thread: 2005-06-06 : Happenings
On 2005-06-06, xenopulse wrote:
1) Gamism why? Because you have much more creative ways to Step On Up in an RPG than in The Settlers, plus you sometimes create cool stories while you're at it.
5) Religion, and I'll try and be controversial, for the fun of it *g*. Secular humanism has some aspects in common with religion, however, I wouldn't put it in the same bucket. There's a fundamental difference between believing some words someone wrote and proclaiming them as truth on the one hand, and questioning everything on the other. Sure, we all have our paradigms, but they can be evaluated thanks to Pragmatism (William James and friends), and we'll soon find that the secular humanist paradigm has more cash value than any religion, i.e., it is a superior theory. In fact, it's not so much a faith in itself as it is a faith in method and analysis, and a refutation of blind unsubstantiated claims.
I understand why people want to be fundamentalists. Hell, it's so damn easy and comforting. Here's the truth. This is moral certainty. Homosexuality is wrong. We will be saved. Huzzah!
But those people who question and who live in uncertainty, and who refute that such certainty is possible, are in a wholly different situation. That's why secular humanism is not a religion. It does not give you comfort. It does not give you easy answers. It says instead, hell if I know what's true, but that stuff you're believing in just doesn't rhyme with the way the world works.
Welcome to uncertainty. Welcome to modernity.
Now, everyone can believe what they want. But people who blindly believe and people who constantly question are just not in the same boat.
I hope that one's controversial enough for ya. :)
- Christian
