs ....or in this case non-belief,

You can't get rid of somebody out of a job based on being an atheist...unless they are a priests or a nun I'd imagine :pac: (but then are they actually jobs??)

jimmytwotimes 2013

lazygal wrote: »

I.....don't get this. I really don't. Do you actually have children? What will you do when the lie to you about something?

this is a seperate point then i guess, in a thread that's drifting well away from point as well

i wouldn't want my smallie eventually going out into the world thinking everyone is honest, or that they would have to be always honest as well. they'd get a fair land in life if they believed that. they have to be wise to the fact that a lot of people spout any kind of sh*t to preserve, or further, themselves.

if my smallie lied to me, i'll kill her lol

i did say always honest, who here hasn't told a white lie from time to time? nothing wrong with it.

let he who has not lied cast the first post, as a fella once said!

jimmytwotimes 2013

Cabaal wrote: »

Unfair dismissal case on the basis of beliefs ....or in this case non-belief,

You can't get rid of somebody out of a job based on being an atheist...unless they are a priests or a nun I'd imagine :pac: (but then are they actually jobs??)

prove it!!

'the best candidate who presented for interview got the job'

not a simple case. would be the same as nepotism which is rife in ireland, not many cases taken on that given how prevalent it is.

the powers that be can hide behind procedure, easily.

jimmytwotimes 2013

lazygal wrote: »

Are you in that position?

which, 100% secure in my professional position? no, i'm not.

lazygal

jimmytwotimes 2013 wrote: »

this is a seperate point then i guess, in a thread that's drifting well away from point as well

i wouldn't want my smallie eventually going out into the world thinking everyone is honest, or that they would have to be always honest as well. they'd get a fair land in life if they believed that. they have to be wise to the fact that a lot of people spout any kind of sh*t to preserve, or further, themselves.

if my smallie lied to me, i'll kill her lol

i did say always honest, who here hasn't told a white lie from time to time? nothing wrong with it.

let he who has not lied cast the first post, as a fella once said!

Well, this is off topic but it seems you're sending your children some very mixed messages. In fact, people who will go along with a majority faith despite not really believing any of it are possibly some of the worst offenders when it comes to spouting 'any kind of sh*t'.

kylith

Cabaal wrote: »

Unfair dismissal case on the basis of beliefs ....or in this case non-belief,

You can't get rid of somebody out of a job based on being an atheist...unless they are a priests or a nun I'd imagine :pac: (but then are they actually jobs??)

I think they can, though. I believe schools are exempt from that so that they can discriminate in who they hire to maintain the ethos of their school.

lazygal

kylith wrote: »

I think they can, though. I believe schools are exempt from that so that they can discriminate in who they hire to maintain the ethos of their school?

Indeed they are exempt from the Equal Status Act, but ever try getting a teacher fired? The union is a fierce powerful beast. I would like to know the stats on how many teachers were fired due to non adherance to ethos.

jimmytwotimes 2013

lazygal wrote: »

Indeed they are exempt from the Equal Status Act, but ever try getting a teacher fired? The union is a fierce powerful beast. I would like to know the stats on how many teachers were fired due to non adherance to ethos.

or how many part-time teachers were moved along after a year or two? -loads and well documented in the press how long a part-timer could be moving about- for various reasons granted, but you wouldn't want to be encouraging your own downfall.

kylith

lazygal wrote: »

Indeed they are exempt from the Equal Status Act, but ever try getting a teacher fired? The union is a fierce powerful beast. I would like to know the stats on how many teachers were fired due to non adherance to ethos.

Provided they're a member of a union.

jimmytwotimes 2013

lazygal wrote: »

Well, this is off topic but it seems you're sending your children some very mixed messages. In fact, people who will go along with a majority faith despite not really believing any of it are possibly some of the worst offenders when it comes to spouting 'any kind of sh*t'.

mixed messages, how?

i would tell my kids that they are the most important person they'll ever know. they need to look after themselves, be aware of people who will screw them over and tell the odd white lie if needs be. and definitely not to take religion, either believing in it, or opposing it, too seriously. life is too short to be stressing over it.

jimmytwotimes 2013

kylith wrote: »

Provided they're a member of a union.

union can't do much for someone who presents for interview and a different candidate gets it though. like i said, they can hide behind 'best candidate got the job', even within the current system of recruitment. if school management don't like you, or your attitude, they can move you along quickly and easily- best keep schtum on anything that might annoy 'em! doesn't qualify as a sacking, cos you weren't entitled to anything anyway. i can't remember exactly how long the average teacher waits for a permanent post, read it somewhere, but could be 5-6 yrs or more. you wouldn't be waiting as long obviously if you were the illegitimate offspring of the local bishop though

and as was pointed out here, if the school has a religious ethos, and you go shooting your mouth off against it, they'd be perfectly entitled to move you along.

Mr. G

Yes and no.

In primary I didn't really question or thing about it. I made my communion etc but that doesn't really matter at that age because most kids haven't really made their minds up as they're too young.

But when secondary came it was a different story altogether. I questioned stuff and learned a lot about the church.

I nearly got kicked out of religion class. By 5th year I had studied it a lot and had made my mind up, between the priest sex abuse in the media, Magdalene laundries and so on and while I respected others' beliefs and fully acknowledged them, I said enough is enough. Watching the reports on the Magdalene laundries and the Murphy report really sickened me, and I realised that I didn't believe in it at all anyway.

By then I had refused to go to mass at all, the vice principal caught us skipping (about 20 of us) and made us all go down to mass and to go after school on our own. I refused to take part anything to do with the Catholic church at all, and that never changed. While I understand their concern for skipping and being unsupervised, I had queried this before with him and they all said I had to go to mass. I said that its freedom of choice and expression of whether or not I wish to be Catholic, and I said that if you have a problem with that I wonder what the Dept of Edu would say about. He was having none of it, so my mother told me that it was my choice (both my parents gave up with the church) and fully supported me, and complained to the school about it. Even though the school was Catholic they can't force a child to practice a certain religion. Its that teenager's choice, and at that age they are well able to make up their own minds.

In the end after all the threats of suspension and detentions etc they had to allow me to skip the masses.

iguana

I was quite religious as a child because I liked school and wanted to do well in school and you can't really be good in school if you don't believe the religious crap and do your best to impress the priest when he comes around the classes if you don't fall into line on the Catholicism. Ironically it was making my confirmation that started me questioning the message of Catholicism and I found I didn't actually believe it at all. But rather than accept Atheism I searched for other religious beliefs to believe in and had a long dalliance with Paganism, specifically Wicca before having an epiphany in my late 20s that all religion was just variations of comforting fairy stories.

It's why I'm so opposed to religion in school. It's really tough to grow up being told to be good for your teacher and to learn from him/her, then have the person who is supposed to be teaching the basic facts of the world intertwine that teaching with religion and still come to the conclusion that there is no god of any kind at all. I think an awful lot of people reach the conclusion that what they were told to believe growing up was wrong but still accept that some sort of belief is right because it's unimaginable that something so ingrained on you was based on nothing.

Nailz

I was sent to a Catholic primary school as a boy and was primarily raised Catholic in terms of going to mass pretty much every week and other such things, and my parents both claim their faith, my mother being religious but not nutty about it and doesn't mind actually missing out on the mass the odd weekend but she likes to think she believes.

Many Irish Atheists and Agnostics say that they lost the whole religion thing a some point in time, particularly those raised Catholic, but for me I don't believe I have ever gained it. In my primary school years I just sort of got on with it because I had to, none of it really sank in and I wasn't taking any notice. I still know all the prayers strangely and the basic sacramental procedures but that's the extent of it.

When I was old enough to ask myself the questions posed by the mysteries of life I then made up my own opinion, and that was that. There was no exact time period, it was just a developing train of thought, no sudden dawning of enlightenment; I suppose around the time I was aged 14 or 15.

Liamario

No, I don't recall ever being religious. I remember even as a kid, while I accepted it without question, I never took it seriously. It fell into the same category as magic and santa claus.
I think that most kids are in the same boat, insofar as they just take it for granted that it's true and don't even think to question it.
I think it's wrong for adults to indoctrinate their kids with that sense of fear of eternal damnation and I would love to see a world where children aren't forced into a religion.

slade_x

lazygal wrote: »

Were you religious before you were athiest

Nope, i was a child then.

old hippy wrote: »

Briefly but I didn't know any better. That's no excuse,

That is a valid excuse, to be denied from an early age to rationally experience the world around you can be a detrimental thing. In fact if adults didnt get in the way that is exactly what all children would do. The santa clause method is by far the most obvious to some, if told of this santa clause and left to their own devices they would quickly conclude it as a lie the first time santa never showed up and delivered the presents. Thus eventually figuring out the intent. The parent, consciously, knowingly deludes their child. And thats what gets me; when the parent knows its a lie but continues to go out of their way to force it on their young because somehow an unfounded belief in something makes them innocent. The truth, its not innocence its ignorance.

Many will reference an exposure to specific religions for the cause of superstition. for example, take those that are raised in a specific religion and then later defect to another. The issue for them is not that they have been raised in the wrong religion, but that they were raised Religious/ Superstitious in the first place. So for some that is a big issue; The "I was raised in a religion that doesnt make sense to me so i absolutely have to find one that does".

However on some level we are all a little superstitious as a product of evolution, the funny thing is which ones we are aware of or not. Its much harder to expose your own superstitions as self observation is extremely difficult for us. Its much easier to see it in others however. For example, lets not take the easy ones like gamblers fallacy (the whole concept of luck for that matter), being exposed to cold and damp conditions that magically creates rhinovirus that infects us. walking under ladders, which resemble in rows the basic support structure of struts in walls and ceilings (ceiling frames) which we always walk adjacent to or under. breaking glass with a reflective coating on the back (mirrors) vs. glass with no such coating under certain lighting conditions (incident/refracted light in relation to the observer) that also mirror.

Take one most people dont think of; "Hiccups" Almost everyone i observe exhibits the same behaviour eg. "hiccup", apply ritual, "hiccup", apply ritual, "hiccup", apply ritual, "hiccup", apply ritual, "hiccup", apply ritual, aah 5th time lucky, it worked that time, last time it only took 2, before that it worked after the 3rd (note to self: how very inconsistent my remedy is) most common rituals include holding breath and/or blocking noise.

However most i have observed dont exhibit the same behaviour for other involuntary bodily contractions, for example eye twitching. i have yet to see a ritual for that, maybe so as it so seldomly happens in my presence and the afflicted sometimes have to make their twitch known.

The study of human behaviour in any century to date is a fascinating one, especially so in light of what we know now about the human condition.

jimmytwotimes 2013 wrote: »

i wouldn't want my smallie eventually going out into the world thinking everyone is honest, or that they would have to be always honest as well. they'd get a fair land in life if they believed that. they have to be wise to the fact that a lot of people spout any kind of sh*t to preserve, or further, themselves.

And that is exactly why its important to as you would say it "send your smallie", out into the world with an education (at the very least scientifically literate) in which case they wont be going out into the world thinking everyone is honest or any other misconceptions for that matter. They will go out in to the world, Thinking!

smacl

Raised atheist by atheist parents, which in the late 60s early 70s amounted to being called a pagan by a number of kids in primary school. Not Christened, nor did we do santa as a kid, though we did do the whole presents thing and had the granny (catholic) over for a Christmas dinner. I briefly became taoist, though purely as a philosophy, no gods or anything too supernatural involved. I loved reading about different world mythologies through history as a kid, though more Greek / Roman / Teutonic than anything Abrahamic.

My wife is a lapsed catholic, so while our kids aren't christened and wouldn't know one end of a church from the other, we still do santa, the tooth fairy, and the easter bunny at her behest. Not entirely sure which mythology the latter two sprang from, I suspect some pre-christian Irish traditions linger longer than the church would like.

I've good friends from a number of faiths, including a vicar, with very deeply held beliefs. Once you skip the whole who's right / who's wrong thing, I enjoy the diversity and the debate it brings with it.

Liamario

smacl wrote: »

Once you skip the whole who's right / who's wrong thing, I enjoy the diversity and the debate it brings with it.

I think you're life is the exception rather than the rule. I wish we could live in a world where people chose to believe whatever they wanted and everyone lived and let live. Unfortunately that isn't the case. While everyone can believe whatever they want, these same people can't help but interfere in the lives of others.

smacl

Liamario wrote: »

While everyone can believe whatever they want, these same people can't help but interfere in the lives of others.

True of course, but you have to ask is religion the root cause of the problem. While it goes hand in hand in many cases, interference with freedom of expression and belief, not to mention common or garden bullying, extend well beyond religion. To my mind what is closer to the truth is that factionism, megalomania and the desire to dominate others simply find a happy resting place in many churches, in much the same way they also do within political, academic and military hierarchies. Bullies who like the sound of their own voice tend find a niche in life all to easily. Throw in the extra mean spiritedness that enforced celibacy and childlessness will inevitably bring, along an organisation like the RC church that will protect its own good name at all costs, and you've got a problem.

Personally I abhor evangelists and factionalism of all kinds, including but not limited to, religious nutters, political lobbyists, sports fans and health freaks and anyone else trying to sell me a line of bullshít. YMMV.

HalloweenJack

Yep. I was fairly religious as a child (as much as a child can be). I prayed a lot and took a lot of Catholic teachings to heart and made sure to stick by them.

About 14/15, I copped on to the horrible hypocrisy of the RC church and lost faith. I began to question things more and more and realised that the morals that I thought Catholicism taught me were just more common sense and down to being a decent human being.

As time goes by, I find myself becoming more and more of an atheist.

old hippy

Recently on boards, I've seen the expression "militant atheism" chucked about, usually by the faithful. As if it's some kind of insult. Tbh, in these troubled times when religion festers away, I don't see anything wrong with the term.

Too much injustice has taken place under the guise of religion. If standing up to that equals a "militant" stance, so be it.

pwurple

I think the militant thing is a reaction from those who are bored with the occasional ranting of converted ex-catholics. Born Again anything comes with a newly awakened fervency which is just as snooze worthy as being stuck next to the beer-bore at a party.

Second or third generation athiests are much more chilled in my experience. It's nothing new, so they don't feel the need to show the universe how brilliant it is.

old hippy

pwurple wrote: »

I think the militant thing is a reaction from those who are bored with the occasional ranting of converted ex-catholics. Born Again anything comes with a newly awakened fervency which is just as snooze worthy as being stuck next to the beer-bore at a party.

Second or third generation athiests are much more chilled in my experience. It's nothing new, so they don't feel the need to show the universe how brilliant it is.

Maybe. Maybe not. I've been atheist for nearly 30 years and I still speak my mind. Esp when accosted by the evangelical, with their guitars, megaphones and quiet menace.

pwurple

old hippy wrote: »

Esp when accosted by the evangelical, with their guitars, megaphones and quiet menace.

Exactly. Evangelical nutjobs, or any other sort of conversionist just wind people up.

Hotblack Desiato

Was I brought up religious - yes, the works, weekly mass etc.
Can't remember a time when I ever really believed in it though. I liked history and science books, religion always felt like a bad fairy tale.

There was of course the (70s/80s) massive post-Vatican II disconnect between the 'god is love' spiel in the religion books and the 'hellfire and damnation' priests/teachers, and getting leathered for not being able to say a prayer/answer a question 'correctly' about your 'loving god' was a puzzler.

I always thought that confession was nonsense, hated it right from the start.

Didn't want to do my confirmation, but not doing it was NOT an option and then there was the £££ to consider, so I said nothing. Didn't take the pledge either but said nothing about that either. (Didn't drink until I was nearly 18 anyway but I've more than made up for lost time since :pac: )

During teen years religion was just something forced on me by parents/school, it had no meaning. Making the decision to give up the charade (at 18!) was a relief and I got far less grief over it than I expected. So during my 20s it was something I didn't really have to think about, wouldn't have described myself as any sort of a believer though, just avoided it.

What really pushed me over the line as describing myself as atheist, and made me very aware of the remaining power of the RCC and made me really want to oppose that nasty organisation in every way, was starting a family. I didn't want my kids to be forced to go through even a watered-down version of what my wife and I did as kids.

Wibbs

pwurple wrote: »

. Second or third generation athiests are much more chilled in my experience. It's nothing new, so they don't feel the need to show the universe how brilliant it is.

+1 Some atheists can have that teenage rebellion vibe to them about the whole thing. Really irritating.

Me I grew up in early 70's Ireland so the god squad were still in play in quite a big way. My parents would have been religious enough, but not daily communicants or "crawthumpers" as they described them. Sunday mass, confession once maybe twice a year(some of my mates 'rents were very heavy duty Catholics). Still they had a simple faith as it were. That was one thing that did confuse me. They were both intelligent people, yet seemed to switch off much of their critical thinking when it came to the subject.

Myself I was religious enough up to about age 10. That changed quite abruptly on a school trip to Lourdes at that age. I watched as priests were holy watering these poor near rags of disease twisted humanity "absolving them from sin" in front of the church and saw red on the spot. My road to Damascus moment and I ran out of there like a scalded cat(caused a furore and worry as I went AWOL for hours). When I was found a priest actually suggested I heard the devil. Oh yes. I called him a liar, which got me a paddlin. I can recall it very vividly even today nearly 40 years later. Funny enough I can see commonalities with religious folks who have their own sudden epiphany, even if mine was going the other direction.

I started to take an interest in and read more on theology and philosophy(as well as the science stuff I dug anyway). Funny enough the biggest encouragement I got was from a priest/monk. He loaned me many books on theology, both christian and others and answered my pretty feeble questions at the time and not once belittled my opinions. He kept with a very deep and humble faith in mind and practice and fair enough. Nice man.

What I found was that the problem with the various gods, is that they're so... effin mundane. So local, so human and usually on the bad side of human with it. If a god did exist, a god that was responsible for the only true wonder there is, reality, then it couldn't be anything like any of the gobshítes we've erected in our own tarnished image.

So after all that I became a hardline agnostic Why agnostic and not atheist? Well I certainly don't believe in the hosts(no pun) of gods and godesses made word by man. However I am open to the notion that the universe may have a motive force internal to it, which doesn't require some patriarchal boorish and bearded twat on a cloud. The Gaia principle writ very large as it were. Hell some are suggesting we may be living in a holographic universe and it may even be a simulation. I'd probably buy most into what Hamlet said "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy". I'm open to that, I'm open to the notion that there is stuff going on that we've not even begun to imagine out there(and we will imagine it sooner or later), but not combustable bushes in Bronze age fevered minds looking for promised lands.

Tiddlypeeps

I started to question the whole God thing around the time I started to suspect that Santa wasn't real, not sure what age that was, likely the first couple of primary school years.

Around the time I made my communion I started believe in God fairly strongly because I felt guilty about having questioned him before that and was worried about the repercussions. It was also fairly comforting to believe that someone is watching over you like that. My family were never very religious, we'd just go to mass at Christmas, Easter and funerals etc. If they were religious I'm pretty sure that would have been the point where I'd have been sucked in for life.

By the time I made my confirmation I was back to thinking the whole thing didn't make a whole lot of sense. I really didn't want to make my confirmation at the time. It felt like a big thing to commit to when I was having serious doubts about the whole thing. My parents made me go through with it anyway tho, even tho they weren't very religious I think they just didn't want to go against the grain.

Through my early secondary school years any question of faith in catholicism was gone and replaced with a sort of spirituality, believing in energies and auras and that kind of thing. I even considered picking up Buddism for a little bit.

I learned the scientific method in leaving cert biology. It took a few years after that to get the hang of it but I like to think I'm a critical thinker, at least a lot more so than I used to be (I'm sure I have some biases I'm unaware of). I realised how airy fairy the whole energy thing was shortly after finishing school. I'm now an agnostic atheist and have been for many years. I believe that it's possible there could be a god but I just don't see any evidence for one and think it's ridiculous to believe in something with absolutely no evidence.

smacl

Wibbs wrote: »

Hell some are suggesting we may be living in a holographic universe and it may even be a simulation.

Goddamn Matricists, with their world according to Morpheus, endless wittering on about 'the one', and getting off on the hallucinogenic side effects of eating stale cookies

Re agnosticism vs atheism, for me it comes down to balance of probability. I can't categorically say that a God or Gods don't exist, but I believe it to be so unlikely that I feel I can safely discard it as a working theory, along with the Matrix, the Spaghetti monster and the infinite number of other possible things that could exist in our infinite universe. Of those infinite number of seemingly ridiculous possibilities, some doubtless are true, but I suspect it is highly unlikely that we'll ever find out which ones. Space and time being so big and all that, and us less so in the grand scheme.

joseph brand

Sarky wrote: »

Yes. Embarrassingly so. Very hung up on sin and guilt, which stopped me from doing a lot of fun things. Like standing up for myself, or appreciating any talents I possessed.

Glad I got better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzYO0joolR0

I love that line.

joseph brand

I never gave it much thought and just went along with it, since my parents were so sure in their faith. (when you're young, your father is the rightest man alive).

One of the most embarrassing memories I have is the way that I used to think that god was on my side and looking out for me. If someone did something to me, and then soon after, they fell off their bike, I would say "HA, god did that to you for what you did to me."

But I was young buck, eating chewing gum off the road, carrying my machine gun (brown stick).

The whole 'born in a manger' and the 'three wise men' I absolutely believed. But I never had an ounce of respect for the church (mass, priests . . ).

My friends were all way ahead of me, but having at least one atheist parent will do that. Even to this day, my mass-going dad will refer to my friends and their parents as philistines.

Being a 'good' catholic, he has no time for anyone who is neither white, nor straight. :eek:

As I've mentioned in a thread a while back, the biggest eye opener for myself, was when he went nuclear over my request to record 'The Life of Brian' onto a video tape. I thought he was going to literally murder me. The fear in my mam's eyes said a lot.

So I said, "I'm out!", and have been ever since. Praise Cleese.

Obliq

joseph brand wrote: »

So I said, "I'm out!", and have been ever since. Praise Cleese.

Good story! I like the Praise Cleese bit best. Amen to that.

Wibbs

smacl wrote: »

Space and time being so big and all that, and us less so in the grand scheme.

Actually S I think we may be quite big in the grand scheme of things. As far as we know currently, space isn't chockablock with intelligent species like us. It may well be only one per galaxy, it might even be even less. That makes us special, very special and that specialness shouldn't get distracted by sky fairies on clouds. We may well be far more important than that, small as we may appear in the face of reality.

Indeed, while I am no believer, I do like the study of theology. For me it's the study of man more than god. Yes we have invented prickish gods, but ranged agin the daftness, we also have considered the notion of the "perfect", the alpha and omega, when doing so and came to many conclusions philosophically, conclusions way beyond eejits worshipping stone idols and burning bushes. Your Erasmus or even our own John Scottus would make people like Moses look like a dribbling parochial gobshíte.

It occurred to me back in the day(in a banal adolescent way) that this idea that god created us in his own image got things backwards. Clearly we created "Him" in ours, but I don't see that as always a bad thing, often in the best minds who puzzled this question I see this as an aspiration for us to become the "perfect". The faithful aspire to be like their individual god, I think we all should aspire to be as "perfect" as we possibly can. We shouldn't be so quick to deny or stop exploring the idea of the "divine", because I have little doubt we, or one of the others like us who may be out there in the blackness may just get there one day.

smacl

Also a big fan of different world mythologies when I was much younger, though more a fan of the big pantheons than the monotheistic religions. To a large degree, I think religions initially provided proxy answers for inquisitive minds that needed answers to questions that were beyond their ability to solve at the time. Q. What is that big ball of light that rises into the sky every morning? A. That's just a large God waking up. Q. Why did the crops fail this year? A. Didn't sacrifice enough virgins to the corn god, etc... As areas of knowledge expanded, better answers arrived for many of these questions, and lesser deities got the heave ho. This whittled the religious and philosophical questions down to why are we here?, what happens when we die? and to quote the late Douglas Adams, who is this God person anyway? which became the basis for newer monotheistic religions. While emerging religions and philosophies made some pretty solid attempts to answer these questions, like everything else, they don't really stand the test of time. As burning heretics became seen as rather unsavoury, atheism has reared its ugly head and the big sky Gods look like going the same way as the little corn god.

Wibbs wrote: »

I have little doubt we, or one of the others like us who may be out there in the blackness may just get there one day.

We just might, and that raises the newer question Is there anybody out there? not dealt with by abrahamic religion. We have until the sun goes out, we get wiped out by and act of God (sure why wouldn't She?), or we blow each other to smithereens. Our ability to evolve new technologies is pretty astounding, with many of the gadgets from the Star Trek away team of Kirk's generation being available to todays teens. Like yourself, I've no doubt that by and large, man created God in his own image, though the Hindu's and others at least had some fun playing with the design en route. Personally, I think it is a design that needs something of a rethink at this stage. Of all of the highly unlikely things that could possibly come true, I personally favour the notion that at some stage in the future we'll manage to create artificial intelligence that equates to sentient life. Hey presto, and we have a new immortal (assuming no one deletes the back-ups), and the possibility of travelling to very distant places becomes feasible (if rather slow). Make a few copies, and we have a pantheon of sorts. Not omnipotent, omniscient, or even properly immortal, but getting there.

Brion Gysin, from The Process wrote:

Of course the sands of Present Time are running out from under our feet. And why not? The Great Conundrum: 'What are we here for?' is all that ever held us here in the first place. Fear. The answer to the Riddle of the Ages has actually been out in the street since the First Step in Space. Who runs may read but few people run fast enough. What are we here for? Does the great metaphysical nut revolve around that? Well, I'll crack it for you, right now. What are we here for? We are here to go!

Sarky

smacl wrote: »

Of all of the highly unlikely things that could possibly come true, I personally favour the notion that at some stage in the future we'll manage to create artificial intelligence that equates to sentient life. Hey presto, and we have a new immortal (assuming no one deletes the back-ups), and the possibility of travelling to very distant places becomes feasible (if rather slow). Make a few copies, and we have a pantheon of sorts. Not omnipotent, omniscient, or even properly immortal, but getting there.

Have a read of the Eclipse Phase RPG setting for why this will probably be simultaneously the best and worst thing humanity ever does. I loves me some sci-fi horror.