If humanity never figures out how to leave Earth and colonize other planets extinction will most definitely come when our Sun enters the red super giant phase and subsequently engulfs the Earth.
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Thatās pretty much like āThe Three Body Problemā but with us being the colonizers rather than the colonized. But in any case SOMEBODY is getting extinction as a result.
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Thatās precisely the opposite thoughā¦
Religion aligning with politics.
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In this case as in many others, I see it as religion providing cover for politics.
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True, but my point was that Vladimir doesnāt go to war because of his religious beliefs. Or, to put it in another way, religion didnāt cause the war in the Ukraine.
(And for the record, Iām not saying wars arenāt caused by religion. Just saying that that donāt have to be.)
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I agree that you can leave religion out of the motivation for invading and still explain Putinās perceived need to do it. But one cannot distance Putin from his religion. His religious beliefs have played a predominate role in his desire to rewrite Russian history. He also sees the west as morally decadent and open to evils such as, gods forbid!, homosexuality.
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Russian history has not been kind to religious beliefs.
I mean, ok, believe that Putin is religiously motivated if you want. I donāt.
Point I tried to make with that comment was that I doubt religion will be the end of humanity as there are much more powerful reasons to go to war, like for instance, greed.
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I get what you are writing. There are people who simplify conflict by saying things like all wars are rooted in religion. That sort of generalization is obviously wrong. Ukraine has very little to do with religion. (Although the Russian Orthodox church has helped undermine Ukraineās resistance to Putinās aggression. And Putin has certainly effectively used it as a tool.) Putinās historical revision goes far past Stalin and the USSRs pogroms against Christians and Jews. His vista goes back a thousand years when the Russian people and the Orthodox church ruled half of Europe and Asia from their capital in Kiev. He feels that the west belittles that greatness by claiming to have āwonā the cold war. The Russian people may not see his cause through a religious lens but he does.
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Given how minuscule we are in the universe, I donāt think weāve affected the universe at all. The planet, howeverā¦.
I mean, life exists via many interdependent moving parts. The universe exists solely by physics. So while we can affect the machine that is the planet around us, the universe will still carry on regardless of its planets having life or not.
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Thereās an old philosophical musing that God created man in his image so He could look at Himselfā¦ I feel that idea is just as poignant in a naturally occurring universeā¦
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I have often thought that maybe we (humans) are merely the physical manifestation of a universe that is trying to make sense of itself.
Now that I think about it, not really a lot different to what you wrote.
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someone mentions simhq in the other thread and all of a sudden we have here politicaly-religious discussion running 
where are the MS good-old days ā¦
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Philosophy, science, religion, and politics all seem to be connected via philosophy itself 
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Yeah, religion as a means of crowd control is still very useful. But I still think that delusions of grandeur is a better way to explain Putin, than religion.
Itās like someone saying WWII was started because of religion. The Nazis wanted to take down the Jewsā¦ Well, that may have been a side effect and a means to an end, but it still had nothing to to do with why Adolf wanted to expand the Reich.
Indeed, or at least its life sustaining capabilities.
Without anybody falling out over it. 
I think that itās because it is all just philosophy, when you get down to it.
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If you study the history of warfare from the ancient world until now you will notice that the vast majority of wars are driven by economics and not religion.
Thus
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My core belief on absolutely EVERYTHING is that this is all just random.
Life, death. Its just a random accident of physics. No afterlife, no secret entity guiding events. You live, you die into nothingness. No blackness at the end, nothing. It ends.
I find that extremely comforting. My wife hates this. But i find it lovely. Nothing matters, nothing is important, nothing changes. You arrive, you leave.
Why waste the precious time you as a random chemical reaction have by worrying about what comes afterwards, pleasing some random figure drawn up to make you feel better and extract money and servitude out of you.
Life, is just bloody random. Its sometimes awesome, sometimes terrible but totally and utterly random and you, as an individual with free thought and the human condition to attach meaning to everything are totally and utterly inconsequential to all and everyone but the few people around you for that tiny brief period that you exist.
Its just not important. Beginning, end, nothing.
I love it
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I remember my sophomore year philosophy prof who while teaching the concept of existentialism, tried to convince me that he was both religious and an existentialist. I couldnāt wrap my head around how that could be. You canāt have your cake and eat it too. His argument escapes me 47 years on, but remember also having the same discussion a few decades later with a priest. Hedging oneās bet me thinks.
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The thing with wars is that while they arenāt actually caused by religion, religion is often used as an excuse to drum up support. E.g. the Crusades. Clearly motivated by economics, but wearing the mask of religion. I think thatās where this misconception comes from.
Assuming āreligiousā meaning Christian, extistentialism does track with the Christian idea of āfree will.ā But then that concept even within Christianity is a whole 'nother can of worms. After spending a lot of time in Church and reading the Bible, I ended up going down the same route as Victork2.
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