I believe this because the individual is expendable in the scheme of thing.
This is what I am talking about and this is why an effective narrative to explain who we are is imperative.
At the core of religion is the concept that all human life is sacred, even if it does not always come out in practice. Each life has value.
Science, however, tells us that we are:
One insignificant bag of genes crawling on the surface of an insignificant ball of dirt traveling through an insignificant part of an insignificant universe.
And that bag of genes is driven to survive and that pretty much everything it does is a result of genetic drives that it does not even perceive, but mistakenly labels as love, indignation, righteous anger, compassion etc.
As Dan has said:
"We are nothing more than calculating machines."
...And we are expendable.
Can we really not see what justified horrors of social engineering we open up with all those expendable people - for the greater good?
Can we really not see what this does to the psyche?
Do we not realize why we have an ever growing army of children with behavioral issues and depression, causing us to use Ritalin and other drugs to sedate a generation?
Do we not see why we have teens now, who despairing in their existential angst, take up arms and slaughter their classmates in a desperate attempt to gain some significance (with press releases readily prepared).
If religion is wrong and science is right, then how do we respond to this?
You say, and maybe rightly so, that it is not science's place to provide any meaning to life - but I suppose I feel that as the practice of science has stripped all meaning, those engaged in it have some responsibility to realize what they have done and try to address it.
I know I'm being really dense here, but I can't help the way I feel - it is beyond my control - I have an evolutionary drive to feel significant so that I can play my part in the group and therefore maximize survival potential
Blacknad.
