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eftychia: Me in kilt and poofy shirt, facing away, playing acoustic guitar behind head (Default)
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QotD

posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 05:26am on 2008-07-25

"This notion religion has of humans as the be-all end-all of the universe is as immature and self-absorbed as a baby who feels itself to be the center of existence. We're still in the baby stage, we humans. Probably the vast majority of us. Everything revolves around us, it's all for us. Aren't we just so special.

"I wonder how long it'll take us to grow out of this illusion of central position."

-- JohnB 2008-06-18

"Well if it took humanity 200,000 years to mature to the age of a two-year-old, then we can conclude that one humanity year is roughly 100,000 person years. So it'll be another 1,600,000 to 1,900,000 years before humanity as a whole reaches anything like an adult level of empathy and impulse control, and we will have to wait until humanity has been existence 2,500,000 years before our cosmic car insurance rates go down."

-- ndt, 2008-06-18 (replying to above)

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There are 4 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] smallship1.livejournal.com at 09:41am on 2008-07-25
"Adult" of course being judged by the standards of current humanity. One two-year-old says to another "grow up."

It always pleases me that religion (by which they always mean the Judeo-Christian religions, of course) is attacked for supposedly regarding humans as the "be-all [and] end-all" of the universe by people who maintain that there isn't anything beyond us. The fact that religion specifically states that there is some entity more important and special than humanity seems to escape them.

I could be perfectly happy to dismiss religion if only the arguments ranged against it weren't always so poorly thought through...
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geekosaur: orange tabby with head canted 90 degrees, giving impression of "maybe it'll make more sense if I look at it this way?" (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] geekosaur at 10:33am on 2008-07-25
Not all religions insist that humanity is the point; but that intelligence is the point. There is a curious gemara asserting that we are not G-d's first try, and we may not be His last. This can be construed to mean that He has experiments running on multiple planets.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] smallship1.livejournal.com at 10:36am on 2008-07-25
Well, I'd take that as read anyway. if you're funded for a whole universe, use all of it, or they'll cut the budget next financial aeon. Any scientist knows that.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] pedropadrao.livejournal.com at 01:13pm on 2008-07-27
2.5 million years is pocket change-there's more than ten times that amount of time before the Sun becomes a red giant. That'll do.
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