seems mostly a cultural thing to me

I was raised laid-back Protestant, and the ideas and metaphors of Christianity (the good parts about helping people and the value of human life) still mean something to me. I've heard lots of stories from the US and from recovering Muslims so my experience is NOTHING like that. Canada's pretty tolerant, or at least seems so with the US next door. I'll bet we could elect an atheist - and we should, because no matter how valuable cultural traditions can be (and to me they are very valuable), the pursuit of truth (ie the literal claim that the god claimed by all 3.5k or thereabouts versions of christianity actually exists, is false) has to take precedence especially in politics; public policy must be based on factual truth, factual truth that has nothing to do with culture. I like to imagine that some kind of vague personalized morality/destiny/intelligence is out there, but I know that this is literally not true. Draw a line between a cool idea and a true idea, is my advice to everyone on religion. PS I've had fundamentalist roommates who go door to door for jesus and are creationists - on that one I can never tell whether to laugh or cry. 

I like to imagine that some kind of vague personalized morality/destiny/intelligence is out there, but I know that this is literally not true

You can't know that. The universe will at some point likely be discovered to be a bit more complicated than we had ever imagined.

We know what we know due to our tools and methods. Most of these are less than 400 years old, yet humans have been around maybe 40,000 years in the current form.

The largest weakness of mankind is to rule out things, in situations where there is not sufficient information to do so.

Man's foil is his pride. We know a lot more than we did. But we certainly have not advanced THAT far as to arrive to final conclusions about too much of anything.

public policy must be based on factual truth

Why?

public policy must be based on factual truth

What is factual truth? How does that relate to public policy? 300 years from now, some of our decisions in our time will look very ignorant and misinformed. If so, I think history will judge that we didn't have that much factual truth and certainly less than we thought we did. 

Hey Baker much respect btw :)
Persons/people proceed in life (commit actions) by ruling things out, in practice if not in principle. You and I do not worry about witchcraft for example. Every action we commit, has assumptions - both positive and negative (aka things ruled out) behind it.

as for public policy must be based on factual truth - and your problem with that - no offense but really are you serious. The issue you cite - that future generations will see us as ignorant (and btw this is only true if progress happens, ie the same progress that makes us look at galileo's persecutor's as evil neanderthals with an unfortunate access to aristotle) IF PROGRESS OCCURS.

IF progress occurs - that is to say: if we become more physically healthy, psychologically open-minded, culturally tolerant (of course none of this while losing sight of human rights), hell if anything like that happens then yes 3 generations from now we will all seem like evil, crazed Witch-hunters.

I have two points.

1) Truth is truth. You can look away from a rock and it's still there. When you die that rock is still there. 4 billion years - think about that - of this planet.

2) In an increasingly multicultural world: policy has to be cross-cultural. And the fact that science is outside of all human culture (ie if all humans died newton's laws would still be valid at their scales), means that scientific fact is the best basis for policy.

I now will admit this: no meaningful policy changes regarding human-caused global warming (99% of scientists whatever deniers say) will occur within the next 20 years.

I will say this: denial of factual truth is a nice, comfy, sexy way for our entire species to fuck itself over.

And I will also say: If I lowered my standards enough I could have kids, and I think I'd do a better job as a parent by being more honest, than my parents did with me.... but fuck that. But I do say this: what do you, and anyone else who is reading: actually EXPECT in the next twenty years. What do you really expect. 

That if the Universe is truly infinite, that there could be another planet exactly like this one, with exactly the same shit in it, but everything is running exactly five seconds behind us. That is just one example which I just thought up, but literally ANYTHING would be in a truly infinite universe.

I also like the idea of trying to visualise a fourth dimension.

I don't think it's possible to claim there definitely is or isn't a god. But the idea that god exists in exactly the way described in any of the Christian bible(s), or any other faith for that matter, is ridiculous IMO. Emphasis on the word 'exactly'. 

@ Ricky real quick

I also like the idea of trying to visualise a fourth dimension.

For certain, time. Which is why Newtonian physics cannot be used in astronomy and atomic clocks in orbit go out of sync with the clocks on Earth.

But beyond that there are a lot of theories that speculate that there are more than 3 dimensions of space. Most forms of string theory have 10 or 11.

Policy ...In an increasingly multicultural world: policy has to be cross-cultural.

Isn't there a strong tie between irrational beliefs and culture? If so, in a way on one hand you are saying religion shouldn't be involved in policy but then on the other hand it should be.

as for public policy must be based on factual truth - and your problem with that - no offense but really are you serious.

Yes and no. I am both serious and not serious, but with a bit of point.

Humans come to false and final conclusions every day. Science isn't about final conclusions.

The key to having an open and flexible mind is challenging "final conclusions", not embracing final conclusions.

The weakness of irrationally strong religious beliefs is specifically that it comes to several questionable final conclusions and instead of embracing creative thought, it discourages it.

Likewise, coming to premature final truths from a different perspective is merely repeating the same mistake. 

In order to interact with other human beings, they need some concept of right and wrong. To protect themselves and others who interact with them. Does not a simple "holy" book of simple to understand right and wrongs help them to achieve social interaction?

Furthermore, it has easy to understand explanations:

Q: Why should I not hurt or kill other people or steal from them?
A: Because God said so.

As they move up the knowledge ladder, an individual has greater ability to thoughtfully ponder the rules and reasons behind them. Hence as education increases, strong fixed religious beliefs decrease. But not all are equally educated, nor able to be educated.

So we have a partially voluntary caste system. 

Some additional advantages of "skygod" dictated morality:

1. Doing it secretly or when no others are looking is of no use. The skygod will know!

2. The skygod reserves his punishment for after you are dead. Therefore, there is no way to disprove such a punishment exists.

3. The immoral pagan who advocates stealing or killing will have trouble persuading the skygod follower who tells him it is "ok" to disobey the skygod. So it confers a degree of persuasion immunity for others to negatively alter the individual's moral compass.

Religion is a rather ingenious device.

If you take into account that back in the ancient days the typical person was illiterate, maybe religion was specially crafted by educated people or kings or wise tribal leader to develop an effective and simple system for the masses. 

I think my problem with your justification of skygod morality (as a practical thing today, as opposed to a useful/successful thing in the past, hell even SOME of what Islam introduced at that time may have been an ethical advancement)... is entailed in this statement:

"As they move up the knowledge ladder."

But... they don't!
I mean we as a species have moved up the knowledge ladder, but perhaps up to a billion people worldwide, still take some form or another of the skygod thing literally, and damn is that ever destructive.

I also don't want to go too far into romanticizing paganism, but in some ways paganism was a lot less nasty than monotheism, in some parts of europe anyway.

regarding your last statement, some ancient greek dude (so many awesome ones of those) famously said, "religion [in this day zeus and co] is considered true by the masses, false by the philosophers, and useful by the rulers" (or something like that).

I keep really pessimistic possibilities in mind, such as the idea that fundamentalists will actually control more of the world in 30 years than they do now. They certainly control more of the world now than they did 30 years ago. My main hope for the world is that we get genetic engineering, and one generation's IQ is double that of their parents, and they just don't fall for the brainwashing bullshit (not that intelligence is a guarantee of not falling for it, it just makes it less likely for it to work). 

My main hope for the world is that we get genetic engineering, and one generation's IQ is double that of their parents

First, the number of educated/thinking people is skyrocketing and continues to do so at a faster and faster rate. Prior ages, people simply did not have access to info. I'm talking like 10 years ago.

Second, --- and look this is tough to say in a way --- you don't know your food pyramid. Everyone cannot be chiefs. There needs to be a lot of indians too.

The pyramid is a normal feature of evolution. It is human to heavily dislike that, hence humanitarianism and the desire for man to help his fellow man. This is in some ways the "burden of the aware", to say those people shouldn't be suffering and to want to fix it and sometimes it even happens (disease eradication, immunization programs, etc, etc).

Life is a constant struggle. It is a struggle for your cells. It is a struggle for the individual. It is a struggle for society. And the rules keep changing and every time a problem is solved, two seem to replace them.

But today: Most ills are man-made. in the late 1800's people died from cholera all the time. Or the tons of illnesses before penicillin was discovered. Or malaria in a lot of the world. Today, we fight only ourselves. 

I read Brave New World a long time ago, in which the argument was advanced that if everyone was smart, there would be a constant civil war because no one would agree to work as janitors/blue collar.

Now come on. Blue collar jobs are disappearing, not just moving from North America to overseas, but objectively disappearing (ie self-driving cars, less jobs requiring manual labour and heavy lifting, etc). You are assuming that if everyone was smart, the BNW scenario would be true, even in a world of hardly any blue collar jobs, and that a new generation 2x as smart as us for everyone (as opposed to some smart people and, in the states, half of em expecting jesus to be back within 50 years) couldn't come to some kind of reasonable arrangement.

If a future society requires everyone to do intellectual work most of the time, and split up whatever physical work is still left, I think a generation smarter than us, especially if everyone was that smart, could do that. Your model of a pyramid refutes itself in a way, since the pyramid's proportions were very different in the middle ages, and as you admit those proportions are changing all the time. A future generation with a much bigger proportion of much smarter people wouldn't be tied to the same union/corporate struggles that have made problems for society ever since the industrial revolution. 

Warning: Satire ahead
Sophisticated minds only.

If a future society requires everyone to do intellectual work most of the time, and split up whatever physical work is still left, I think a generation smarter than us, especially if everyone was that smart, could do that.

I'd opt for the outside job with the physical labor and laugh at the people that thought imprisoning themselves in a cubicle was the pinnacle of freedom.

At the bar, my physique shaped from using my body would make me especially attractive to the more desirable women. My work ethic would to some extent make it likely I would only find other women of similar work ethic interesting.

If I get the best women, I just won evolution.

If I just won evolution, all standards in the universe say those other guys couldn't have been the smartest. 

I'm enjoying this conversation, but my problem with your perspective is that you seem to be incapable of imagining fundamental changes in human nature which might result from humans obtaining mastery of their own DNA.

Yes BNW was satire and I loved it for that reason. I'd love to discuss it further but that's not the point of what I'm saying now; of course (and you know this) in BNW Mr Mond explains that issue of universal intelligence and I think Huxley WAS serious about that part, though NOT about Mond's policies. In fact Huxley didn't really even propose a solution at all (certainly not anti-tech aka the savage reserve).

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't you just say this:

1) in the future a construction worker will be more buff than cubicle workers and therefore get more sex.
2) getting more sex will entail "winning" evolution (only if you reproduce more - and even if you had the choice to do so which is now often a woman's choice, how smart would you be to do that with modern laws where you are now tied responsibility-wise for these "wins")
3) "smartest" equals most laid. Therefore Genghis Khan, whose genetic footprint is as far as I know is the biggest in history, is smarter than Einstein.

It seems like what you are saying is ridiculous and anti-intellectual and doesn't even requiring refuting, but if I've interpreted what you've said properly and anyone still needs to know why it is ridiculous here goes:
1) this isn't true now, white collar people aren't prohibited from working out and how you look physically is a matter of lifestyle and genes, being some exploited coal miner and shit does not make you some buff action hero like it does in the movies! Hell the higher your basic income the healthier you are in general, statistically.
2) See Richard Dawkins, Robert Trivers, and basically everything about evolutionary biology. No one WINS evolution! That's ridiculous. Evolution is just a process that exists as long as life that reproduces exists. You don't win evolution. The only "success" scale (and really wtf!) is the amount of genes you pass on, which unless you want 10,000 kids and can pay for them, isn't much of a win. Lots of sex without kids is great, but that is by no means a WIN of EVOLUTION!
3) Intelligence might have started to fight off tigers and seduce women, but art and science kind of show it's gone beyond that now.

Sorry for the giant post. You could skip my refutations. 

Yeah it was satire and a joke but I labelled it so.

You stole all the fun things in your reply. Genghis Khan and 10,000 kids, etc. Can't joke about that. Can't win evolution ... can't joke about that either.

You stole all my lines.

On a serious note: evolution that is occurring today is cultural. Einstein's culture influence is far bigger and deeper than Genghis Khan's.

They say that humans today are pretty much the same as tens of thousands of years ago, aside from modern nutrition/medicine/education.

You are correct, I haven't factored in changes that will be made to human DNA. I haven't been able to sort out my thoughts on that yet in a way that can be communicated well.

(And I don't want to step into human stratification right now ... i.e. Brave New World. Largely because I'm not sure how to communicate that con densely either.)

Fun conversations. But probably time to sleep ... 

damn it!

I guess all I can say is:
I think with current human nature we are fucked.
We've avoided nuclear holocaust thus far but we will never avoid environmental and population catastrophes because that shit requires planning ahead more than the next election.

We are DNA-wise the same as we were before sharpened sticks. I think if you give sharpened-stick people, with concerns like that, the keys to the destruction of the world, they can't be trusted. I know I couldn't be. If you saw Chronicle recently, at that age, I would do exactly that. Our tech is too far ahead of our brains (biology) and our culture. All I can say is my ONLY HOPE is for us to find a way to make future generations smarter, wiser, more rational, than us. 

I mean that technically, DNA-wise, genetic engineering. We're smarter than rats because of the structure of our DNA. Culture won't do shit. In cultural terms Christianity has a third of the world, Islam has another third, and "sorry, I don't believe in the tooth fairy" has 5%. Physical genetic improvements in the brains of future generations are my only hope. 

The thing about change is that it always happens slower than you want, but it also happens deeper than you would have imagined.

The world is fundamentally a great place, humans are fundamentally a great species.

But to understand the universe and the world (or even humans)

1) You have to have a blank slate and no preconceived expectations.
2) Seek to understand how the universe and the world world by observation. Study history, literature, sciences, human behavior, social behavior.
3) Develop methods and theories that based on these observations, test them and apply them. Some will be validated, some will not be. For those that are not, go back to your data and observations. Find what you missed.

Undereducated people as a general rule of thumb aren't happy with where they are, what they have. So they can be exploited by ...

1) Class warfare
2) "holy causes"
3) Simple ideas of "the real reason you don't have what you want is <insert external enemy>" where <external enemy> might be "rich people", "Wall Street", "The United States", "the West", "Israel", "atheists", "some other religion", "religions", "Christianity", "Islam", "Illegal immigrants", "The White Man", "Black culture", "The government", etc.

The reason undereducated people are often gullible is that they are desperately searching for answers.

Preferably simple answers.

But they'll take solutions over explanations every day. But not necessarily voluntarily. To some degree like how a sick dog still doesn't want the vet to give him a shot or swallow medicine.

Hence you have to find the right kind of trojan horse solutions or more creative implementations.

In a lot of ways, you are complaining that this isn't easy.

But the universe is always more impressed by the people that can do the things that aren't easy. Anyone can do the easy stuff. 

Tronyn, religion cannot actually inherently be displaced.

There is a ...

1) A sense of wonder in life
2) A sense of wonder that anything exists at all
3) Questions about these wonders
4) A desire to know everything is "okay"
5) That there is justice in this world
6) That does really help to do good
7) That it is right to care, that this is important
8) The desire to find something more

I am quite a bit in the optimistic "I'm not sure what I believe but something is out there seeking us to find it" camp.

All humans and all life struggle against the forces of nature.

There is something to doing good. It is a definite possibility we are "alone". Maybe there are no higher reasons to do good.

But when you truly help someone, when someone does an act of good, the recipient sure appreciates it.

Maybe evolution is the doomed struggle to fight the forces of nature.

The fiercest stance against the forces of nature and the struggle the survive is an unshakable hope.

The belief, justified or not, somehow there is an unseen justice and even if this does not actually exist our thoughts can make it so.

We have one thing against the forces of nature that nature can never have: a mind and the willingness to use it. 

There are 500 stars like our own within the sphere of the space 100 light-years from Earth. Within 200 light-years one would expect to grow to 4,500 stars like our own.

Every direction we point the Kepler telescope, it keeps finding more and more planets every which way. And due to our technical limitations, it usually only finds the big Jupiter sized ones.

They say life on this planet started a mere 500 million years after the Earth was born. And this might be too quick for any terrestrial evolution to have happened, so the concept of panspermia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia ) possible enters as a factor.

If that is a factor, I have the distinct feeling that in less than 700 years we might have some surprise development that change the world view like has not been done before.

But 700 is just some number I made up based on the speed of radio transmissions.

What if like the movie Contact, it happens tomorrow, or 8 years from now. Or what if we are not a wholly native species or what if they are "already here".

I do not believe in "aliens", but I do believe in statistics. Perhaps your concerns about "humans fixed in their thinking" becomes a short-term problem?

Or maybe we are the first intelligent life in our galaxy. I have a hard time believing that in 300 years of rapid technological advance that we won't have greater ambitions by then. 

Tronyn ...

The movie you must see: I Heart Huckabees.

It has very sophisticated humor that is lost on most, understood by few, but does an outstanding job tying together the kinds of lose ends that seekers of knowledge seek.

Somewhat the polar opposite of a Stanley Kubrick work but with the same intellectual capacity knitted in the reverse.

More I shall not say. 

http://scrwmedia.com/ufj/files/2011/12/Proving-Atheists-Wrong.jpg

Scary IMO... 

da fuk? is that meant as a joke or did they never take a piss? 

are they taking the piss or did they never take a piss? 

that has to be a joke, haha, it assumes that what scientists are claiming, is that humans have existed for as long as the earth existed (this is what creationists say, not scientists), and also that population has been static since the start of earth and the human race. lol. imagining 6 billion humans on an earth too hot for liquid water 4.5 billion years ago is an amusing kind of image, kind of like imagining 6 billion humans on venus now. they wouldn't be drinking 2 litres a day per long, in fact I think it would take approximately 1% of 1 second for them all to die! 

trivialise science.

Pushing the boat out here, but Republicans seem to have opinions that sway towards this kind of logic. Like creationism. AFAIK Palin was into creationism. I.E. the could-have-been-the-second-most-powerful-woman-in-the-world believed that "God" created the earth in 7 days, about 5000 years ago or whatever. I mean I'm not from the US, nor do I live there, but when I heard Obama had been re-elected, I breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Now I'm not saying that all Republicans are creationists (Please god don't let them be all creationists), or that I know the first or second thing about US politics, but from my little old desk here in the UK, the bits of info I have overheard SCARED ME SOME.