Seems like it would be a good thing but I'd like to hear from others.

For example: If we had a thread like that I would go post in there right now about how lately when I've been driving I can't help myself from listening to a christian talk radio show. It's just so entertaining.

Anyway, good idea/bad idea? Why?

I think that it is a good idea. With this sort of forum there is going to be a lot of randomness that does not need it's own thread. Like your comment above, that definitely does not merit it's own thread, but as a random thought is great.

Oh, and I cannot listen to christian radio, it makes me way to mad.

I hereby dub this the official random **** thread for this forum.

May wanna change the thread title then.

Oh yeah, I has the magic now.

still adjusting to seeing you with the green name. Is suits you nonetheless

He doesn't even have an avatar..





Try one of these:





or perhaps this one:

Can someone explain why the following couldn't work.

Form a new "religion" with the plan of having it eventually become the biggest, most followed religion of all.

This religion would have a "bible", which would be several thousand pages long (at least) and would cover everything we know about every subject we know about; as well as predictions about what the future holds from a scientific standpoint.

It would denounce all other religions as being true and rationally explain why that is, etc.

It wouldn't really be a religion I guess without having something to worship. But maybe everyone would just get together and talk about various topics of interest dealing with science or life or whatever.

Just think of this as a hypothetical situation.

There are 100 extremely motivated people with a few billion dollars at there disposal and they will spend 60 hours a week doing nothing but working of getting this "religion" off the ground. The group is made up of scientists and writers, etc. Basically really, really smart people.

After finishing the framework they would start to market what they're offering. It would most likely be slow to spread at first.

But would it eventually take off if people kept devoting their time and resources to it over several generations?

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but imo it seems like it would be rather easy to make this happen with the right people behind it. (not me, just sayin)

Aren't you just describing atheism? If not, I do not see how this is any different.

C'mon Jib. What's the atheist "bible"? What do they "worship"? How do they "market" atheism?

You can do better than that.

I would not say that atheism has a bible per se, more like bibles. And those are whatever popular book that people are swinging towards. Right now you could use Dawkins "God Delusion" as an example.

I would say that atheism worships man and their accomplishments.

They market atheism by taking out ads on the side of buses, remember.

I think that by your own description of your new religion, atheism fits in very well. The only think that it is shaky on would be the "bible" thing.

I mean, isn't this already done in todays world? Scientists make predictions all of the time, it is part of what they do. And all we know right now is spread out on many books. If you talk to many people in very specifics things they will often refer to a book as "the bible for X" X being any field like biology. It is quite a common saying.

Except that a book such as 'The God Delusion' is not a bible. It present rational, logical arguments and draws accurate conclusions about the world. If any facts it presents are falsified in the future, the book will be corrected. It contains no prophecies which must be fulfilled or strict rules of how to live your life. Many of Dawkins' ideas are obviously open to debate; nothing is immune to criticism or improvement. This is basically the very opposite of a bible.

This is highly disingenuous. Calling something a 'bible' for a field in the popular sense does not imply that every word in it will be true for eternity, as is claimed for the Christian bible.

To the extent this is true, the sense worship is used here is very different from the sense it is used by the religious.

The bolded part is very very debatable. I feel that it does nothing of the sort. what what I have heard anyway.

And this was just one of my examples. Did you not take note to the rest of my post?

Look at the way that he described his new religion. Atheism fits in perfectly.

What have you heard?

Exactly what I just said, his logic is flawed and highly debatable. But really I do not want to say much because I have not read it, but I do plan on trying to read it some time in the future.

If you wanted to get it going, I think you'd need to include some kind of ritual component to make it more of a religion and less of a philosophy.

In order to start it out, it would be good to have someone with a lot of charisma act as the "prophet," the person who promotes the group that came up with this new faith. If this person is really charismatic, you can get a small band of followers.

Then you would need an organization that somehow institutionalizes the charisma of the founders or the promoter. Once your promoter/prophet dies, along with the first generation of your practitioners, there needs to be something appealing to future generations, or the faith could peter out. The institution would remind people that Intelligism (or whatever the faith is called) has been practiced for generations. It would also hopefully retain some of the charisma of the promoter. Then it could gain converts and retain existing practitioners into the future.

...

Yeah, I don't know. I think RGT should start its own religion and see how many internet converts we could get.

I'm in if we get to have a sex commune.

I am pretty sure that is a prerequisite to get your religion permit post 1998. So you should be safe

Yeah, I think you're spot on here for the most part.
I don't know if faith would be a part of this "religion" in the sense that it is in other religions.

And instead of worshiping a prophet or a person or some kind, they would "worship" logical thinking and pursuit of the truth on all issues.


jib,

It sounds like atheism, but atheism isn't an organized group of any kind. Teh basic belief would be the same of course with this new group. The difference is that with the new organization people like Stu wouldn't be able to say, "well you don't believe in anything!"...because you would call yourself an "Intelligenist" (or whatever) and people would automatically know that you believe in certain things. (which would be laid out in the "bible" or something like the ten commandments in a different format)

Kinda like the Book-of-the-Month in a Christian book store? I don't think you want to go there...

That's humanism, but a reasonably valid point. I think most atheists would consider themselves humanists. But I think you need to define "worship".

I'm not an atheist.

Orgaism?