The problem with most 'communists' is that they do not take their materialism seriously. They say we evolved from animals, but think we are still God's creatures (where the Truth is that God is our creature, our Creation. And he's Jewish). They do not understand we our animals. Clever animals that learned how to tell on each other (see here any serious discussion of how language actually evolved).

We are social animals, and we exist in groups. In a lesser way, it might be appropriate to think of us as less organized ants, at least initially. Eventually somehow a couple billion of us got here, and things are a lot more complex than an ant-hill. It's kind of like a bunch of different ant hills, and some ant hills are controlled by other ants.

But back down on the individual level, it's still just your basic monkey-shit we've been doing for hundreds of thousands of years.

Our political theory, in this view, is basically our weapon to get the ants to overthrow the Queen.

Many of the ants who have a radical political ideology like to pride themselves on the mere fact that they have figured out they're ants in colony, that they understand how the orders to keep things going work, and that they 'morally' reject this system in their little ant-hurts, cause it hurtz their wittle ant feelings.

If they were more focused on how to actually start fucking up the function of the hive, and saw just how important it was to overthrow the queen, they might to start to understand their 'spiritual' place in all this. That literally, the destiny of the hive is on their shoulders, and things aren't looking too good right now...

Hello Bill,yes Hawking, is a brilliant guy, his analogy on death and afterlife is sound enough. He has faced death for decades. Spoken like the mathematician and scientist he is, with a jab at fairy tales needed by some. I as a life long smoker and train driver might say that when the bellows cease pumping, there's no chance of meeting Casey Jones on the 10'15 Heaven express. Grand Hell Central maybe?

I do so agree, we are not computers. Commonsense clears up any muddle, as a psychophysical entity, not conjoined minds and bodies.
"The brain and its activities make it possible for us - not for it - to perceive and think, to feel emotions, and to form and pursue projects." Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (bennett/hacker).

As for reaching these millennialists, I doubt if I have the self control. Seeing those parents with children in tow....makes me hopping mad. Elizabethans used chainshot from cannons and the rack to tame religion along with confiscation of untold wealth. It is a temptation.....GOD forgive me!!!
In fact christians as we all know are a pretty mixed bag, as fellow humans, I am sure we have more that binds us. The vision of BUSH/BLAIR on their knees in prayer prior to the Iraq invasion is hardly good omen though. In the meantime I'm sure after centuries of being the butt, a treasure house, of working class humour, they know how to turn the other cheek.

Too bad if they don't!!!

Hutu wrote:

<blockquote>
"We are social animals, and we exist in groups. In a lesser way, it might be appropriate to think of us as less organized ants, at least initially. Eventually somehow a couple billion of us got here, and things are a lot more complex than an ant-hill. It’s kind of like a bunch of different ant hills, and some ant hills are controlled by other ants.

But back down on the individual level, it’s still just your basic monkey-shit we’ve been doing for hundreds of thousands of years.

Our political theory, in this view, is basically our weapon to get the ants to overthrow the Queen."</blockquote>



Perhaps you ought to take your biology a bit more seriously buddy, because this is just silly on a lot of levels.

I figured it'd be rather self-evident, but if I need to spell it out: the function of a queen ant in an ant is to continuously lay eggs for the reproduction of the colony, without the queen most species of ant colonies would just die out. Understanding this makes Hutu's statement seem like a call for the end of sexual reproduction and end the species... Pretty silly, huh?

...or were you suggesting that I make an argument for why it's silly to propose that "our political theory"(Marxism) is a weapon for collective voluntary sterilization?

All analogies are silly if you pry hard enough.

Well, some are better than others.I wasn't trying to put you down or anything, I just found it a little humorous.

Thats why the science is called ANThropology....

Am I the only one that can see the connection??????????????

I gave Haold Camping everything I owned, even the clothes off my back. I stood naked atop Mount Lassen. I needed a wrapture I was so cold!!!!

Dodge wrote: yes Hawking, is a brilliant guy, his analogy on death and afterlife is sound enough. He has faced death for decades. Spoken like the mathematician and scientist he is, with a jab at fairy tales needed by some.

Hi Dodge, thanks for your response. I guess I should have said that "it goes without saying" that Stephen Hawking is brilliant--but my point is that the brilliance that he evinces in his fields does not always transfer directly into philosophical brilliance. But perhaps when we have brilliance in mathematics and physics, we don't need philosophy, brilliant or otherwise. That line of reasoning has been a persistent strain in Marxism and materialism. My point in challenging the analogy that Hawking draws between dead humans and broken computers is that death is not a question for the latter. You make this point yourself in saying that Hawking "has faced death for decades"--computers do not "face" death, or life for that matter. (@ Hutu: the problem is not a strained analogy but instead disanalogy.) Humans, facing life and death, form projects--we attempt to project ourselves into the future. What capitalism contributes to all of this is the fact that we absolutely have to project our human futures in terms of this planet, these actual lands where we live. Anticipated by at least certain strains of certain religious traditions, Marx makes the struggle for this projection a matter of the time and space of humanity--again, Marx (following Vico, Kant, Hegel, etc.) makes a fundamental advance on the crucial point that we humans live on a particular planet that occupies a particular swath of cosmic space.

This is not to say that there aren't good questions to be asked about whether we really are so different, when we die, from broken computers or even other kinds of animals, and about whether all of the religions in the world really do contribute more to human understanding (and truth) than fairy tales. Of course we should ask these questions--indeed, despite the answers given to them by great scientists such as Stephen Hawking.

Bill just ruminating, it occured to me I have only had one discussion on the subject of religion. 50yrs ago, my mother initiated, asking me whether I wished to be confirmed. It was asked in a tone(would you like to have your polio vaccination) or would you 'like' to take a bath or like to take the dog for a walk. At 13 then I felt I must make a stand. "NO!"...my sisters grimaced and passed looks to ma 'see! we were right all along' "NO"...' he's just being awkward' ..."NO"....'YOU MIGHT REGRET IT!!!'....."NO"....'IT'S A PHASE!!'...."NO"...'HE REFUSED TO GO WITH MY FRIEND TO DANCE CLASSES WHEN SHE ASKED HIM SO NICELY'......"NO..NO..NO...NO!!"...'WHERE ARE YOU GOING??'
"OUT!!"

I can't recall any other openings for chatting or debating the subject. The subject simply never came up! At work we would talk of any subject under the sun. Social times not on any level would religion figure.

I guess I am one of the silent majority that just could not give a flying f###k about religion here in Britain.

The most important point is that human consciousness cannot be explained or defined in Scientfic terms.Even scientists like Carl Sagan , Einstein or Hawkings often referred to a pantheist God.Philosopher like J.Krishnamurti discard a Christian God but use the term as a synonym or in the pantheist sense.The Universe is constantly expanding and we cannot define it in concrete terms.Einsten referred to it's laws as his pantheist god.

We have to asses whether our Atheism itself is wholy progressive.We are correct in rejecting the Christian or Deist God but can we totally reject an inner mystrerious force that even Scientists experience?I feel J.Krishanamurti has releavnace in this light when he contratts the brain and the mind.