= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Dreaded_Anomaly comments on Charles Stross: Three arguments against the singularity - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (54)
I think you underestimate the ability of some religious people to have problems with things, and overestimate the ability of many other religious people to speak against their pushy, controlling brethren. See, e.g., gay marriage.
I'm honestly not sure that the social conservatism we associate with religion has all that much to do, in the average case, with religion per se. Fundamentalism is kind of a special case, but most of the time what we see is religious opinion reflecting whatever the standard conservative-leaning package of social beliefs is at that particular place and time. Change the standard and religious opinion follows, perhaps after some lag time -- it's just that religiosity is correlated with a bundle of factors that tend to imply conservatism, and that church events give you a ready-made venue for talking to other conservatives.
For that matter, most of the analysis of fundamentalism I've read treats it as a reaction against secular influences, not an endogenous religious phenomenon. Its phenomenology in the wild seems to be consistent with that -- fundamentalist strains first tend to pop up a decade or two after a culture's exposure to Enlightenment values.
That is probably an important contributor to the phenomenon; there is a certain "social conservative" mindset. However, I think that religion leads to some social norms, such as the idea that it's acceptable to pick one's morality out of old books, which provide fuel to socially conservative movements and attitudes.
Gay marriage is actually a good example of the secular side winning, since gay marriage is spreading to more states and countries, and everyone thinks it will continue spreading in the future. That is in spite of the fact that their scriptures are totally opposed to homosexuality, whereas I don't believe brain uploading is mentioned.
It's a good example that the secular side wins eventually, but it's not a good example of religious people not having problems with something. Abortion is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible, either.
Although God did allegedly slay someone for the act of spilling semen on the ground during sex rather than impregnating the mate. May be best to err on the side of caution!
The secular side only has to win "eventually" in order for it to argue against Stross' point. In any case, even in the case of abortion, which triggers powerful disgust reflexes, there isn't anything like a holy war against abortion, let alone a holy war with a good chance of succeeding everywhere in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence
I do agree that the "holy war to end holy wars" phrase was hyperbolic, but it's also hyperbolic to expect no objection from religious people. When Stross first addresses the issue, he says:
That's not an extreme conclusion. It's only in the "in summary" section at the end that the rhetoric really picks up.