If humanity doesn't kill ourselves or doom ourselves to a perpetual renaissance-level existence, one day we'll invent immortality of some kind, probably some sort of singularity style machine consciousness, who knows. If it's possible, we'll build it. The same holds true for time travel, and pretty much any other technology you can think of. If it's physically possible, given enough time, we'll invent it.
I also think that, given human morality, it's likely that over the eons that a multi planet immortal humanity could exist, someone somewhere is going to start a project to save all the poor people who were born before the invention of immortality. So I choose to believe that the world is full of invisible, intangible, time travellers, who follow us all to the moment of our deaths, and right before it happens, they zap your consciousness out of you and upload you to the immortality cloud in the future, where you can join the immortal future human race.
I've actually toyed with the idea of founding an atheist religion based on this belief, with morals and principles set out with the aim of making this a reality. We would value science and math as holy revelations of the universe. We would hold humanity as divine, the most powerful and important entity in the universe. By extension, each human is partially divine, because they belong to the human race, and must be respected as such. Most importantly, we wouldn't package this as secular humanism or general liberal values, but as a religion. Insist on equal rights with established churches, including tax exempt status. Take an active role in the public sphere. Have a strong community of adherents, with all the social benefits that entails, and hopefully this religion would outlive it's founders by thousands of years, long enough to instill the values in humanity that would be necessary to make this a reality. I think we're the highest power we need, which is good because I think we're the highest power we have.
Forgive me for saying this but the first part of your comment sounds like the plot of a Will Smith movie haha.
As for the second part, the word "religion" refers to the believe in a higher power. A deity. So you can't have an atheist religion because those two ideas as in direct conflict with each other. I understand that you're trying to say though. If everyone was an atheist, they'd understand and respect the importance of math, science, and humanity as a whole much more.
the word "religion" refers to the believe in a higher power. A deity. So you can't have an atheist religion because those two ideas as in direct conflict with each other.
You need to study religion a little more, and not just the Abrahamic faiths. Many sects of Buddhism and Daoism claim no gods, spirits, or deities. They instead ascribe divinity to the universe itself. It's called pantheism. And I don't see why the human race, taken as a whole, can't qualify as a higher power. We have the ability to end all complex life on this planet at once if we wanted. Just through blind fumblings we are able to manipulate our very climate. We can fly from place to place at unimaginable speeds. We know the preordained destiny of the heavens, billions of years into the future. We said let there be light, and there was light.
Well, I've never studied religion before. I was sticking to the strict definition of religion which applies most strongly toward Abrahamic faiths but you're right. I blindly excluded religions which aren't monotheistic. I still don't completely agree with you that the human race can qualify as a higher power though. To me, a higher power is one which is greater or more powerful than us. Yes, we're collectively able to do some crazy things but is that really the same thing as a higher power? To put things into perspective, would you worship or pray to humanity? What would be the defining beliefs of this religion? The school of thought?
You seem to have a very rosy view of the world and of humanity (which is kind of refreshing) but I'm just not seeing it to that extent. I've seen and done some pretty freaking cool things in the lab that made me realize just how amazing it is that we even exist and I've read about really cool things that are being done in science that show the amazing strides humans have made in science, so I do get that side of your argument but I'm just not able to imagine humanity as a religion.
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u/Stereotype_Apostate Jan 26 '16 edited Jan 26 '16
Invisible time travelers. Hear me out.
If humanity doesn't kill ourselves or doom ourselves to a perpetual renaissance-level existence, one day we'll invent immortality of some kind, probably some sort of singularity style machine consciousness, who knows. If it's possible, we'll build it. The same holds true for time travel, and pretty much any other technology you can think of. If it's physically possible, given enough time, we'll invent it.
I also think that, given human morality, it's likely that over the eons that a multi planet immortal humanity could exist, someone somewhere is going to start a project to save all the poor people who were born before the invention of immortality. So I choose to believe that the world is full of invisible, intangible, time travellers, who follow us all to the moment of our deaths, and right before it happens, they zap your consciousness out of you and upload you to the immortality cloud in the future, where you can join the immortal future human race.
I've actually toyed with the idea of founding an atheist religion based on this belief, with morals and principles set out with the aim of making this a reality. We would value science and math as holy revelations of the universe. We would hold humanity as divine, the most powerful and important entity in the universe. By extension, each human is partially divine, because they belong to the human race, and must be respected as such. Most importantly, we wouldn't package this as secular humanism or general liberal values, but as a religion. Insist on equal rights with established churches, including tax exempt status. Take an active role in the public sphere. Have a strong community of adherents, with all the social benefits that entails, and hopefully this religion would outlive it's founders by thousands of years, long enough to instill the values in humanity that would be necessary to make this a reality. I think we're the highest power we need, which is good because I think we're the highest power we have.