The Big Picture: Nerd Gods

[gardyna]

i´m an atheist and the thing that gets me about every religion is that they are in our modern world nearly (if not completely) useless we all have our moral guidelines and we wouldn´t kill somebody for two reasons A: killing is wrong and hurts a lot of people B: it´s illegal to kill another person almost everywhere on the planet (outside of actualy being in a war but even there unnececary killing is frowned uppon). (almost) every country has a justice system and i like to be optimistic to think that most people have a decent moral compass to decide what´s right or wrong

basicaly i don´t see a point in religion of any kind. and to enhance the progress of the human race (science and other areas) it would be best to get rid of religion (to list the current things holding the human race back : creationism (is tought in some parts of Amerika as scientific theory), religious extreemists, there are people who use religion to justify act of destruction and horror (terrorists anyone))

 

[Cavouku]

I've mentioned my pantheism a few times before, I've always preferred it because I`m able to both rationalize and spiritualize it in my mind. I think I'm personally better off not having a written doctrine of the Ways of the Pantheist, I like to be open to all the customs and beliefs and ideals and morals of every religion or belief. You know, within reason.

I also allow myself to adjust to a situation. my grandparent's are Jehovah's witnesses', so when they invite me to their sermons (it's not often) I respect where I am and follow their customs as best as I can. I'd be interested in going to a church, a mosque, a synagogue and a temple- basically, at some point I want to test my pallet in customs and ideas, though I don't believe I need to change my beliefs.

I suppose this is just an insight, not really discussion value. Perhaps will induce some? Does anyone else want to go to other religion's gatherings, take in the culture?

 

[KingPiccolOwned]

According to the holy rule book of Warhammer 40K, the God-Emperor should allready be among us...

To quote the unnamed preist of Dawn of War: "LET ME PREACH HIS NAME!!!"

 

[TWEWER]

Butchered the pronunciation of Haruhi.

 

[ironlordthemad]

I already worship Stephen Fry, that counts right?

It would be bad if you didn't worshipped Steven Fry, but since this is the internet thats pretty much just par for the course.

 

[KingPiccolOwned]

what does Godzillaism teach?

... Umm that nukes are bad.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

I already worship Promethea!!

 

[Falqour]

Fine video, Bob, thanks for making it!

I'd just like to make the point that religion, throughout history, has done a lot of good for humanity. It's also had quite a few blunders. I believe, for many people, it still has relevance in modern society.

However, as an atheist, I believe that anything that causes divisions among mankind is detrimental to mankind. With no God to protect us, anything that happens to our species is our responsibility. We're at a time when we have the technological prowess to avert major catastrophes that, in times past, decimated our population or caused the extinction of other species. But to do that, we have to become and remain united.

Therefore, on the topic of religion, I would argue that any religion that causes divisions among humanity, by either teaching its adherents that they are better than others who do not believe, or by forcing their beliefs on others, is detrimental and a clear danger to the survival of our species.

 

[arithine]

Three words, Flying Spaghetti Monster. That's right, there is already a religion where all (i hope) of the followers are non-believers.

 

[Snake Plissken]

You know who needs a church?

Spoiler: THIS guy.

 

[kfwanderer]

It almost seems like you made this episode for the soul reason of nullifying your previous message with that Scientology dig. I guess that makes this episode kinda useless then, aye?

Just as useless as a religion based on popculture.

ALL religions were, at some point, based on pop-culture. All religions start as ideas, and all ideas spring from whatever frame of reference you have.

That said, I think a Jedi or Sith religion wouldn't be so empty. The Jedi believe in compassion, letting go of the self and complete faith in the will of the Force (which is just the name they give the energy of life and the universe at large.) The Sith believe in passion, learning the self completely and using the Force to serve THEIR will. Yin and Yang. In the Star Wars stories, it eventually was realized that true enlightenment came from a successful mix of both doctrines. Not so bad for a religious premise, right?

People reject things like this based on what names they're given. "It's named after a movie, or a game," they reason, "so it's based on childish fiction and therefore can't have real value." But I submit that maybe those people aren't paying enough attention to the fiction produced these days. Some pieces of fiction took some very real thought to make, and have very real morals and ideas in them. Rejecting an approach to life just because of where it came from is how SEVERAL religions "misbehaved" at one time or another, not excluding the Crusades.

I'll step off my soapbox now.

 

[fates_puppet13]

stephen fry knows all

 

[Samsont]

But you know, this will never happen. it makes sense, and it's not spouting from a half unconcious old guys mouth so why wouldn't it work? That's exactly why, because it's to logical, it makes too much sense it doesn't cater directly to the likings of the "Rulers" and the major public would reject it. They try to make a crazy new religion and it's shunned and dubbed "Satanic" or it "Poisons" young people's minds. It's just the state of the religious, and normal sociaty, mabye in the future this may work, but for now, don't try it unless you'd like your house to get firebombed. (I'm sorry if I offended anyone)

 

[Jim Tigwell]

As always, an interesting show, Bob. However, the notion that the existence of some kind of supreme daddy figure could not be proved or disproved seems a little strange to me. Contemporary atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens deny the claim about the existence of god precisely because nothing that reasonable people consider evidence can be mounted for it. Those are the same reasons we don't believe in unicorns, Metropolis, or dragons.

Their place in collective consciousness is undeniable, but a claim about the existence of unicorns isn't unprovable. Produce a unicorn, and there they are (see for instance the discovery of black swans in Australia in 1697). There is no castle of the gods on Olympus, because we've been there and looked at it. The claims of religion grow ever more grandiose in response (this is an oversimplification, there are also sound psychological reasons for their evolution). Studies are done with reasonable frequency to test these claims, such as the power of prayer (H. Benson et al., "Study of the therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients", American Heart Journal 151:4, 2006, 934-42).

I think it would be a great idea to acknowledge some the paragons we see in nerd culture as more than adequate examples of things we would like to see in the real world, and the place of characters like Superman in a modern mythology (for example, the success of the Clan of the Fiery Cross story of the Superman radio show in 1946, wherein Superman takes on the Ku Klux Klan). But deifying them, having a first church of Spiderman or somesuch seems a little silly. It doesn't appear to be necessary to deify something to agree that the ideas are good, and what constitutes good ideas can be reasoned out in terms of best practice. Batman acts out of trauma, Spiderman out of guilt, but Superman out of love. Which of these is best? Seems pretty straightforward, without the need to involve ideas like worship or deification.

Although, if Alex Ross painted the ceiling of the Hall of Spiderman in Queens, which reminded us of all of the important lessons we could learn from Spiderman, I'd totally show up.

Twenty-three skidoo.

 

[omicron1]

...Oh, look! It's Zeus from the Age of Mythology box art!

I'll give ya a moment to check... done? Good. Next question: Copyright violation, or not?

 

[xdom125x]

Atheist=/=Hating religion

Probably wasn't intentional, but the subtext was there.

Yeah, but there is an unfortunate correlation between the two since we've got to defend our position all the damn time even though we're not the ones trying to prove anything other than WYSIWYG.

This is generally the source of the problem, people don't know a person is an atheist until there is a debate that covers the topic. This leads people to believe that all athiests are non-stop preaching about religion being wrong, because a few people got a bit defensive about their (non)beliefs.
Of course this is only how I view it.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Haarooohee, Bob? Haarooheee?

You just lost all nerd credibility with me. Stop your preaching now. Right now goddam.

It's pronounced Haruhi ffs visit a speech therapist.

I'm going to assume that was sarcastic or you are joking. Real people aren't that stupid.

But you really should indicate it in some way, it doesn't come across in text.

 

[koriantor]

Why did he mention Orson Scott Card? As far as I know, he doesn't have anything to do with scientology.

 

[Jjkaybomb]

arrrgg, moviebob.
Religion, and culture itself doe not exist on a line that goes from a to b to c in a predictable manner. Saying that it went from animism to polytheism to monotheism is a gross western simplification of the matter. There are plenty of religions that have a mix of these, or went from gods to animism, back, around, wherever they wanted to. We are not due to suddenly leap forward inexplicably in religion any more than we are due to suddenly sprout wings.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Yeah, I think that heroes like that should be kept as heroes, people that we look to towards to understand how to be a good human. When you start worshiping but not believing, that's where things start to go wrong. Sure at the beginning everyone's in on it, but what happens when someone goes to far? I wouldn't be surprised if that's how a bunch of actual real world religions got start: people taking it to far (no I'm not going to even guess which ones, I didn't live back when they were established, I have no idea how it went down).

Although I'm all for the idea that any "gods" are really just beings of greater power or higher existence. Like the Goa'uld of Stargate (perhaps not so malevolent though). Mortal beings who command powers we have yet to properly understand and thus mistake as deities. Hell if I know, I'm an agnostic atheist myself. Right now I don't believe in any deity, but I can't for certain totally deny the existence of any.