2 ms·

Says who? All of the atheists I know tend to have some like of Star Trek-like futurist beliefs. Or watered-down Tim Leary beliefs of mind expansion and space mi

Says who? All of the atheists I know tend to have some like of Star Trek-like futurist beliefs. Or watered-down Tim Leary beliefs of mind expansion and space migration. Also, its probably not in our best interest to pretend that extinction events don't happen. If anything, if we're seeing some paranoia, it might be healthy paranoia. Imagine if Al Gore was a "everything happens for a reason" type person and didn't care to invest his political life into the environment. Instead he fought to popularize global warming and has helped moved policy forward. Policy that will probably make a difference to our grandkids. There's a lot of middle ground between the optimism of 72 virgins and the strawman doom-and-gloom person you describe. The most hopeless people I know tend to be conservative religious types for whatever reason. "Get while the gettings good" seems to be their collective motto. Who cares about the future when Jesus/Buddha/whoever is coming back any day now!

api 12y ago
I think we are firmly in YMMV territory here. :) I always noticed that at academic conferences the casual greeting seemed to be agreement about the impending human die-off due to global warming / ecological doom / whatever.
JoshuaDavid 12y ago
Correction -- all of the atheists you know who vocally express their beliefs have Star-Trek-like beliefs, or other generally optimistic beliefs about the future. The atheists who think that there's a significant chance that we'll manage to wipe ourselves out in the next century generally aren't going to vocalize those beliefs, unless there's something actionable that can be done about it (though I don't think I actually know anyone who thinks that ecological overshoot is a real threat to civilization, much less humanity). I think you see the pessimists on both sides of the secular / religious divide. The difference is that pessimism is generally low-status and frowned upon in secular groups, meaning that pessimists in those groups are generally not very vocal about their pessimism.

api 12y ago

I think we are firmly in YMMV territory here. :) I always noticed that at academic conferences the casual greeting seemed to be agreement about the impending human die-off due to global warming / ecological doom / whatever.

JoshuaDavid 12y ago

Correction -- all of the atheists you know who vocally express their beliefs have Star-Trek-like beliefs, or other generally optimistic beliefs about the future. The atheists who think that there's a significant chance that we'll manage to wipe ourselves out in the next century generally aren't going to vocalize those beliefs, unless there's something actionable that can be done about it (though I don't think I actually know anyone who thinks that ecological overshoot is a real threat to civilization, much less humanity). I think you see the pessimists on both sides of the secular / religious divide. The difference is that pessimism is generally low-status and frowned upon in secular groups, meaning that pessimists in those groups are generally not very vocal about their pessimism.