|
goto page | next >>
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Author | Message | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Post subject: All this talk of God, what about Man?Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 12:44 pm 
People give up on God or the idea of a God, the Christian God etc, I say, "Who else is about at their whits end with Mankind?" I for one don't think we are going to Evolve out of our Death-Spiral like tendencies. I just don't have a good feeling about it at all. No Roddenberryesque future in my forecust for Humanity. Thoughts? _________________ yup, that's my name. FOR YOUR RATING PLEASURE: 4 LIKE Buttons, 1 NEUTRAL, 1 VEXED, 5 DISLIKE buttons. LC > FB           
 = personal fave  = Eisley fans should dig it
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 09 Apr 2008 | Posts: 9641 | Location: Greater St. Louis Area
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
   |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:11 pm
The chances of us transitioning to a Type 1 Civilization from a Type 0 has always been under 50% imo. The big irony is the power of the atom is pretty much necessary to achieve that but nukes are still our possible demise. I agree with the idea of the universe being littered with failed civilizations unable to even become a Type 1. _________________ Kulvir. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 10 Mar 2005 | Posts: 1844 | Location: Vancouver, BC
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
    |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:31 pm
Haven't given up, because I can't get myself to group humankind as one entity, you know? People continue to enter the world, and I think each individual/culture/community deserves that agency to not be grouped as if we're all an entire being headed for failure... maybe that sounds somewhat naive. Still, globalization scares me more than anything, because I'm not yet sure what it will mean for these things in the future. What we see already is pretty terrifying. That being said, I've given my life to anthropology..... so at least part of me wants to hold on to some hope. I go back and forth on all of this, though. I don't know that I'll ever hold a concrete stance. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 25 Jan 2004 | Posts: 1847 | Location: by land, by sea, by dirigible
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:32 pm
Heavy thread, man.
Some writer was on NPR a couple weeks ago talking about this very thing. He told his middle school aged son that scientists are building an analog clock in the desert somewhere that will run for a thousand years. His son didn't believe him--not because he thought the clock would wind down, but because he couldn't conceive of there being anyone left in a millennium to check the time, or even in a century. The writer worked this into a long comparison of his generation with his son's, and how his generation had Planet of the Apes on one end of the vision-of-the-future spectrum and Star Trek on the other, but both stories had strapping manly heroes who would ultimately save humanity. The advent of the anti-hero, the mega-disaster movie, and the lampooning of father figures and conventional masculinity in pop culture (though conventional masculinity hasn't lost every toehold) have combined to destroy that optimism. The Cold War probably didn't help either. I grew up with The Next Generation telling me there was still hope for a humanity-saving heroic captain (Picard > Kirk, y'all) and Earth 2 telling me that even if we really screwed up the world, we'd have another chance. And then there was Independence Day, where half the world got blow'd up and a plucky band of pilots and scientists still managed to fight off the aliens (that was before Roland Emmerich decided the planet was a lost cause). Now, however, I have Thom Yorke singing doom in my ear and promoting Age of Stupid. And throughout my teenage years I was going to church, where people kept telling me the End Times would come during my lifetime (like they've told every generation since Christ). I'm prepared for the zombie apocalypse and my in-laws are prepared for Helter Skelter (with leftover supplies from Y2K). It seems like everyone is getting ready for the end, or panicking over it without getting ready at all, and what was seen as an opportunity for the triumph of the human spirit fifty years ago is now viewed as straight-up doom which only the people with underground fortresses and plenty of ammo will be able to survive--forget about saving everyone in the process. The most optimistic end of the world story I've seen in recent memory was I Am Legend. How sad is that? I'm not trying to make my point entirely through pop culture references, but what goes on our screens generally comes from--and adds to--what's going on in the collective subconscious. The writer on NPR made a pretty awesome point about the way our heroes have changed, or disappeared, over the course of his life. If we don't believe there's a Captain Kirk out there who can save us (and the whiny little turd from the J.J. Abrams movie doesn't count), what does that say about our belief in ourselves as a race? I voted "Not Just Yet," because I still come from a generation that had heroes and I haven't bequeathed that last shred of hope for our future, post-apocalyptic though it may be. _________________ INTELLECT AND ROMANCE OVER BRUTE FORCE AND CYNICISM Smokemonster |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 24 Sep 2003 | Posts: 14510 | Location: Alone on an airplane, fallin' asleep against the windowpane...
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 2:03 pm
why yes i'm a depphead wrote: Haven't given up, because I can't get myself to group humankind as one entity, you know? People continue to enter the world, and I think each individual/culture/community deserves that agency to not be grouped as if we're all an entire being headed for failure... maybe that sounds somewhat naive. Still, globalization scares me more than anything, because I'm not yet sure what it will mean for these things in the future. What we see already is pretty terrifying.
That being said, I've given my life to anthropology..... so at least part of me wants to hold on to some hope. I go back and forth on all of this, though. I don't know that I'll ever hold a concrete stance. _________________ Kulvir. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 10 Mar 2005 | Posts: 1844 | Location: Vancouver, BC
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 2:13 pm
Saellys wrote: The writer on NPR made a pretty awesome point about the way our heroes have changed, or disappeared, over the course of his life. If we don't believe there's a Captain Kirk out there who can save us (and the whiny little turd from the J.J. Abrams movie doesn't count), what does that say about our belief in ourselves as a race?
Jack Bauer? And recent pop culture, Iron Man (Movie version)? Yea, I'm the one who voted Nope. And it had nothing to do with pop culture.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 17 Dec 2005 | Posts: 7525 | Location: Wisconsin
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 2:34 pm
Mistah Kurtz—he dead. A penny for the Old Guy I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us—if at all—not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer— Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper _________________ Power is only pain It’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in. "Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?" -memo from 1952 Project ARTICHOKE 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 19 Aug 2004 | Posts: 10565 | Location: Somewhere in the middle of nowhere
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 3:18 pm
Man is great at pushing both ends of the spectrum good and evil. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 19 Aug 2007 | Posts: 1547 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 3:32 pm
CUBSWINWORLDSERIES wrote: Saellys wrote: The writer on NPR made a pretty awesome point about the way our heroes have changed, or disappeared, over the course of his life. If we don't believe there's a Captain Kirk out there who can save us (and the whiny little turd from the J.J. Abrams movie doesn't count), what does that say about our belief in ourselves as a race?
Jack Bauer? And recent pop culture, Iron Man (Movie version)? Yea, I'm the one who voted Nope. And it had nothing to do with pop culture.They're both technically anti-heroes (especially Tony Stark). _________________ INTELLECT AND ROMANCE OVER BRUTE FORCE AND CYNICISM Smokemonster |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 24 Sep 2003 | Posts: 14510 | Location: Alone on an airplane, fallin' asleep against the windowpane...
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 5:14 pm
Saellys wrote: CUBSWINWORLDSERIES wrote: Saellys wrote: The writer on NPR made a pretty awesome point about the way our heroes have changed, or disappeared, over the course of his life. If we don't believe there's a Captain Kirk out there who can save us (and the whiny little turd from the J.J. Abrams movie doesn't count), what does that say about our belief in ourselves as a race?
Jack Bauer? And recent pop culture, Iron Man (Movie version)? Yea, I'm the one who voted Nope. And it had nothing to do with pop culture.They're both technically anti-heroes (especially Tony Stark). True. But both do ultimately save the day, and good wins out over evil... Will good win out over evil in the long run is the question I take away from this exercise. Thus I cite those two as relates to pop culture. Tony Stark is fighting demons and is an alcoholic? Matters not to me in this argument. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 17 Dec 2005 | Posts: 7525 | Location: Wisconsin
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 5:20 pm
Mass over consumption and overpopulation will greatly lower the quality of life in the 21st and 22nd centuries, and possibly lead to drastic depopulation. This certainly doesn't have to happen, but we head gleefully skip headlong down this path further every day. _________________ EisleyForever wrote: you're A-list in my heart! MAKECOLDPLAYHISTORY |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 20 Feb 2005 | Posts: 8868 | Location: Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 6:44 pm
The main problem is that there are people who are getting more than they need and people who are not getting enough to live. That's one of the sad things that's been going on with the world for quite a bit. It greatly saddens me. I think if we last for another thousand years we're going to be so anti-conservative I just can't imagine the world. But I think before we even reach that the chaos is going to become too much. I also think we're completely missing the point of life. I tend to look down on the fact that humans try to hard to understand the world around them. I think pop culture is going to become increasingly superficial and inartistic. I honestly think television is very distracting and that some people are too concentrated on the media; but I'm not sure where that trend is headed. It seems people are becoming too superficial and we're just messing with the natural balance of our bodies and the whole universe. God made the universe with such a beautiful harmony, but I think we're ruining it. I was watching someone on the history or science channel about humans moving onto another planet or moon in the future...who would volunteer to be a settler? i wouldn't...I can't imagine the things that could go wrong in those first years. _________________ Kneel before your god Babylon! "I don't wanna touch you and feel so helpless; I don't wanna smell you and lose my senses" Rufus Wainwright, Foolish Love |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 28 Dec 2007 | Posts: 807 | Location: Wouldn't you like to know?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 6:49 pm
DRMS_7888 wrote: Mass over consumption and overpopulation will greatly lower the quality of life in the 21st and 22nd centuries, and possibly lead to drastic depopulation.
This certainly doesn't have to happen, but we head gleefully skip headlong down this path further every day. _________________ Kulvir. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 10 Mar 2005 | Posts: 1844 | Location: Vancouver, BC
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 6:52 pm
lookingXglass wrote: The main problem is that there are people who are getting more than they need and people who are not getting enough to live. That's one of the sad things that's been going on with the world for quite a bit. It's been that way since the dawn of Man(Time even, if you think of all the lesser animals). It's not gonna change. _________________ 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 26 Jan 2006 | Posts: 2599 | Location: GA
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Post subject: Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:04 pm
johnip wrote: lookingXglass wrote: The main problem is that there are people who are getting more than they need and people who are not getting enough to live. That's one of the sad things that's been going on with the world for quite a bit. It's been that way since the dawn of Man(Time even, if you think of all the lesser animals). It's not gonna change. Yep, but it's sad, right? It makes me want to buy a pair of TOMS lol _________________ Kneel before your god Babylon! "I don't wanna touch you and feel so helpless; I don't wanna smell you and lose my senses" Rufus Wainwright, Foolish Love |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Joined: 28 Dec 2007 | Posts: 807 | Location: Wouldn't you like to know?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Laughing City Forum Index -> General -> All this talk of God, what about Man?
Page 1 of 2 goto page | next >>
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
All times are GMT - 12 Hours
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
