[StarSlayer]

I only just started it out to be honest.  I don't know about "breed out" but I suppose if you started civilization clean slate with no prior knowledge of religions, provided a justice system/set of laws, and scientific answers for the big questions then I could see it not easily developing.  Hereditary influence, providing order and answering the big questions I tend to think are the major pillars that develop and perpetuate religious organizations.

That's what I take issue with, scientific knowledge is worthless without the scientific method, and functionally indistinguishable from religion. It also requires the population of the colony to just accept what they're told, something I can't quite wrap my head around when it goes over several generations.

Ahh, well I'll need to actually read it then. 

[Luis Dias]

Without any scientific method, the only way to maintain dogmatic beliefs is through religious kind of absolutism. I also see no way to maintain these stories without an absolute authority like that. With a scientific method, dogmas are far more understandable and defensible (like the dogmas of thermodynamics or General Relativity, etc.,etc.*).

However, even still I see no way out of the inevitable drift of these truths becoming myths and the usual power, moral and social struggles slowly changing and adapting those myths into something more useful and pedagogic to the changing zeitgeists of the population...


* By "dogmas" I mean truths that are engraved in a really really important pedestal that no one has the right to just "meh" them. Scientific "dogmas" are those scientific truths that are so well established that you would really need something absolutely extraordinary to question them.

[FireSpawn]

Without any scientific method, the only way to maintain dogmatic beliefs is through religious kind of absolutism. I also see no way to maintain these stories without an absolute authority like that. With a scientific method, dogmas are far more understandable and defensible (like the dogmas of thermodynamics or General Relativity, etc.,etc.*).

However, even still I see no way out of the inevitable drift of these truths becoming myths and the usual power, moral and social struggles slowly changing and adapting those myths into something more useful and pedagogic to the changing zeitgeists of the population...


* By "dogmas" I mean truths that are engraved in a really really important pedestal that no one has the right to just "meh" them. Scientific "dogmas" are those scientific truths that are so well established that you would really need something absolutely extraordinary to question them.

I also started reading The Hobbit. I just cant get into the bloody thing, I keep on getting bored after 30 pages.

[Luis Dias]

There's nothing like seeing people celebrating their own incapabilities or ignorances. As if I needed more incentives for my misanthropy.

[StarSlayer]

Wrapped Up:

Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth

Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night

Starting:

Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars

[LordMelvin]

Wrapped Up:
[...]
Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night
[...]

What'd you think of it?

[StarSlayer]

I enjoyed it, I found it a little less "hard" and more "pulp" compared to some of other Clarke's works I have read(that's not a criticism mind).  It was especially interesting juxtaposing it with The City and the Stars.  Against the Fall of Night was a bit more of a straight forward adventure tale compared to the much more developed post scarcity cultures he developed later in CITS, Diaspar in particular.

Wrapped Up:

Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars

Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End

Isaac Asimov's I, Robot

Isaac Asimov's  Caves of Steel

Isaac Asimov's  The Naked Sun

Starting:

Isaac Asimov's  The Robots of Dawn

[StarSlayer]

Wrapped Up:

Isaac Asimov's  Foundation's Edge

Isaac Asimov's  The End of Eternity

[Luis Dias]

listening to Robopocalypse. It's fun.

[Mito [PL]]

Stanislav Lem's Tales of Pirx the Pilot. This author wrote some fine books. Read it if you want: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_of_Stanisław_Lem

[The E]

Stanislav Lem's Tales of Pirx the Pilot. This author wrote some fine books. Read it if you want: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_of_Stanisław_Lem

Lem, Asimov and Clarke were my entry drugs into SF.

[Mito [PL]]

Well, i was into SF somewhere from my 8th year of life - at the time i discovered Lem's robot stories and 's Freespace . There was also Stargate, BSG 2 yrs later, and dozens of SF movies on the way. Somehow, i was unable to understand why my classmates while reading Robot Stories (mandatory) looked like this:  (me ).
I am curious how many more Polish authors you know guys .
Oh, Tolkien? Hobbit & LOTR read in ~ month .

[StarSlayer]

Starting:

Stephen R. Brown's  Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600-1900


"Age of Heroic Commerce" yeehaw...

[Nakura]

I just started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

[StarSlayer]

Wrapped Up:

Stephen R. Brown's  Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600-1900

John Scalzi's Ghost Brigades

John Scalzi's The Last Colony

John Scalzi's Zoe's Tale

John Scalzi's Human Division

[Lorric]

Wrapped Up:

Stephen R. Brown's  Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600-1900

John Scalzi's Ghost Brigades

John Scalzi's The Last Colony

John Scalzi's Zoe's Tale

John Scalzi's Human Division

Heyyy. I just finished off The Last Colony. Were Zoe's Tale and Human Division good?

[Hellzed]

Starting Pierre Pevel's The Cardinal's Blades.

[Lorric]

Well, I ordered it. Zoe's Tale is coming. Scalzi has done good so far.

[Dragon]

Just got done with Time of Storms by Sapkowski. That's the latest "The Witcher" book. Pretty good read, too. I really recommend "The Witcher" saga, though it might be hard to get in English (they only started translating the books after the game got popular...).

[Scourge of Ages]

I just finished World War Z. Pretty good book, and the first I've read front-to-back in years. Plus, now I understand why people were so disappointed in the movie; it could have been so much better if they had taken more than the name from the book.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/wwz

Starting Rx: A Tale of Electronegativity by Robert Brockway.

Waiting for various Scalzi and Scott Westerfeld books and Metro 2033 (for Kindle) to go on sale on Amazon.