Reply #144: Hail the straw man!

[stopbush]

When you say "those folks can't seem to get around the notion that some believe in something greater than themselves," you're simply trotting out a straw man that is easily knocked down.

Just because people don't believe in a conscious, omnipotent being in the Judeo-Xtian tradition hardly means that they don't believe in something "greater than themselves." The simple laws of physics and natural selection are things that are "greater" than most of us.

And, on a human scale, the future holds a human who will - through natural growth processes - be so far "greater" than those of us currently inhabiting the Earth that we will seem as Neanderthals to him/her.

Not worshiping a god figure does not necessarily equate to self-idolization.