Unfaith, love and hope

Downgrading the importance of religion from politics would be plus. I have heard the question posed, would you vote for an atheist president, a couple of times. When the no's did come out they were quick and empathic, even though it's as silly as being so certain that you would never vote for a brunette president. It isn't a question you ask someone to judge their moral fiber or define who they are as a person. Just seems absurd to me.

 

This is my point, it really doesn't offer much, so truly, what is the objective?

As you might imagine, I am very well read.... Yes I have!
I know what expressive freedom should be, but could not even begin to fathom the brilliance or beauty that would come from it...... I just want to be along for the ride and explore the depths and potential of my own expression within it!

Our economy always translated to absolute absurdity in my mind since I was very young......
It always made sense to remove the monetary assessment of worth within humanity, and I found it very easy within intellect to do so using it's own processes against it......

As a single state within an economy, take a great portion of open space and develop it...... Set an absurd dollar amount to do so and set minds free upon it within that development..... Architects, artists, agriculturists, environmentalists, engineers.... No credentials are required, just the magnificence of the mind and a viable plan in order to implement it.....
The idea is to produce the most beautiful, grand, brilliant and magnificent expression of the mind this world has ever seen.....
Set open space funding towards it, educational funding towards it, tourism funding towards it.... Anywhere you can, funnel state funding towards it!
Now, in this lottery of the mind, make it very well known the more magnificent the expression, the better the chances it will be funded.....
Brilliant minds will be crawling out of the wood works for such a grand opportunity!
Now lets discuss time and labor..... If it is such a magnificent expression, certainly the cost of time and labor is going to be extreme..... This is where education enters..... If this is the greatest expression of the mind in our leading fields of artistry and technology, it will also attract the greatest minds in our educational system wanting to learn from it and become a part of it in order to further their own self expression..... Congratulations, you have just created the most brilliant and FREE university, no financial institute of education could ever compete with it!
This is your labor force where the brilliant minds of this creative lottery are able to produce their vision through the young minds desiring to learn from it.
Free labor, free education; magnificent minds from around the world will be clamoring to become a part of it!!!!
Now, I have no idea what this expression will look like, only that it will be the most magnificent expression of the mind this world has ever seen and that it will advance and grow exponentially......
Now lets talk about the financial reward of a state entering into this type of expression of the mind......
This will become the eighth wonder of the world and everyone from around the world will come to witness it.... It will open up a floodgate of money and opportunity where no other state will ever be able to compete with it.
Businesses will flourish, technologies will flourish, expressions in artistry will flourish..... The mind will flourish!
Every field of artistry and technology will be redefined until every expression of humanity becomes a work of art.
The state will have an incredible abundance of resources in order to invest into this advancement of the mind...... Other states and eventually the entire world will have to conform to this grand expression or they will become obsolete!
Obviously when abundance overcomes the ability for money to represent it, money will just disappear; what are paper tokens to an absolute abundance but a severely limiting factor within it?
This is what I refer to as the 'critical mass' of the mind, all of 'creation' within this universe is a 'map' to our own brilliance......
When the mass at the core reaches stasis and beyond where it becomes greater than all of the mass surrounding it, it will begin consuming exponentially until..... flash, planck state..... A brilliant explosion of a new creation!
Are we paying attention to this magnificent universe? Are we paying attention to our own magnificence within it?

The free expression of the mind is effortless; fighting against it in these absurd cages, the institutionalized mind.... This is extremely difficult!
Look around you at all the failing lives and minds, it is pure insanity and nothing less than a wake up call!

The expression of love does not leave a single life behind, regardless of what absurdities within our religions tells us.... This is our miracle, it is called the mind!

 

I'll answer this by asking the same question of theism.

It is quickly becoming the go-to blueprint-for-life all across the world. The absolutely awesome thing about it is that one does not have to be an atheist to embrace it. I know Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jainists, Taoists, Pantheists, Panentheists, Pandeists, Deists, Wiccans, and so on who all embrace the philosophy.

Secular Humanism's entire premise is the Golden Rule, just expanded with detail. It's nearly impossible for a fair-minded person to avoid Secular Humanism.

I'm quite convinced that Secular Humanism will eventually become the dominating philosophy throughout the world. I don't think it will happen in my lifetime (I'm 24), but (if I have offspring) it may happen during the lifetime of my great, great grandchildren. And I think a world dominated by Secular Humanism would perhaps be the closest we humans could ever come to world peace and harmony.

I mean, that's a really beautiful expression, but what makes you so sure it's a reflection of reality?

I'm sorry, but this is just an impossible ideal. It has nothing to do with the premise. The premise is wonderful and I think this is what a utopia might look like.

The problem is with an underlying assumption that human beings would naturally accept and/or participate in such an idea. The fact is, human nature most likely would not allow it. You'd have to fight off the most pernicious form of fanaticism there is: tribal loyalty, also known patriotism. That is a loosing battle. I guarantee it.

 

I want to further the expression for a moment and discuss the individual mind within a freedom of expression......

In our development we should be nurtured without limitations in every moment of our discovery.....
As a student, we in essence are a teacher by showing what our minds truly desire to learn..... As the teacher, we in essence are the student allowing the mind to show us how we should be nurturing it..... It is boundless and without ego!

There is a magnificence for the individual, which happens later within it's path that fills me with such a profound emotion.

We are nurtured until we no longer require being nurtured, this is the point that we become the nurturer; not only to ourselves within every motion, but to everyone that surrounds us..... When we have reached the limits of our own capacity of mind is when the true beauty happens; we will once again become a student to our own knowledge and witness the minds we have set forward, advance into a magnificence that our own mind could have never comprehended.
We simply grab ahold of this dragons tail and ride upon it until we are so full, we can no longer hold on..... The only thing that is left, is to let go into the frailty of the body and the mind.... It is in this moment that we have experienced true peace, we have seen our love blossom into the unfathomable and the unimaginable (for Dattaswami)......
I have never been afraid of death, I am most fearful of never living; as we all should be!

 

Ask any question you desire, does it describe a solution?

Perhaps being content with a title and a definition for that title is part of the problem, again how is it advancing itself as a tangible expression of humanity where it becomes an undeniable truth?

Is unequivocal freedom anything but a reflection of reality? Mental slavery is a much more difficult concept to identify, does it change the fact that it is highly oppressive regardless of one's ability to identify it?

Impossibility is your cage alone, all you have accomplished is describing it's bars; and in doing so, you only guarantee that it remains.

That is the brilliance, you don't have to accept it or even participate in it, in fact you can vehemently deny it..... It will however, prove itself over and over regardless!
It is not outside the bounds of the constitution, nor is it outside the bounds of the law; so tell me, who is not going to allow it?
People can hold on to their fanaticism, tribal loyalty or patriotism all they like; the expression I am talking about will advance so far beyond it, they will be forced to see that they have nothing and that they are holding on to nothing!
Even the most humble example of what I am discussing, has no worthy opponent. Anything that is unable to compete with it will simply be loosing that battle!!!!

 

Okay, I'll be more explicit, then...

"This is my point, [theism] really doesn't offer much, so truly, what is the objective?"

Atheism has as much of an objective as theism does. If you think theism offers an objective, then I would say atheism offers the exact some one.

Please read my link to the Wiki article about Secular Humanism again. This is the whole point of Secular Humanism. People living their lives by the philosophy of Secular Humanism work to make the world a better place, and they do so not in the name of any gods or religion, but in the name of humanity.

You mean besides being completely unrealistic? I think there are some "freedoms" humans just should not have... like the "freedom" to murder, or rape...

And yet a functioning society has to have restrictions. Laws have to be in place. Humans have proven time and again that they will go beserk without limits and consequences.

You missed my point. What you are describing sounds wonderful on paper (or, in this case, in a forum post), but will not translate into reality because human nature will not allow it. The fact is that the vast majority of humanity will not allow such a thing to succeed... at east, not without a very violent uprising, first.

What I mean is, you may be able to get it started if, first, Dominionists take over the US and turn it into an oppressive country kind of like Europe in "V for Vendetta" for a long time before the people revolt, resulting in a very long time of pain, terror, and death.

As Bruce Wayne said in Batman Begins, people need a dramatic example to shake them out of apathy. You can't just say "let's do this". You basically have to force people into it... give them no other choice... because would not choose to do so because they are already comfortable in their current situation.

Being idealistic is fine... but temper it with realism, otherwise you'll ultimately fail.

 

Does it poof, miraculously manifest itself or does someone actually need to 'demonstrate' a physical tangible expression of humanity by describing exactly what that looks like?
I must have missed that portion!

Do you actually think a mind that murders or rapes is free, or locked up within it's own twisted delusion?
I don't throw around the term freedom lightly!

How many of our laws do you suppose are completely indulgent of money and the assessment of worth?
What do you suppose the percentage of crime is that relates to money or the disparity created by money through the social stratification of class?
Is that what you think we are doing right now, functioning?
If functioning is the institutionalization of minds, yes then, I suppose we are!

At what point do you actually think how we are living now is a true representation of human nature?

This can develop within the system, the only difference is that it would prove to be superior within that system..... If that causes uprising, then I suppose it must!

The entire thing is a choice, it has no need to force anything upon anyone......
Here is a healthy dose of reality, this is a freedom that we will eventually become..... We either begin to define it in our lifetime, or simply become a piece of the history that is merely leading up to it!
How do you desire to define your life?

 

It manifests within the people who do what they do as Secular Humanists, which is how all worldviews manifest.

Neither do I, but you cannot take an ethnocentric view of this. Are those minds twisted or warped, trapped in a mental prison? Maybe... or maybe they are experiencing a freedom the rest of us dread.

What is "true freedom"? Is true freedom the freedom to choose to do all that will not hurt others, or is it the freedom to anything and everything, regardless of how it affects others?

You're an anarchist, aren't you? People cannot govern themselves. Government is required. But people should be able to govern the government, as well.

No, we are not functioning as a society. The US has moved so far to the right that people think a very-slightly-left-leaning moderate like Obama is a Socialist. If we in the states can classify someone like Obama a Socialist, then it's very obvious to me that the US has no conception of the Left anymore... that we've gone so far to the right that Left doesn't actually exist here.

And the further right we go, the louder the fanatics get, and the more their warped way of life takes hold. The US is at a turning point, and I for one am terrified of the direction it's turning in.

But dismantling the government and attempting to create an unrealistic vision of utopia is unrealistic. What we need to do is dismantle the Political Party system, forcing candidates to run not on a platform, but on their own merits. Such a system could, in fact, force honesty, and people, for once, will not vote Democrat or Republican, but will vote based on their opinions.

As an anthropology student, I can tell you that just about every expression of human living throughout history, from 250,000 years ago when we first appeared on the scene to today, has been exactly what human nature would predict.

As an anthropologist, a musician, and a Humanist. I wish contribute to society's understanding of atheism, fanaticism, and, quite separately, why more and more people are turning to P2P (torrents, hubs, etc) and downloading for their music instead of buying it.

 

What exactly does that look like? Is holding a title and a definition enough?

Does a mind that is nurtured to see it's own beauty, envision itself as a rapist or murderer?
Even in the absence of the concept of a perfect creation, I don't think this is even remotely reasonable to the mind.

Institutionalized minds are unable to govern themselves, I agree! This is where anarchy can occur.

Never once did I discuss dismantling anything, it operates within the system of governing and produces a very gentle demonstration of how that system is failing by offering through choice a superior aspect by which the mind is able to express itself.

So, you would think that intellect has enough to reflect upon by now in order to evolve that nature into a much more brilliant aspect of itself?

Why are we so complacent, so comfortable with an expression of humanity that is so far off the mark......
People used to sacrifice their lives for grand ideals, we seem to be content existing with the slow and meaningless death of the greatest ideal the mind will ever know.
The irony is, we don't need to sacrifice a single thing beyond our own denial.

It's amazing to me that the mind is able to become so comfortable existing within a cage, that it refuses to escape even when the key is hanging from our neck and the door is left wide open!

Are we really this terrified of our own voice and mind?

This is not human nature, sorry, defend the cage all you like!
This is what our nature has been trained to be, nothing more, nothing less!