My little brother just almost died.

[jitz]

Sal, the Egyptians used slave labour to move larger stone blocks. The Pharaoh wanted an easy passage into their 'afterlife', and the slaves were either forced to move them, with punishment of death, or believed helping the Pharoah's passage into the after would gain them and their family entry to the afterlife.

What's so fucking smart about it? Today, we could all join up and move large stone blocks and make a pyramid if we wanted. It'd look superior to the old pyramids, it'd have superior interior furnishings and facilites, it would have security systems to safe guard against thieves that would surely want to rob you huge stone building full of gold.

The Egyptians fucked up to begin with aswell, many pyramids have collapsed because they were built structurally weak, and today's engineers have been able to pin point exactly where they went wrong. They learnt from their mistakes with every building, exactly the same way we do.

Now though, we focus on speed, not grandeur. Every building is built for a purpose, and that purpose is needed today, so buildings are made in the quickest time possible to necessitate that, and also to minimise costs. Today's workforce work set hours that afford us a work life and personal life, we're not slave labour working 20 hour days, 365 days a year. Our workers live for longer because of this, so we get more work out of everybody till retirement age, instead of having to constantly replace workers.

In no way were the Egyptians smarter than us, they were ahead of their time in relation to other civilisations at the time, but we are smarter now. We don't build huge temples and pyramids and all that shit now because we don't believe in the religion, and we don't want to spend the money. If we did, it'd fucking floor the pyramids.

Infact to look at what humans are able to do today that is far superior to the Egyptians and what they ever thought was possible. When mankind wants to spend the money ofcourse (because it will make them more money back) - just take a look at Dubai.

EDIT -

I love that, i printed it out, greatness.

If you're going to show my greatness to other people, maybe fill in some words that are missing, like it should be "for your path to righteousness".

And Sal I forgot about you morals point. Morals are based on human goodwill, so we can live together in a society - when society was first formed. They pre-date religion mate. Society was already in place, and that wouldn't have been possible without people abiding by what we call morals today. No dice Sal, nice try though.

EDIT AGAIN - Six paragraphs for Egyptians, two sentences for morals. You started well but then clutched at straws.

[Spectre]

I am showing this to my friends theyll get a kick outta it, even the ones who bring up god in arguments.

[Big Bizang]

I've always been under the impression that hardcore atheists are just as offensive as hardcore christians or any other religious movement. Except jews, those guys seem pretty relaxed.

I hate to sound like Ghandi again but I really don't care what people believe or don't believe. The way you live your life is up to you and no one else. I only have a problem when people start ridiculing others for their belief system or forcing their belief systems on others/me. Those people are scum.

[Nemo]

while religion is being discussed, this argument isnt really about the existence of god. neither jitz nor myself can prove the non/existence of god and really, i have no intention of trying. what i believe is my business, what you believe is yours. it's nobody's right to try and convince you otherwise.

now then, jitz, it'd be nice to have an argument with you where you didnt throw in petty insults. rest assured, im NEVER clutching at straws. i know when im beat and am always prepared to admit it. so dont be a jerk.

back on topic, i'd like to establish the fact that im not saying we dont know more shit today than our ancestors did hundreds to thousands of years ago. im saying that we aren't any smarter than they were and everything we think we know today was based on their accomplishments. it's a matter of intelligence, not knowledge. so yeah...

Contrary to some popular depictions, the pyramid builders were not slaves or foreigners. Excavated skeletons show that they were Egyptians who lived in villages developed and overseen by the pharaoh's supervisors....

Some of the builders were permanent employees of the pharaoh. Others were conscripted for a limited time from local villages. Some may have been women: Although no depictions of women builders have been found, some female skeletons show wear that suggests they labored with heavy stone for long periods of time.

the pyramids (or most of them) weren't built by slaves. moving on.

t took more than manual labor, though. Architects achieved an accurate pyramid shape by running ropes from the outer corners up to the planned summit, to make sure the stones were positioned correctly. And priests-astronomers helped choose the pyramids' sites and orientations, so that they would be on the appropriate axis in relation to sacred constellations.

it doesnt sound as fancy until you realize just how big those blocks were, the fact that the pyramids were built ONLY 4,700+ years ago and how they stood the test of time. our buildings today can barely last 100 years without some sort of heavy renovation, let alone a few thousand years. nevermind the fact that this was all done by manual labor. you try rounding a few thousand people up with no architectural skills and see if you can build some giant ass pyramid in the middle of the desert. good luck with that.

it was maybe 2,200 years later after the pyramids were built (roughly 500bc) when the first great philopsophers and mathematicians came about. guys plato, archimedes, aristotle and even pythagoras all lived 2000+ years ago. some of the greatest minds to ever exist predate friggin jesus (then again, even jesus kind of predates himself, lmao) ever learn pythagoreans theorum? yeah, me too!

while the middle ages didnt turn out so great (except for the germanic tribes who ruined everyones shit), the roman empire in its prime was a heavily complex civilization with an equally complex economy and indoor fucking plumbing. INDOOR FUCKING PLUMBING. they pooped in the comfort of their own homes. thats fucking awesome.

pooping aside, your religion pre-dating society is well..obvious, i guess. since religion is man-made, someone had to create it beforehand. the only problem is that there doesnt seem to be a wide margin of time between the development of the first societies/civilizations and the development of religion granted there's evidence that the first civilizations dating back to 8000bc performed religious practices (eg ancestor worship). hate to break it to you, mate, but we've been appeasing the gods and ghosts for almost as long as we've been here.

as for human goodwill goes... it's fair to say some people had an idea of it (they had to for it to be implemented into religions), but to say everyone in the societies of old shared our beliefs of right and wrong (or good and evil for that matter) is... well, wrong. back in those days, it was an eye for an eye. they didnt have any of that forgiveness crap. nowadays, we show mercy to the most despicable people. mercy, forgiveness, GOODWILL, those are all traits found in religions that your ancestors more than likely were part of.

is it possible to just come from a line of good people? maybe. but the fact of the matter is that somewhere down the line religious principles were introduced to your family's way of life and those morals were passed on from generation to generation ever since then.

it's 7am and im tired. fuck you.