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root@On Religion in the Transhumanist Future
[hr] If atheism is a religion based on the belief that there is no divine other, then doesn't Eclipse Phase do a decent job of handling religion? There are groups fervently devout to the idea of an empty universe, there are the Singulatarians who are trying to create their or become own gods, and there are TITAN worshipers who believe that the Rapture already came and they were left behind. The psychological niche that religion fills is well represented in Eclipse Phase, it just doesn't have a form we are very familiar with. I would be interested in some treatment of Uplift religious beliefs though, as those are the ones most likely to be entirely alien to the human viewpoint of religion.@-rep +1
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]root@On Religion in the Transhumanist Future
[hr] If atheism is considered to be a religion in its own right, then religion is considered to be belief in a god or gods somewhere on a spectrum ranging from a singular God to no gods at all. Religion can then be seen as a sociological structure with specific roles to fill in society without any implication that religion is merely a sociological phenomenon. From this delicately stated definition of religion, I am certain we could hold a civil discourse and still argue our mutually exclusive convictions, but to ask that the writers do the same would perhaps be a bit unreasonable. Instead, they made the game under Creative Commons, so people are free to write their religious viewpoints of the transhumanist future presented in Eclipse Phase.@-rep +1
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]root@On Religion in the Transhumanist Future
[hr] The important point in recognizing atheism as a religion is that it strips religion of its self-ordained position as the standard of comparison on belief. If atheists are treated as people who have stopped believing in gods, or haven't learned the "truths" of religion yet, then religion is held to be part of the basic human template that atheists have somehow departed from. If atheists treat religions as delusions that people have not yet been "freed" from, then they are presupposing a basic human template that theists have somehow departed from. Since the only logically supportable belief when it comes to religion is agnosticism (nothing can be proven either way), then taking the step to declare that there is no god is a declaration of a faith. Like any faith, there are implicit declarations on what is considered a moral action based on the cosmology being championed. These implicit declarations run afoul of theists because they do not believe there is another realm of existence that somehow balances the unfairness of life, and therefore require the atheist to recognize that there is nothing to justify suffering. Do atheists organize? They don't see the same need to do so that religions do. Do atheists have a common set of rules to dictate how they are expected to interact with other humans? Game theory. Game theory is not just a common set of rules on how we are expected to interact with each other, but a common set of rules on how we are forced to interact with each other by the limitations of communication. With game theory as a guiding rule set, society is only an amoral and heartless place if your opponents choose it to be.@-rep +1
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]root@On Religion in the Transhumanist Future
[hr] Nothing there about the supernatural. Atheists certainly derive morality, ethics, and lifestyles from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature, and it is definitely a cultural system. It fails to have nearly so many narratives, symbols, and traditions as other religions, but it is intended to give some meaning to life. Or at least, some comfort in the lack of meaning to life. Now, that being said: Atheism certainly contains a philosophy, but so do all religions. The main difference between a religious philosophy and other philosophies has to do with religion assuming something unprovable about the cosmos and human nature.@-rep +1
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