Apologies, I misunderstood. It's the sort of thing your hear Christian fundamentalists use in debates, that "militant Atheists" just make a God of science and are as fanatical as they themselves.

It's not that I disagree with what you're saying, but I think you're putting too much stock into my use of the word God; it wasn't really the point of the problem. You can substitute "arbitrarily powerful intelligence" if it makes it clearer. Or are you saying that the question of whether it can be called God or not is relevant to the question of the moral imperative of creating it? Because that might also be an interesting question.

And just to clarify, most of what I'm saying here is my extrapolation and reaction to Sam's thoughts on the matter, he doesn't actually have all that much to say about it. I can find you the clip on youtube if you're interested, though.

(Also, Pigeon, I'm sorry if this is hijacking your thread. We can take this to PMs if needed.)

Probably part the bit about "calling it a God is not relevant to its moral imperative" - was more confusing, but in retrospect it does fit into the "an alternative term for divine is 'something of value'" idea.
I can understand the idea - sort of akin to my idea of efforts to make something more sustainable/survivable than what exists in nature - go extremophiles!

(And yeah, sorry for the detraction)

Yeah, I understand where you're coming from on the alien abduction area. Do you think trying to suppress their own ideals results in mental illness?

Do you think it's natural for humans to consider ourselves as a species more important than other things? What are your opinions on extremist religions that value other life so much, practitioners sweep the walkway before them to avoid harming insects?


Would the agi's alleged morals be programmed by us or learned somehow by observation?
Do you think it would be irresponsible to make such a being, as it isn't implausible that it can rule other civilizations, forcing human morality onto them?

I have a profound interest in Scientology due to what it's based on and what draws people to join it. I visited the Church of Scientology near me for the first time yesterday. It was nice.
Jediism also interests me, but for reasons slightly different than your own. It's an almost exclusively online community and I really am curious as to how that works, since there are sermons apparently.

Havism is probably the newest religion out of the three, so it isn't well known. I personally like its values, which is why I converted.
That's awesome your family is so religiously diverse :) What is asatru, if you don't mind me asking?

No need, no need. I appreciate the courtesy, but I encourage having respectful discussions here :) so carry on by all means

Technically, they are diagnosed as psychosis in cases where the idea results in harm (their own or others)...mental illnesses again here being a rather iffy term. As Suze may agree, by certain definitions of mental illness, all human society is delusional and ill.

I couldn't honestly tell you. If I ever had the opportunity to speak with a member of such a religion, I'd have a some questions for them, I suppose. But extremism by its nature isn't representative of anything but itself. I'm sure you'd have to examine the specific circumstances in how those belief systems came about, and even then, I wonder if a person who operates in such a way could even have a meaningful conversation with someone of my persuasion, or if the two philosophies are so incompatible that nothing of value could be derived.

That is a far more practical question than accounted for in the thought experiment I laid out, and probably a far more interesting (read: disturbing) topic for our near future. I'd say that's a perfectly valid concern. I think Sam Harris brought that up in his talk, too, how you wouldn't exactly want, say, the representatives of genocidal regimes on the United Nations to have a say in the programming of the hypothetical intelligence in question.

I highly respect those belief systems where people value other life above human convenience. I wouldn't think that they would be too dissimilar to the imperative of supporting a superior moral intelligence that may decide to eradicate mankind. Certainly neither favors human as special or superior, but both see humanity as having a function or role. (Though, "fluffiness" can be a thing here...sort of like "softness" of science fiction)

I'll confess I'm not terribly familiar with those faiths, nor even which particular ones we're talking about. Jainism is one, yes?

Perpendicular to that topic, though, I also meant to mention the... I don't know about similarity, but overlap of the concept of Nirvana and liberation from Samsara (I know very little about this, correct me if I'm abusing these terms) with the pessimist/nihilist view on the banality of human consciousness. On at least a basic, conceptual level the self-annihilation spirituality of those systems seems at least in a nearby framework (1) to the positions like mine that hold the current state of evolved human self-awareness to be an unnatural malady that should be abrogated from nature.(2)

1. It is possible I am grossly ignorant of the nuances of Buddhist, Jainist, and other associated belief systems.

2. That is not to say I am in favor of anyone being forcibly removed from existing, only that the idea of essentially breeding ourselves gradually out of existence is not the worst possible future I can imagine.

On another note of far-flung transhumanism, something I never really see discussed alongside stuff like AGI and mind-uploading is hypothetically being able to use such technology to FIX consciousness, and maybe repair us to such a degree that the way we actually are resembles what our intuitions would have us believe we are. I'm not sure how clear that is, now that I've typed it. I wonder what conscious existence of that sort would even be like. It might just be too paradoxical to both science and philosophy to even be able to discuss, though.

It looks like I'm a little late to the party on this one, buuut...

All of them. I understand the concept of most, and the general need for a sense of community, creating a purpose for oneself, and having someone to credit/blame for the creation of existence. What I find strange is that all of these people choose to put labels on themselves and nitpick about the specifics of their deities instead of realizing that they're all really just striving for the same thing.
The religion of... Keeping it cool, I guess? It's fun to speculate about a higher being, but the very nature of such a thing would prevent us from fully understanding it anyway. Without going into too much detail, there are issues much closer to home that I'm more concerned with.
Reason, respect, empathy, and always striving to be better than you are without bringing anyone else down along the way. Granted, my actions don't always reflect those ideals, but...... shut up.
Seemingly everything.
Sort of, in the same way that I'm be interested in reading fairy tales. In most places the bible reads like a longer, more fiery version of Aesop's Fables with a lot of recurring characters, so that's pretty fun.