Religion III: Skeptical Evangelism, Psychedelic Shamanism, and other Religions of Us Hairless Apes

[Sci-2]

Yeah I don't really see that much of a difference between that guy's theism and someone like William Lane Craig's theism other than a little word salad and mental masturbation. We still have: cosmological argument ∴ god // the bible ∴ the god of the bible. I don't see any justification for how condescending he's being towards the other theists.

I think he's being more honest about what ID can and can't give you.

As for whether he's jumping from cosmological argument to God o' Bible, that I'm not sure of. I suspect any evidence for the shift is probably rather weak though.

[Galactus]

Yeah I don't really see that much of a difference between that guy's theism and someone like William Lane Craig's theism other than a little word salad and mental masturbation. We still have: cosmological argument ∴ god // the bible ∴ the god of the bible. I don't see any justification for how condescending he's being towards the other theists.

His argument is basically that you can't get to God (or at least not his conception of God) from looking at the fact that "any particular thing" exists, IE: Miracles. However, you *can* (according to Feser) get to God (or at least something vaguely god-like, he inevitably pesters you to buy his book if you ask for the details of how to get from "The One/Absolute" to the Christian God :p) from the fact that there are things that exist.

[Gears of the Beast]

His argument is basically that you can't get to God (or at least not his conception of God) from looking at the fact that "any particular thing" exists, IE: Miracles. However, you *can* (according to Feser) get to God (or at least something vaguely god-like, he inevitably pesters you to buy his book if you ask for the details of how to get from "The One/Absolute" to the Christian God :P) from the fact that there are things that exist.

Yeah probably something along the lines of the argument from contingency (which is still the cosmological argument). He just seems like an arrogant prick to me, I think I prefer William Lane Craig - you won't hear me saying that very often.

[Sci-2]

I thought I posted this before, but search came up empty -> A 90s retrospective about technopaganism. Not sure how much of this is still around:

Technopagans: May the astral plane be reborn in cyberspace

Besides whatever technical inspiration they can draw from magical lore, technopagans are driven by an even more basic desire: to honor technology as part of the circle of human life, a life that for Pagans is already divine. Pagans refuse to draw sharp boundaries between the sacred and the profane, and their religion is a frank celebration of the total flux of experience: sex, death, comic books, compilers. Even the goofier rites of technopaganism (and there are plenty) represent a passionate attempt to influence the course of our digital future - and human evolution. "Computers are simply mirrors," Pesce says. "There's nothing in them that we didn't put there. If computers are viewed as evil and dehumanizing, then we made them that way. I think computers can be as sacred as we are, because they can embody our communication with each other and with the entities - the divine parts of ourselves - that we invoke in that space."

If you hang around the San Francisco Bay area or the Internet fringe for long, you'll hear loads of loopy talk about computers and consciousness. Because the issues of interface design, network psychology, and virtual reality are so open-ended and novel, the people who hack this conceptual edge often sound as much like science fiction acidheads as they do sober programmers. In this vague realm of gurus and visionaries, technopagan ideas about "myth" and "magic" often signify dangerously murky waters.

[Jo498]

If you call involved metaphysical arguments that have been discussed and analysed for thousands of years "a little word salad and mental masturbation" you should not be surprised that you keep missing the point.

It is really a huge difference. One conception (the one of ID) is something like Plato's demiurgus, basically a superhuman engineer. The other one is more like Plato's Idea of the Good, ore maybe what has been called the Ultimate Reality.

Modern Scientism claims more or less that the Universe (or a Multiverse or the fundamental particles, strings or branes or whatever constituents) is the Ultimate Reality. Traditional Theism thinks that this misses the ultimate explanation which can only be the Ultimate Reality with the respective features. A universe as Ultimate Reality could not exist or would fall apart immediately according to classical Theism, it would not merely lack some fine-tuning.

(To my understanding Hindu philosophy also tries to argue for such an Ultimate Reality, but these conceptions are, for western theists apparently sufficiently different, not to accept their idea of Ultimate Reality (brahman or atman or whatever the names are, it has been too long that I read about this stuff.)

I completely agree that this is something rather foreign to our modern thinking. But it is not a serious refutation if one simply refuses to try to understand the gist of these arguments, because of this strangeness.

(One should also recall that "cosmology" as a branch of science only came back in the 1920ties with Friedman and Lemaitre (a priest!) building on General Relativity. For most of the 18th and 19th centuries this was excluded from serious scientific consideration (among other things because it is very hard to get a stable universe with Newtonian gravity: a minor imbalance in the distribution of matter will lead to a collapse of all bits of matter sticking together "in the middle", because nothing counterbalances gravitational attraction like the lambda-constant or expansion in General relativity.))

The arguments that the God of the cosmological arguments is the God of the Bible (or of Islam or whatever) are something in addition. What Feser mainly complains about all the time is that hardly anyone ever looks into the metaphysical arguments with intellectual rigor (apart from some theists who are preaching to the choir), but discounts them on the basis of caricatures without really going to the main source texts.

Even Mackie whose book on (a)theism Feser recommends miscontrues and therefore misses the point of one of Aquinas' arguments. Feser's tone can be scathing (and his ideas of ethics and economics are rather despicable), but I think he deserves credit for hammering at these points that are unfortunately overlooked even by most professional philosophers nowadays (unless they specialize in medieval philosophy or went to a catholic college). Overlooked in the sense of seriously misunderstood and therefore taken to be of (at most) historical interest.

[Jo498]

Cartwright and Nagel argue that teleology of an Aristotlean sort is necessary but neither has been converted from atheism. (In Cartwright's case her atheism is why she thinks this sort of metaphysics is necessary.)

Thanks for the link to Cartwrights newer paper! (I was first puzzled whether she had become a theist!) I have been in favor of most of her (and as well Nagel's, although he is much more "rationalist" than Nancy - so am I) thinking on several issues since I encountered their books more than 10 years ago. I used to read her Aristotelianism as considerably "weaker" than the the Neo-Thomist version a la Feser and it certainly is, but maybe closer than I thought.

Therefore I am moderately anti-reductionist (I still think physics is somehwhat special, but this is the way I was educated...) and aristotelian in phil of nature, more or less aristotelian dualist in the phil of mind, but not at all certain that aristotelian phil of nature does need a prime unmoved mover (or even a God of Classical theism).

But I do find the way of thinking interesting and it is a disgrace that smart and serious philosophers like Russell were so cavalier in the history of ideas (whereas his Principia-Coworker Whitehead came of with a weird revisionary theist process philosophy which was embraced by some theologicians, but is of course anathema to Thomists, because God changes).

[Gears of the Beast]

If you call involved metaphysical arguments that have been discussed and analysed for thousands of years "a little word salad and mental masturbation" you should not be surprised that you keep missing the point.

It is really a huge difference. One conception (the one of ID) is something like Plato's demiurgus, basically a superhuman engineer. The other one is more like Plato's Idea of the Good, ore maybe what has been called the Ultimate Reality.

Right... but this guy is apparently a Roman Catholic so we're clearly not talking about some esoteric deistic god. This is the zombie Jesus god right? I just don't see the distinction as being very substantive thus far - some Christians define god as love, I don't really care. My point is that him and William Lane Craig are both using the cosmological argument to prove god and then they both go on to prove that it's the biblical notion of god through an appeal to the bible. To be fair I don't know in the case of this Feser person how he's saying it's the Christian god but I would be shocked if it weren't the bible. So what I'm saying is they're both basically doing the same thing, and I reject their fallacious reasoning. I think he's a hypocrite for being such a condescending douche towards IDers and "personalists", when his arguments are not anymore sound. Unless he's using some new cosmological argument or has responded to a refutation of it - showing how it has been misconstrued.

Modern Scientism claims more or less that the Universe (or a Multiverse or the fundamental particles, strings or branes or whatever constituents) is the Ultimate Reality. Traditional Theism thinks that this misses the ultimate explanation which can only be the Ultimate Reality with the respective features. A universe as Ultimate Reality could not exist or would fall apart immediately according to classical Theism, it would not merely lack some fine-tuning.

What? What's your definition of ultimate reality...?

[Weeping Sore]

I thought I posted this before, but search came up empty -> A 90s retrospective about technopaganism. Not sure how much of this is still around:

Technopagans: May the astral plane be reborn in cyberspace

Wasn't this an episode of Buffy?

[Sci-2]

Thanks for the link to Cartwrights newer paper! (I was first puzzled whether she had become a theist!) I have been in favor of most of her (and as well Nagel's, although he is much more "rationalist" than Nancy - so am I) thinking on several issues since I encountered their books more than 10 years ago. I used to read her Aristotelianism as considerably "weaker" than the the Neo-Thomist version a la Feser and it certainly is, but maybe closer than I thought.

Therefore I am moderately anti-reductionist (I still think physics is somehwhat special, but this is the way I was educated...) and aristotelian in phil of nature, more or less aristotelian dualist in the phil of mind, but not at all certain that aristotelian phil of nature does need a prime unmoved mover (or even a God of Classical theism).

But I do find the way of thinking interesting and it is a disgrace that smart and serious philosophers like Russell were so cavalier in the history of ideas (whereas his Principia-Coworker Whitehead came of with a weird revisionary theist process philosophy which was embraced by some theologicians, but is of course anathema to Thomists, because God changes).

You're welcome on the paper - I'm glad someone else around here is interested in and somewhat sympathetic to Christian Apologetics. I'm honestly just getting into this stuff, so I'm actually not overly familiar with either Cartwright or Feser's Aristotelianisms. (I've got the same opinion as you do on Feser's politics, but I disagree with most theist philosophers on politics and final conclusions. Feser manages to elucidate topics with a great clarity, more so than Braude whose philosophy of parapsychology I enjoy but have to go over a few times to get his point.)

Any direction on the good papers/books concerned Aristotlelian-based metaphysics would be much appreciated. I'm planning on getting Feser's Aquinas (Last Superstition is unpalatable to me) and am half-way through Flew's There is a God wherein he discusses his conversion from atheism to theism.

As for metaphysics/ontologies, as noted above I try to avoid commitment but I am warming up to Aristotlelian views of nature - I feel like it could fit in well with what I know about the Neutral Monism of physicist David Bohm -> here's a sample of interesting quotes:

The notion of a separate organism is clearly an abstraction, as is also its boundary. Underlying all this is unbroken wholeness even though our civilization has developed in such a way as to strongly emphasize the separation into parts.

–with Basil J. Hile, The Undivided Universe.

Consciousness is much more of the implicate order than is matter . . . Yet at a deeper level [matter and consciousness] are actually inseparable and interwoven , just as in the computer game the player and the screen are united by participation.

-Statement of 1987, as quoted in Towards a Theory of Transpersonal Decision-Making in Human-Systems (2007) by Joseph Riggio, p. 66

Wasn't this an episode of Buffy?

Haven't gotten far in my Buffy watching sadly. Maybe? :dunno:

[Seli]

It's unrealistic to expect most scientists to recognize their own adherence to materialism as a potential flaw in scientific logic. It seems that most scientists willing to expound on how phenomena could be explained via dualism or idealism have had some exposure to these ideas from outside the field. Which makes them (potential idealists/dualists) open to criticism that they are trying to make science dance to the tune of their spirituality. Also worth mentioning is the materialist's view of any non-materialist "answer" to a quantum conundrum as being "too easy", like answering a murder mystery with "God did it". What the materialist misses here is that consciousness, even if non-material, does not have to be ascientific. Instead it opens a vast new territory of scientific inquiry, for which new tools might be necessary.

ETA: And by "new tools" I don't mean every bit of woolly spiritual speculation gets to be called science now.

The nice thing about the current scientific approach is that consciousness easily falls into the current territory of science. In its most likely explanation as an emergent phenomenon of the chemical and physical networks in our bodies, but even as a dualistic thing interacting with our physical bodies.

For me the issue with a consciousness central interpretation of the universe is that is seems to fall into a historically common hubristic trap. It suggests that humans are somehow special, in a same way that once life was deemed special, or the earth's place in the universe. In the same way actually that many religions focus on a special relation between god(s) and (a subset of) humanity.

[Gears of the Beast]

The nice thing about the current scientific approach is that consciousness easily falls into the current territory of science. In its most likely explanation as an emergent phenomenon of the chemical and physical networks in our bodies, but even as a dualistic thing interacting with our physical bodies.

For me the issue with a consciousness central interpretation of the universe is that is seems to fall into a historically common hubristic trap. It suggests that humans are somehow special, in a same way that once life was deemed special, or the earth's place in the universe. In the same way actually that many religions focus on a special relation between god(s) and (a subset of) humanity.

:agree: :agree: :agree:

[Sci-2]

Heh, I feel like this is becoming a reiteration of the consciousness thread. I think points 3-7 of this post cover some of that.

I also liked the last lecture of Nobel winning biologist George Wald:

Life and Mind in the Universe

I learned my business on the eyes of frogs. The retina of a frog is very much like a human retina. Both contain two kinds of light receptors, rods for vision in dim light and cones for bright light; the visual pigments are closely similar in chemistry and behavior; both have the same three fundamental nerve layers, and the nervous connections to the brain are much alike. But I know that I see. Does a frog see? It reacts to light -- so does a photocell‑activated garage door. But does it know it is responding, is it aware of visual images?

There is nothing whatever that I can do as a scientist to answer that question. That is the problem of consciousness: it is altogether impervious to scientific approach. As I worked on visual systems -- it would have been the same for any other sensory mode, let alone more subtle or complex manifestations of mental activity -- this realization lay always in the background. Now for me it is in the foreground. I think that it involves a permanent condition: that it never will become possible to identify physically the presence or absence of consciousness, much less its content...

...A few years ago it occurred to me -- albeit with some shock to my scientific sensibilities -- that my two problems, that of a life‑breeding universe, and that of consciousness that can neither be identified nor located, might be brought together. That would be with the thought that mind, rather than being a late development in the evolution of organisms, had existed always: that this is a life‑breeding universe because the constant presence of mind made it so.

Bringing it back to religion while addressing Weeping Sore's concern, quantum physics apparently made John Hopkins Astronomer Richard Conn Henry believe in a deity (whether he's right to do so is beyond my comprehension of physics, I just think it's interesting stuff):

A commentary on an article entitled 'Quantum Physics Gets Spooky'

I have created an illustration of the famous John Wheeler delayed choice experiment: (http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/unreal.html). What this experiment shows, is that Schrödinger's cat's history is determined by your observation: "If you find a dead cat, an examination by a veterinary forensic pathologist would determine the cat to have died eight hours ago. Your observation not only creates a current reality, it also creates the history appropriate to that reality" (Rosenblum and Kuttner, "Quantum Enigma," Oxford, 2006). This is where evolution comes from! The most recent experimental verification of the delayed-choice result, is by V. Jacques et al., Science, 315, 966, 2007.

Quantum mechanics is not spooky, and is not even slightly mysterious. No more than spherical trigonometry! Newton's
F = ma follows very simply from Schrödinger's equation, which, in turn, can be derived assuming simple symmetries (Henry, R. C., 1990, Am. J. of Phys., 58, 1087; Shapiro, M., 2008, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 41: 175303).

What is spooky, of course, inconceivably spooky, is our own existence (that is, our minds' existence) and the fact that we make observations. Physics does not even address these questions. The universe being purely mental begs the question of other minds—I resolve it, now, by belief in God—I dropped my atheism in 2004; not easily, but decisively.

It is also spooky that Galileo was able to educate the world to understand that the Earth goes around the Sun (and what could be spookier than that?), yet physicists today have utterly failed to inform the public to understanding the purely mental nature of the universe, with all that that implies for the meaning of human existence. That is a tragedy, and it should be rectified. I wish I knew how.

Even if Idealism is true, I don't think the Dreamer of Reality would necessarily be a being you want to worship...though if people choose to draw a connection to the Prime Mover, Preserver of Reality intelligence and their own faith I'm fine with that so long as they recognize this doesn't give the rest of us any cause to believe in any of their scriptures.

[Sci-2]

What is the Druid Revival?

©2003 by John Michael Greer. All rights reserved.

Most spiritual traditions began, or claim they began, with a revelation of absolute truth that gave them all the answers. Druidry is a different kind of spirituality, and its history traces out a different story. It doesn't claim to have all the answers - in fact, it's much more interested in asking the right questions - and it didn't start with a revelation. It started with a quest.

That quest began in Britain some three hundred fifty years ago. For thousands of years people all through northwestern Europe have inhabited a land shaped by ancient hands. Tall stones loomed out of the grass, alone or in patterns. Long barrows and round barrows marked the skyline or rose in the middle of pastures and fields. Odd customs lingered around some of these, preserved by habit or a vague sense that ill-luck would follow if they were neglected. Living close to these things for countless generations, country folk in the seventeenth century barely saw them at all.

Thus when the gentleman scholar John Aubrey rode up to the little Wiltshire village of Avebury on a cold January day at the beginning of 1649, he had no idea that he was about to enter the greatest surviving temple of prehistoric Europe...

[Weeping Sore]

The nice thing about the current scientific approach is that consciousness easily falls into the current territory of science. In its most likely explanation as an emergent phenomenon of the chemical and physical networks in our bodies, but even as a dualistic thing interacting with our physical bodies.

For me the issue with a consciousness central interpretation of the universe is that is seems to fall into a historically common hubristic trap. It suggests that humans are somehow special, in a same way that once life was deemed special, or the earth's place in the universe. In the same way actually that many religions focus on a special relation between god(s) and (a subset of) humanity.

I'll side-step the issue of whether consciousness easily falls into the current territory of science as an emergent phenomenon.

The second issue you raise, however, arises directly from the first. If your idea of consciousness is anthropocentric, then the primacy of consciousness would mean that human minds create the universe, which is pretty absurd considering we are ourselves "an emergent phenomenon" of the universe (not to mention we have billions of individual consciousnesses that conflict with one another). The only way that a world-view where consciousness is primary makes sense (internally, not asking you to believe me here) is if the universe itself is conscious.

Does the idea of a "conscious universe" sound too much like an omniscient, omnipresent God to fit into your world-view? Fine. It still wouldn't mean that consciousness has no laws or patterns to uncover, just that it is the pebble and matter is the ripple, not vice-versa.

[Sci-2]

Keeping to the thread topic of religion while still discussing consciousness, I've noted a few times the interesting paper Giving Dualism Its Due (Point 3), wherein the materialist Lycan admits the choice between dualism and materialism is a matter of faith. One of the weaker (IMO anyway) points he made was about dualists getting around the Mind-Body Interaction Problem. Why I think Feser did a better job by not appealing to any kind of ectoplasm, and instead presenting a good defense of Cartesian Dualism despite having a different conception of souls & bodies.

However, in this interview Chalmers says he too is now wondering about the ability of consciousness to have a causal effect on the physical world:

In terms of changes of mind the book was fairly sympathetic to epiphenomenalism, the idea that consciousness doesn’t play a casual role, though I wasn’t committed to it. Since then I have been very interested in exploring some alternatives to epiphenomalism, including panpsychism, the view that consciousness is found right down at the fundamental level of physics and playing a role there and in associated views such as Russellian monism, where there’s some kind of proto-consciousness right down at the fundamental level. I have also been exploring interactionism – which I was quite opposed to in the book – which is the idea that consciousness might be non-physical but still play a causal role in physics, and I have become interested in the idea that consciousness might play a role in quantum mechanics and in collapsing wave functions, which in fact is what I’m going to talk about in the talk tomorrow.

=-=-=

Also, this is worth a watch:

Tuning In - Spirit Channelers In America (Full Length)

Tuning In is a truly unique spiritual documentary, the result of 10 years of inquiry into the phenomenon of spirit channeling by Los Angeles filmmaker, David Thomas. Channeling is a practice dating back to antiquity wherein an individual, usually in a trance state, makes a psychic connection with a spirit being. The channeler is then able to act as a dimensional go-between in bringing other humans in contact with the entity, as well as interpreting messages from the entity.

For the very first time, six of North America's most prominent channelers are featured in the same film. Viewers gain a rare glimpse and insight into the phenomenon, as well as the information being received by these channelers. The entities coming through each have a strong and distinct personality and were interviewed at length by the filmmaker. The result is truly remarkable. The messages cross through space and time, and it appears the entities are speaking as one, delivering a clear and profound message of empowerment for humankind.

What I find amusing is those who attack channelers on religious grounds, saying God has warned us about deceptive spirits. Let's say channeling is real - why would you think the extant religions weren't based on numerous spirits pretending to be Yaweh/Allah/etc?

Look at all the varied minutiae in religious texts, the personality shifts of God, and the contradictory messages. Do you really think God hates shrimp? Assuming religion isn't completely explained by mundane historical context, wouldn't it make more sense some spirit was playing a prank or expressing its own personal tastes when it offered supposed revelations?

[Weeping Sore]

What I find amusing is those who attack channelers on religious grounds, saying God has warned us about deceptive spirits. Let's say channeling is real - why would you think the extant religions weren't based on numerous spirits pretending to be Yaweh/Allah/etc?

This is precisely the kind of speculation that got Salman Rushdie his fatwā. Muhammad, communing with the archangel Gibreel (the Islamic Holy Spirit) becomes unsure whether it was an imposter, Shaitan (Satan), or even himself.

[Sci-2]

This is precisely the kind of speculation that got Salman Rushdie his fatwā. Muhammad, communing with the archangel Gibreel (the Islamic Holy Spirit) becomes unsure whether it was an imposter, Shaitan (Satan), or even himself.

Heh, you know me. I try to be a heretic/blasphemer to every faith, including skeptical evangelism, at least once a day.

And once you start wondering about the cornucopia of intelligences in the invisible world, even if one doesn't have strong belief it is fun to speculate:

Paranthopology Vol. 3 No. 2 (April 2012) has an article co-authored by John Mack* on pages 37-43:

This article includes a historical overview of the fracture between religion and science that leads us into a conversation between John E. Mack and Charles T. Tart. Their exchange of ideas leads us to brief reflections on my meeting with Mack. This provides a preface to Mack's lecture on the eco-crisis, and how this relates to his investigations into shamanism and its similarities with persons who have experienced encounters with extra-terrestrial consciousness. Encounters that Mack believes are our Passport to the Cosmos (1999) and a means of transformation in this era of humankind's greatest challenges.

*This guy.

[Snow Dottir]

For me the issue with a consciousness central interpretation of the universe is that is seems to fall into a historically common hubristic trap. It suggests that humans are somehow special, in a same way that once life was deemed special, or the earth's place in the universe. In the same way actually that many religions focus on a special relation between god(s) and (a subset of) humanity.

Do you guys think maybe life and humanity in general is, as you put it, not deemed special anymore because of science and technology?? We talk of spooky things, nothing scares me more than the thought of the coming "Orwelian" nightmare.

We're already monitored not unlike chattel...made to feel more or less disposable, and medicated to the point of madness.

Just because we think we know what energy really is doesn't really make it less mysterious, Knowing even what a virus is, doesn't make it less scary. In fact sometimes the opposite (Ebola ?)

Consciousness could be very, very special...and I don't think it's Hubris to feel like the top of the food chain. We know our mortality and it's a bitter pill no matter how stoic we act about it.

I imagine the reason certain religions pertain to a subset of humanity is a regional one. The ancient locals named God(s), it's very interesting to do a comparative study on those origins as many are the same (i.e. The flood...almost all cultures have their own version)

I do, however, believe (strong word) that ancient humanity had a better understanding and appreciation of natural forces and how to utilize them through living in closer harmony w/ nature. Wonder has been killed almost entirely.

To me technology, as cool as it is...is spooky and taking over the planet... we can only guess as to whether thats really, truly a good thing.

We have changed more in 100 years than in over 1900. Too fast I think. To me THAT is hubris.

[Snow Dottir]

Heh, you know me. I try to be a heretic/blasphemer to every faith, including skeptical evangelism, at least once a day.

And once you start wondering about the cornucopia of intelligences in the invisible world, even if one doesn't have strong belief it is fun to speculate:

Blasphemy is good for the soul.

Afterall, one mans heresy is another mans religion.

ETA: sorry about double posting, I'm like a caveperson

[Seli]

I'll side-step the issue of whether consciousness easily falls into the current territory of science as an emergent phenomenon.

The second issue you raise, however, arises directly from the first. If your idea of consciousness is anthropocentric, then the primacy of consciousness would mean that human minds create the universe, which is pretty absurd considering we are ourselves "an emergent phenomenon" of the universe (not to mention we have billions of individual consciousnesses that conflict with one another). The only way that a world-view where consciousness is primary makes sense (internally, not asking you to believe me here) is if the universe itself is conscious.

Does the idea of a "conscious universe" sound too much like an omniscient, omnipresent God to fit into your world-view? Fine. It still wouldn't mean that consciousness has no laws or patterns to uncover, just that it is the pebble and matter is the ripple, not vice-versa.

Which seems to be the same reasoning as 'the universe is god'. Which to me seems as useless, and in the end meaningless. Because we end up again in describing and understanding the universe, for which science remains the best tool we have.

...

I do, however, believe (strong word) that ancient humanity had a better understanding and appreciation of natural forces and how to utilize them through living in closer harmony w/ nature. Wonder has been killed almost entirely.

...

Looking at all the deserts our ancestors created, all the animals we drove to extinction that seems a too rosy and idealized picture of them.

Looking at all animals, plants, members of the other kingdoms, in existence today shows even they don't live in close harmony with nature. Suggesting the whole idea is too rosy and too idealized.

Do you guys think maybe life and humanity in general is, as you put it, not deemed special anymore because of science and technology?? We talk of spooky things, nothing scares me more than the thought of the coming "Orwelian" nightmare.

...

No, science has shown that our place in the universe is nothing special. At some level we are as unique and advanced as any other species on this planet.

That in no way needs to lead to some nihilistic philosophy though. Since we are still unique to each other.