Is Progress Inevitable?
For most of my life I have been trying to relate my personal experiences to ideas I have absorbed from others–both during my formal education, and later on. It was like assembling a whole series of massively complicated jigsaw puzzles, and then taking the puzzles themselves and fitting them together into new and larger sets of patterns. Pattern recognition, the ability to perceive relationships, the quest for the missing piece or the missing principle, and the thrill when I found it–that has been the name of the great game of my life.
By the time I retired, nearly ten years ago, I had assembled enough of the pieces so that I was ready to move to the next stage, writing essays. The first ...
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together into patterns that fit to be certain that the faith of our fathers (and mothers) needs to be consigned to an honorable pasture. As I put it in one essay, it is time “to give God the boot”. Either God invented humankind, as we have been taught for ages, or humans invented God, (or the gods, depending on which particular group of humans you are talking about.)
By now we know enough about the human condition, and how we evolved through time and space and became what we have become, so that there is only one rational answer to this question. Humanity has come a long way and evolved through many stages and forms of social organizations. Throughout prehistory as well as history, every tribe, every cult, every nation has developed its particular version of Godhead that it can worship. Each definition is tailor-made to the needs of the particular group that subscribes to it. And religious faith as a phenomenon has proven almost everywhere to be a powerful engine of human ...
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man, although no longer the darling of the universe or even of this earth, stands out as a far more heroic figure than in any of the supernaturalist creeds, old or new. He has become truly a Prometheus Unbound with almost infinite powers and potentialities. For his great achievements man, utilizing the resources and the laws of Nature, yet without Divine aid, can take full credit. Similarly, for his shortcomings he must take full responsibility. Humanism assigns to man nothing less than the task of being his own savior and redeemer.” Bravo!
It has gradually become clear to me, however, that without some new kind of faith, more relevant to contemporary times than the old gods, we are ...
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Is Progress Inevitable?. (2011, May 19). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Is-Progress-Inevitable/99290
"Is Progress Inevitable?." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 19 May. 2011. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Is-Progress-Inevitable/99290>
"Is Progress Inevitable?." Essayworld.com. May 19, 2011. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Is-Progress-Inevitable/99290.
"Is Progress Inevitable?." Essayworld.com. May 19, 2011. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Is-Progress-Inevitable/99290.
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