Voyager was right, but there was a “Kilgore Trout” story of that nature referenced in Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. The realization that everyone else is a robot causes the main character (already showing signs of mental illness) to go on a violent rampage in the later chapters, assaulting and maiming, among others, the character’s son and Kilgore Trout himself.
As another joke goes…Hey! I resemble that remark.
Another story in a similar vein is “The Ultimate Egoist” by Theodore Sturgeon. *Cogito Ergo Sum * taken to the extreme. Coincidentally, Kilgore Trout (or at least his name) was created in homage to Theodore Sturgeon. The latest volume of Sturgeon’s collected works is due this month.
If, by saying “the right side”, you mean doing the right thing in the name of your deity, irrespective of your religious affiliation, then I would agree that was what he intended. The trouble is that each of us know what the right thing is, and all those other fools have no clue.
Sigh…
It’s really sad how many people were confused by what Cecil said. Call it a joke, if you like, but it’s true. Life continues after death. People have died, & I’m still here. Stands to reason that after I die, others will still be here. This is why those of us who don’t believe in an immortal personal soul often still believe in conscience & morality, contrary to what some religious teachers imply.
Facing our mortality and insignificance requires a strength most people do not have. So to deny the obvious, they invent religion and create a god in their own image - complete with the human characteristics of vanity and insecurity.
This promise of an afterlife had about as much clout as when I told my kids that if they were good and cleaned up their room, I would take them to the zoo.
When I announced to my family that I was an Anteist several sent me one of those Jesus cards to read on my deathbed. I tossed them out because I had been a Hospice worker for a couple of years and never once had a dying patient ask for a chaplain or even mentioned the need for one in their last weeks of life. I did have a couple who wrote on their information cards to keep the religious nuts away from them while they die. I had one chaplain who visited my patient anyway and when I got there he threatened my life for allowing it. He was one pissed man. He was 95, full of cancer and looking forward to death. A great man!
Put together, the last two postings would appear to have a really nice “Heads I win, tails you lose” thing going.
True.
But as you may have noticed, there are others who seem compelled to act in the same “spirit” as those religious teachers – right down to the tendency to jump to conclusions --, only from the opposite direction.
As an Atheist of many years after many more years as an amatur student of philosophy and different religions I love to see such intelligent discussions taking place in such an open and non-threating mannor. So many people have so many doubts and questions and guilt that seem to simply cease to exist when casting off the heavy cloak of organized religion. When you see it all as the splendor of the natural world without magic, voodoo or ghosts it all comes into the light and makes perfect sense. Carl Sagan’s “Candle in the Darkness”.
It has been a pleasure
This is only to say that atheism feels good. There are plenty of people to testify in response that Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or Sikhism, or Hinduism, or what have you feels good. None of these constitute remotely objective arguments.
There are many great quotes from minds greater than mine I have collected over time. May be some are of interest to those seeking insight on this subject.
“I do not believe in a God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.”
Albert Einstein
“And I will dash them one against each other, the fathers and the sons, says the Lord. I will not pity or spare or have compassion, that I should not destroy them.”
The Bible, Jeremiah 13:14
“Certain teachings in the Bible are as diamonds in a dung-heap”.
Thomas Jefferson
“A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the lord in vain-- then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?”
Robert Heinlein
“I do not feel obliged to believe the the same God who endowed us with Sense, Reason, and Intellect had also intended us to forego their use.”
Galileo Galilei
And in reference to an earlier reference to the Church and homosexuality I submit:
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
King James Bible, Leviticus 20:13
And, so as not to end on too heavy a note:
And Jesus said unto them, “And whom do you say that I am?”
They replied, “You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed.”
And Jesus replied, “What?”
I hope this has been useful to someone. And to John W. Kennedy: thanks for your contribution, both to this my note and to this string.
Well, the Glaroon and his assistents were sentient…