another rapture-ist nut: Ray Kurzweil

[donsu]

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/02/24/that_singularity_sensation/


That Singularity sensation

Inventor/entrepreneur Ray Kurzweil has become the high-tech version of the cartoon character carrying the sign: "The End Is Near." With dogged consistency, the founder of eight different technology companies has been proselytizing an end-of-humantime event called the Singularity, a Buck Rogers vision of the hypothetical Christian Rapture.

In his forthcoming book, "The Singularity Is Near," Kurzweil calls the Singularity "the inevitable next step in the evolutionary process." Already, human activity is enhanced by technological substitutes, e.g., roboticprostheses, artificial skin, blood plasma, etc. The Singularity, which Kurzweil says will occur at mid-century, is the moment when biological material ceases to exist, and we become products of the revolution in "GNR": genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics.

-snip-

But I am more interested in the religious implications of the Singularity. How is this techno-Apocalypse so different from Judeo-Christian end-of-time scenarios, or from the Rapture, the now-popularized notion that Jesus Christ will soon swoop down from the heavens and embrace (Christian) mankind with salvation?

-snip-

Kurzweil waxes astringent on religion, which he says exists primarily "to rationalize death, since up until just now there was little else constructive we could do about it." "But I'm not promoting a religion based on faith," he explains, "except the belief that the Universe actually exists and that there is something going on other than thoughts in my own mind. My thinking has not gotten a lot of resistance from Christian thinkers, because they see the Singularity as a scientific reflection of what they've always believed.
-snip-
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its like he is living a science fiction novel and doesn't know it.

[libnnc]

1. oh brother...

and I used to sell his digital pianos for a living

:eyes:

[Ian David]

2. Are we talking about Scientific Pantheism or just Wesley Crusher on ST:TNG

[alfredo]

3. You need to read his other works to get some context

to this position. He's a big man in the AI field.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=2

Do a virtual chat with Ramona.

[Coastie for Truth]

4. Kurzweil's family is from the same rural village as my maternal grand mom

Kurzweil's family is from the same rural village in Europe as my maternal grand mom.

And the Kurzweil's were supposed to have "The Eye" - to "heal" and to "ward off Evil Spirits" and the "Angel of Death."

The region was in the part of Hungary and Romania that went back and forth between the two lands.

[independentchristian]

5. Keyword: "another". Is it hypocritical...

...to bash the religious 24/7, but as soon as anyone makes a comment that is "viewed" as "bashing homosexuals", the board goes crazy?

Of course you'll say no, because you don't have a mirror in front of your face.

[Bluebear]

8. So what does the 'independent Christian' do? Bring up gays.

Of course you are inferring that the religious are being bashed in equal severity as gays in America, yes?

[independentchristian]

9. No, I'm talking about on this "board"

I think I mentioned "board", duh. I don't support "bashing" anyone anywhere.

Now, I personally don't care at all what you think about "me," but I argue issues in terms of "logic," and if someone is inconsistent or being a hypocrite, I'm going to point it out.

With that said, there are plenty of "Christians" and people of faith who post on this board, but there definitely appears to be a lot more atheists and agnostics, and those "non-believers" never miss the chance to start a thread to, as you all say, "bash" people of faith, using ignorant "brands" like "fundies" and "rapturist-nuts", but then as soon as someone says anything with a "religious" slant to it they are instantaneously deemed "suspicious" and "attacked", and God forbid they post in a thread that focuses on "gay rights," they are instantaneously viewed as "bashing."

I'm calling those religion "bashers" shortsighed hypocrites, because they are.

Now, of course I'll probably get this post deleted or banned or whatever because he said something that sounds "anti-gay," ooooh, how dare he. Doesn't he know that on this board you can only say something "anti-religious." Now, that's okay to do.

Religions isn't going anywhere, get over it. There are people of all types of beliefs, sexualities, whatever living in this freaking country, and it's not going to change, and if you can't stand religious "people" then you are no better than people who can't stand "homosexuals."

That's my point.

[Bluebear]

10. Truly self-absorbed.

People who "are" truly oppressed "aren't" going anywhere either, so you get "over" it. To "compare" Christians in "America" with them is at the "least" self-absorbed.

[independentchristian]

11. Get over your stereotypes, duh

I'm talking about a two-faced approach.

You hating on Christians and Christians hating on you is not going to get us anywhere.

I'd much rather focus on "Universal Truths."

[Bluebear]

12. Anymore "duh's" you'd care to throw around?

And the oppressed aren't stereotypes, they are real people. I don't see how Christians are oppressed in America.

[FM Arouet666]

6. Pseudo-scientific nonsense.........

What is pathetic is not that Kurzweil writes this stuff, but that others will believe his garbage.

[regnaD kciN]

7. There was another one...

Frank J. Tipler, who wrote The Physics of Immortality, which postulated that we would eventually be able to spread out throughout the universe and develop enough computer power to allow, in the instant before the "big bang" collapses back onto itself again, an essentially infinite virtual reality into which each of us would have our identities transferred, and where we would lead lives of perfect bliss.

In the words of Noah, "Riiiiight..."

(I often described Tipler's theory as "there is a God and a heaven...we just haven't programmed them yet.")

:crazy:

[jmowreader]

13. I think Kurzweil's about half right on this

I like the "GNR" thing--genetics, nanotechnology and robotics.

Just letting my mind wander...oh...Tay-Sachs disease. This affects Jews and it's inherited. By using GNR, would it be possible, sometime in the future, to not only determine who is a carrier, but by using GNR and in-vitro fertilization kind of "patch out" the Tay-Sachs genes? Literally take an egg, take some sperm, fix the genetic sequence via GNR so the resulting child won't have Tay-Sachs, fertilize and implant?

I don't like the notion that biological material will cease to exist. It seems to go against the genetics part of GNR--why use genetic material in a mechanical device?

And I definitely like Donsu's comment about how Kurzweil seems to be living a science fiction novel. That's pretty accurate.