Ultimate Religious Debate; Sam Harris And Andrew Sullivan

[SplaTtzZ]

If you're going to argue that religion is a bad thing and should be dismantled, you might as well argue that human cultures are bad and therefore shouldn't exist either. Religion is basically just another form of human culture, it has its norms values and rituals just like any other. People who have a religious culture will act differently, feel differently and think differently to others without one. If we dismantle all human culture and live together as one big happy family, well then we'll have a utopia where nothing happens.

 

As domarius said, conflict is what provides interest to our world, even to romance novels. I for one couldn't live without conflict, and I've always thought the Old Testament idea of heaven to be boring; I reckon Valhalla would be more fun. So if culture and religion bring more conflict in the world, i could argue that they're making it a more interesting place.

 

I've always seen scientific method as a form of rational thinking, but also in itself a human culture that has its flaws. Imagine, for a moment, that Oddity's argument in a prior thread could be proven and that black people were inferior mentally to white people; from a rational standpoint there is no reason for them to exist anymore; they should be wiped out and replaced by beings with higher mental prowess that are more innovative and creative, and therefore better geared towards improving the state of living humans. Science has the ability to create even more human suffering than religion, i would argue that one is just as 'bad' as the other.

 

Added to this is the fact that humans have a tendency to be irrational at times, and that many people do not understand the 'scientific method'. What use is astrophysics to a plumber? Does he need to have a rational, methodical way of thinking to do his job? Humans need to have an organised society with figureheads to lead us, so instead of a high priest we'll have a professor. Instead of the pope telling us gravity is the hand of god, we'll have a professor telling us its physics. What, to the common person who might understand neither, is the difference?

 

Science and its methods have a lot in common with religion; they're both human cultures that are vulnerable to human flaws and irrationality, and human ignorance. I think you're wrong if you think science is going to solve the world's problems; we'll just have more creative and spectacular ways to kill each other, perhaps even the entire planet! 2000 years ago religion was the way forward, today science is. I wonder what it will be in a few thousand years time, povided we even last that long?

[Crispy]

If you're going to argue that religion is a bad thing and should be dismantled, you might as well argue that human cultures are bad and therefore shouldn't exist either. Religion is basically just another form of human culture, it has its norms values and rituals just like any other.

No. Religion is more dangerous than mere culture; culture never started any wars, unless you count misunderstandings.

 

By its very nature, culture is adaptable. By its very nature, religion is not adaptable, as a rule. How could it be, when it regards an out-of-date book as a source of infallible truth? If there's no room to adapt, there's no room to negotiate, and then wars get started.

 

As domarius said, conflict is what provides interest to our world, even to romance novels. I for one couldn't live without conflict, and I've always thought the Old Testament idea of heaven to be boring; I reckon Valhalla would be more fun. So if culture and religion bring more conflict in the world, i could argue that they're making it a more interesting place.

In other words, you regard conflict as a good thing. Does that mean I have permission to kill you?

 

More to the point: By your argument, 9/11 was a good thing because it made the world a "more interesting place". By your argument, rape should be encouraged (it's a form of conflict, after all).

 

I've always seen scientific method as a form of rational thinking, but also in itself a human culture that has its flaws. Imagine, for a moment, that Oddity's argument in a prior thread could be proven and that black people were inferior mentally to white people; from a rational standpoint there is no reason for them to exist anymore; they should be wiped out and replaced by beings with higher mental prowess that are more innovative and creative, and therefore better geared towards improving the state of living humans. Science has the ability to create even more human suffering than religion, i would argue that one is just as 'bad' as the other.

That's not science creating suffering. That's humans creating suffering. Big difference.

 

In your hypothetical example, science would just be theorising that group A is superior to group B. It does not automatically follow that group B should be wiped out. That is not a rational, logical leap.

 

Added to this is the fact that humans have a tendency to be irrational at times, and that many people do not understand the 'scientific method'. What use is astrophysics to a plumber? Does he need to have a rational, methodical way of thinking to do his job?

I would think that being rational and methodical is certainly an advantage if you're trying to troubleshoot a problem in a plumbing system.

 

To answer your question more broadly, though: Just because the scientific method may not be directly useful to a person, in that they can use it in their everyday lives, it still benefits everyone indirectly. The plumber needs to have a reliable and fast method of transportation (the car), which would not have been invented if someone didn't have a solid understanding of the underlying physics. Heck, if it wasn't for science, plumbing would never have been invented in the first place and he wouldn't have a job (at least, not the same job).

 

Humans need to have an organised society with figureheads to lead us

Maybe so, but:

 

so instead of a high priest we'll have a professor.

This is not true. The point is not to replace churches with lecture theatres. That wouldn't be much of a change, as you say.

 

Instead of priests telling people what to do, people will learn morals etc. from the same source they've always done: Their parents, and society. There is no gap which religion exclusively fills.

 

It's not so much "replacing religion with science" that is the goal. It's removing religion. No replacement is necessary, or even recommended.

 

Science and its methods have a lot in common with religion; they're both human cultures that are vulnerable to human flaws and irrationality, and human ignorance.

The scientific method is not culture, unless you consider logic and mathematics to be culture, which they're not.

 

Certainly human flaws can corrupt the scientific process. The blame is on those flaws, however, not the process itself.

 

I think you're wrong if you think science is going to solve the world's problems; we'll just have more creative and spectacular ways to kill each other, perhaps even the entire planet! 2000 years ago religion was the way forward, today science is. I wonder what it will be in a few thousand years time, povided we even last that long?

Spot the straw man. "All science does is produce new ways to kill people, therefore science is bad." If you seriously think that's what science is about then you need your head checked.

[Ishtvan]

I think there is a point to saying that it's not just religion that makes groups of people kill other groups. Any sort of tribalism can lead to groups killing those that are "different." Yes, this can take the form of "we're all the same religion and you're not, so we'll kill you and take your property." More generally though, tribalism can also take the form of "we're all the same [religion/ethnic group/country of birth/country of residence...] and you're not, so we'll kill you and take your property." I think public religion promotes tribalism, and does cause a lot of problems for that reason, but if religion were gone, groups of people that are the same would still kill people that are different from that group, they'd just find other reasons. IMO the problem is tribalism in all its forms, not just religion.

[oDDity]

Except religion is unusual in that's it's more of an intellectual spiked club, it's a learned behaviour, a lifestyle choice. It's people deliberately inventing bizarre and complex reasons as to why they are better and more important than another group.

Where you're born and what race you are is inherent in you and out of your control.

Religion is a genetically engineered artificial virus if you like, and they can be a lot more dangerous than natural ones.

When what is at stake is you eternal soul, as the religious would have us believe, and what I presume the people who do the fighting believe, it's makes it the greatest and most important thing there can possibly be,.

[OrbWeaver]

I've always seen scientific method as a form of rational thinking, but also in itself a human culture that has its flaws. Imagine, for a moment, that Oddity's argument in a prior thread could be proven and that black people were inferior mentally to white people; from a rational standpoint there is no reason for them to exist anymore; they should be wiped out and replaced by beings with higher mental prowess that are more innovative and creative, and therefore better geared towards improving the state of living humans. Science has the ability to create even more human suffering than religion, i would argue that one is just as 'bad' as the other.

 

You don't understand science, and you don't know what you are talking about. If you jump on the "science is a belief system" bandwagon along with all of the other woo-woos, you are barking up completely the wrong tree and any conclusion that follows is suspect and probably wrong.

[Ishtvan]

Except religion is unusual in that's it's more of an intellectual spiked club, it's a learned behaviour, a lifestyle choice. It's people deliberately inventing bizarre and complex reasons as to why they are better and more important than another group.

I could understand a religion that starts out just within the tribe as a justification for why they're superior to other tribes, but it gets weird when religions unite completely different groups and make them feel superior over still different groups.

 

Personally, I think religion would be fine if we all just kept our beliefs to ourselves, but instead they're always trying to convert people, claiming their beliefs are superior to those of other people, and forcing their beliefs on their children, to create the whole "us vs. them" mentality.

 

And to everyone preaching that science is just as bad as religion, I don't remember visiting the graves of anyone killed in the "light is a particle" vs. "light is a wave" crusades.

[oDDity]

No, but it's perfectly possible that some engineered virus will be the end of most of us at some point in the near future.

Technology is extremely dangerous, or rather, certain people having access to the technology is dangerous, and it will become exponentially more dangerous the more advanced it gets.

I know you're going to say 'it's not the technology that should be blamed but the people abusing it', but some mad group of people without technology can maybe kill a few dozen/hundred/maybe even thousand people. Give them very advanced technology and they can kill most of the planet.

 

Anyway, all these endless religious debate is ridiculous. Whether there is or isn't a god is irrelevant, the only valid point is that no one and just cause to believe that there is one.

It's explanatory overkill.

Even if you go along with theists to the point where you accept that the world and everything on it had a creator, it still doesn't justify belief in a god.

Granted, the thing that created the world and everything on it would have to be very, very powerful and very, very intelligent, but that falls a long, LONG way short of omnipotent, divine and worthy of worship.

There is no just and logical argument with which you can come to the conclusion that the creator, if there was one, is a divine being, the best you can do is to assume that we were created, and then come to the obvious conclusion that the thing that did the creating was a very powerful force of some kind.

[obscurus]

It will not happen anytime soon anywhere.

 

Don't be too sure - in Scandinavia, fewer than 15% of the population profess to hold any religious beliefs, likewise Japan, China and France have very similar levels of secularism.

 

 

The predisposition towards irrational and superstitious beliefs is a flaw in humans for which no patch is available.

 

True - the human ability to develop a theory of mind (that is, imagine what someone else is thinking and predict/influence their behaviour - a very useful ability, and one that was critical to our evolution) leads to an all to common error of assuming that a theory of mind can be applied to things that do not have a mind, like the weather, the sun, & the Universe in general. People operating under this fundamental error of thought invent gods as proxies for mindless things beyond their control, projecting anthropomorphic personalities on them and then trying to influence their behaviour through prayer, sacrifice and so on.

 

People living in heavily hierarchical societies also run into a problem of ultimate authority - they realise that a king or president or whatever is ultimately a human being just like them, so they then invent an even higher authority (God) so that the king etc. can become an agent of this deity and therefore more than just a mere human. The monarch's power then becomes absolute, divine and unquestionable. While this arrangement creates a society with a tight degree of control and cohesion, it fails when people actually start thinking for themselves and start to wonder if maybe there is a better way of organising society than in a rigid hierarchy propped up by fantasies of deities and divine blessings.

 

In genuinely democratic societies that encourage freedom of thought, religion will always die a slow death, because religion requires total indoctrination and enforcement from childhood to death to maintain its grip.

Edited February 12, 2007 by obscurus

[sparhawk]

I started to read this "debate" but there is nothing really interesting there. It starts out with a sugar sweet civilized tone at the beginning, and pretty fast boils down to the average arguments you can find also on sci.sceptics as well. The theologist with their usual evasive tactics, and defending against points that nobody ever raised.

[Domarius]

Yeah it's not that great a debate. I hadn't read that much of it when I made the thread. I'm still interested to see where that debate goes though

 

(going back a page) I never understood why the big deal "What is the meaning of life?" that question pops up in cartoons, books, etc. and as a kid, although I didn't have these words to describe this feeling, I do now, and it can be summed up as "...what a pointless and arbitrary question. The meaning of life is what you want it to be in your immediate surroundings."

 

Personally, I think religion would be fine if we all just kept our beliefs to ourselves, but instead they're always trying to convert people, claiming their beliefs are superior to those of other people, and forcing their beliefs on their children, to create the whole "us vs. them" mentality.

I totally agree. If a thought brings you comfort - good for you. You can share it too, but don't expect anyone else to adopt it. They may or they may not. People are too different than each other.

 

And to everyone preaching that science is just as bad as religion, I don't remember visiting the graves of anyone killed in the "light is a particle" vs. "light is a wave" crusades.

I totally agree.

 

 

 

@SplaTtzZ: Regarding "conflict being nessecary" - What I was saying there is that I believe we are engeneered to want to fix things and create things and set things right, and we want to see things being set right, because that gives us a good feeling of optimism, and for that to happen, there has to be conflict to begin with. I don't think we want it, so much as we want to find it and set it right. I also think there is enough wacky stuff naturally going on in the world that we can still continue being "fix it" beings without deliberately creating conflict.

[demagogue]

I have an uneasy feeling remaining, though. I don't know if I'll express it well, but I'll try. Sorry if it's long.

 

I feel uneasy when so-called skeptics take a position of enlightenment just because they've been able to transcend religion or whatever that they feel safe in concluding there's no bigger picture to even try to figure out ... in a sense it's like they let themselves off the hook too easily.

 

I happen to think that the phenomenon of "faith" is deeper in humans than just what we traditionally consider "religious" thinking. To my mind, people and societies are still grasping towards the bigger picture in uncertainty; it's part of being human whether you call it religion or not. So a lot of people have a kind of faith in capitalism, or technology, or technocracy/bureacracy, or social planning ... that advancing these projects really will make all our collective lives better. Most politics comes across like based on a kind of "faith" to me, there's reasons to think that the brain treats both in similar ways, grasping towards some "end" to the world, the most recent one maybe "free-market globalization". So that's one issue. I think some skeptics are either too quick to think that (what they consider) "faith" doesn't have a role in human affairs outside of religion. Or they go too far the other way and conclude that because there is no ultimate end to the world, so there's no real need to contribute to these kinds of big projects; like there's no reason to take a stand on whether globalization is the "right" end for us to push towards, and what kind of globalization, or some alternative. I'm not saying anyone here is doing that; it just makes me feel uneasy that some skeptics let themselves off the hook too easily in thinking because there is no "meaning" to it all, they don't need to take a stand on what kind of values we should promote, not just for ourselves, but for everybody.

 

Another issue, the deeper one, is the existentalist/Sartre schtick of *really* taking human "freedom" seriously; that we've been "abandoned" in this world and we really have to make our own values, but are also totally responsible for them. It's easy to say, maybe, but how many people really act as if they are absolutely responsible for what their values stand for and who they become.

 

Oh, also, on science... that's actually a good example of my uneasiness. The problem with science is that, in the end, it doesn't really give any normative guidance at all. It just tells us what possibilities are available to us, but not which possibilities are better than others. It really doesn't contribute any set of values for one way of life over another. That's why nobody has ever died for a scientific principle. But of course, we appeal to values all the time when integrating science and technology into our lives. We think it's a better life when we can communicate and travel faster and more efficiently. But these values are actually outside of science, and we appeal to them often like a kind of faith; thinking if everyone could only communicate and travel faster it will make life better for everybody. A better example is what I study, risk regulation. We have to draw a line whether a 1:1 million risk is acceptable for the water utility bill we want to pay. Science can only give us a risk/price graph, but it can't tell us which point is "best". To do that, we need to appeal to values.

 

I think it's good people can make stands like that, but I think people should be clear that that's a value they are positing without full certainty of it's truth, and science isn't really offering any guidance on that answer, so it isn't fully rational. it has to do with the kind of people we want to be, and the kind of way of life we want to lead and promote. One can say this isn't anything like religion, but to my mind there's a lot of crossover if you are looking at the situation honestly. It seems we would be too quick to think our "tough decisionmaking" is over now that we don't have to read the mind of God. I think we *still* have a duty to figure out what's the best way of life for ourselves and society. And a lot of that is just choosing way X because that's the kind of people we want to be, or values we want to represent. But if pushed to say why it's a better value, people's answers start looking quite "faith" like, whether they want to admit it or not.

 

Anyway, too much to say on this topic; it's not even all my thinking. It's a classical Continental take on it, at least until the postmodernists came and really made a mess of everything. I just wanted to get the perspective on the table as part of the discussion ... just as an alternative to all the back-patting going on.

Edited February 13, 2007 by demagogue

[sparhawk]

(going back a page) I never understood why the big deal "What is the meaning of life?" that question pops up in cartoons, books, etc. and as a kid, although I didn't have these words to describe this feeling, I do now, and it can be summed up as "...what a pointless and arbitrary question. The meaning of life is what you want it to be in your immediate surroundings."

 

It's pretty simple, once you figure that out. People read to much in everything, as if everthing actually MUST have a meaning. That always reminds me of a friend of mine who is a painter. Everytime he presents his paintings, he finds it quite amusing what people interpret into his paintings. He says he likes to go unnoticed between the poeple and listen to them, when they try to figure out what he tried to say with this or that particular stroke, even when there is no particular meaning in a given painting and he just did it for fun or the challenge of it.

[Ishtvan]

One of my fav. quotes is:

 

"The whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."

-Umberto Eco (trans. William Weaver)

[sparhawk]

That sums it up pretty nicely.

[OrbWeaver]

I'm not saying anyone here is doing that; it just makes me feel uneasy that some skeptics let themselves off the hook too easily in thinking because there is no "meaning" to it all, they don't need to take a stand on what kind of values we should promote, not just for ourselves, but for everybody.

 

I think you are confusing "skeptic" with "nihilist". Skepticism is just the application of critical thought to human endeavours, and the rejection of faith-based or instinctive approaches based on emotion. Being a skeptic does not mean that you don't have any values, or you don't believe in anything (indeed, in order to be a skeptic you have to "believe in" the use of critical thought in the first place). Although I am a skeptic and will not accept any claims without evidence or at least a good logical basis, there are still things I "believe in" very strongly -- justice, equality, freedom of thought etc. These are not based on some wooly "faith" however, but the observation that human suffering is generally increased when such things are not available, combined with the desire to reduce human suffering that comes from natural empathy.

 

The problem with science is that, in the end, it doesn't really give any normative guidance at all. It just tells us what possibilities are available to us, but not which possibilities are better than others. It really doesn't contribute any set of values for one way of life over another.

 

That's not a problem with science, it is working exactly as designed. Ethics and philosophy concern themselves with values, science is just about understanding the natural world.

 

I think people should be clear that that's a value they are positing without full certainty of it's truth, and science isn't really offering any guidance on that answer, so it isn't fully rational. it has to do with the kind of people we want to be, and the kind of way of life we want to lead and promote.

 

I agree. At some level, personal values boil down to axioms which cannot be proven logically -- "humans should be free", "justice is good", "suffering should be avoided". I have seen this described as the "is/ought gap": it is impossible to get from an "is" proposition (the domain of science) to an "ought" proposition (the domain of ethics and philosophy) without introducing some fundamental axiom from outside the reasoning system.

 

This is, of course, why controversies such as abortion/euthanasia can never be resolved scientifically, because they are not conflicts of the facts but conflicts of the axioms used in people's personal value systems -- "human suffering should be reduced" on one hand and "life must be preserved" on the other.

[sparhawk]

it just makes me feel uneasy that some skeptics let themselves off the hook too easily in thinking because there is no "meaning" to it all, they don't need to take a stand on what kind of values we should promote, not just for ourselves, but for everybody.

 

I don't think that's the case. Being a sceptic doesn't mean that you don't have any values at all. It just means that your meanings are derived from a more egoistic perspective, which doesn't neccessarily equate with being a prick. If I live in an society that has benefits for me, it benefits for me to participate and promote values that help that society. IMO that same reasoning is the underlying fundament for religion as well, only that religion additionally attaches some arbitrary meaning to it, which excludes others and focuses purely on it's own society, while a sceptics view can encompass any such groups without restrictions.

Being nice in an environment where everbody is (on average) also nice to me, is therefore a good value to promote for a sceptic, while a religious nuts might not see this the same, because there the additional condition applies, that you only need to be nice if the other one is also nice AND is a member of the same religion. That's a little black and white, and has changed throughout history as well, but it's not totally wrong either, as current events show all the time.

[Domarius]

I feel uneasy when so-called skeptics take a position of enlightenment just because they've been able to transcend religion or whatever that they feel safe in concluding there's no bigger picture to even try to figure out ... in a sense it's like they let themselves off the hook too easily.

I don't think that's Sam's point of view at all. I think it's more like - don't think there's one perfect way of thinking and running your life that will work for everyone, because there isn't - so stop trying to make people work your way.

 

Oh, also, on science... that's actually a good example of my uneasiness. The problem with science is that, in the end, it doesn't really give any normative guidance at all. It just tells us what possibilities are available to us, but not which possibilities are better than others. It really doesn't contribute any set of values for one way of life over another.

No and it's not meant to. But there are plenty of philosophies that can give people guidance on what is a "good" way to live your life, without imposing it on others. I actually have several interesting interviews with popular philosophers taken from radio that I copied from my Ethics class lecturer, they are realy interesting.

 

One example is how a guy went to a country where their language doesn't have adjectives to pin someone down as being something. There isn't a word for "selfish", so you can't actually tell someone "You're selfish." You have to say "I think you are not being fair with what you have to give others" or something like that - so it becomes an observation about ones immediate behaviour, and not a label about their entire existance, which is much less confronting and much more productive. Upon saying these things, the interviewer told the philosopher "Wow, I think you're really intelligent" and he said "That's another example - that statment in itself isn't helpful - what you could be saying is 'Wow, what you're saying really excites me and is opening my mind to new possibilities' "

[oDDity]

I just thought of what seems to me to be a perfect argument against any form of god worship.

It's commonly accepted that god must be morally perfect to be worthy of worship in the first place, but a paradox I thought of, is if god expects us to worship him/it, then he cannot be morally perfect and cannot be worthy of worship.

Any powerful entity that would create lesser mortal beings and then expect or demand that they grovel at his feet and worship his every whim cannot possibly be the morally perfect deity that is needed to justify worship.

Therefore, by not worshipping god, you win both ways, because if god expects you to worship him, he is not worthy of it, so you're doing the right thing, and if god is morally perfect, then he doesn't want your worship, and so you're still ding the right thing.

And of course, by worshipping god, your lose both ways - either you're worshipping something that doesn't deserve worship, or something that doesn't want your worship, and therefore disobeying it's wishes.

[sparhawk]

There is a small flaw in your reasoning. A deity that is morally perfect wouldn't deign to create lesser beings to require them worhispping it. So far I agree. However, even if he doesn't REQUIRE you to worship it, it can still accept your worshipping. Being the morally perfect being, it knows that you would like to worship it, and can accept it, without requiring it. Back to square one.

[Maximius]

No and it's not meant to. But there are plenty of philosophies that can give people guidance on what is a "good" way to live your life, without imposing it on others. I actually have several interesting interviews with popular philosophers taken from radio that I copied from my Ethics class lecturer, they are realy interesting.

 

 

Can you post a link to these shows? Heres that Equal Time for Free Thought show from N. Jersey, it has a number of discussions on "faith free" moral/ethical arguments.

 

http://www.njhn.org/etff_archives.html

 

Especially check out the called Unto Others, about the evolutionary basis for altruism.

[Domarius]

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/

[oDDity]

There is a small flaw in your reasoning. A deity that is morally perfect wouldn't deign to create lesser beings to require them worhispping it. So far I agree. However, even if he doesn't REQUIRE you to worship it, it can still accept your worshipping. Being the morally perfect being, it knows that you would like to worship it, and can accept it, without requiring it. Back to square one.

 

Not back to square one.

If it doesn't demand your worship, but will accept it anyway if you give it, that still means that it's fine not to worship it, since it isn't demanding or expecting it.

You can choose to spend your life giving it something that it doesn't want or expect, it won't punish for doing it it, but

Therefore, given that no one actually knows if god exists, or if it does, it is a morally perfect devine being rather than just a powerful entity, the only logical choice is not to worship it, because you can't possibly be doing wrong that way.

I see no value of any kind in 1. assuming there is a creator 2. assuming it's morally perfect and divine 3. deciding to worship it anyway even though it doesn't expect it.

[OrbWeaver]

The whole thing is stupid, however you look at it. Why would a supreme being even care whether lesser beings worshipped it or not? We don't care whether ants worship us, in fact it would make no sense to expect them to.

 

Assuming that God is good and cares for us is also stupid -- even if you accept that God does exist, there is far more evidence in favour of an evil or indifferent god than a caring one.

[sparhawk]

If a god exists that requires us to worship him, the only reason why he would require that is because he is an egomaniac who craves for such attention. In this case he is not worth being worshipping anyway, as Oddity says.

[Domarius]

@OrbWeaver

 

Good point - but, the ant analogy is bad. We co-exist with the ants, we didn't create them, and we aren't responsible for their development. I think people would say that the relationship between god and his followers would be more like parents and children. Parents want their children to love them and respect them, and will dicipline them when they do something wrong, because ultimately they want the best for them and they want them to turn out good and well behaved people.

 

(Hey I'm on the "religion 'aint so hot" side, hence I'm trying to help you strengthen your argument by pointing out what religious people would )

 

Also maybe its a bit pessimistic to say there's enough evidence for their to be an evil god, and maybe even an indifferent one - maybe this is the way things are supposed to be and its going great in god's opinion? Always a balance between good and evil... remember the Matrix? How they created a perfect utopia and the humans didn't accept it, they had to create a city like from today, where people could express themselves in the varying degrees of good and bad... like what I was saying before... I'm sure this concept isn't new, I bet its in some philosophy or other and the Watchowski brothers were all into that stuff when they were writing the movie.