[vision-master]

It all goes back toooo......

anywho

The blood of Jesus - The Holy Grail.


Horus - the thalamus within the human brain!

[skeptik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('3aidlillahi', 'Y')ou mean Hindus by country? Wiki has a neat little graph:

[skeptik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'I')t all goes back toooo......

[Consensi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('skeptik', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('3aidlillahi', 'Y')ou mean Hindus by country? Wiki has a neat little graph:

[Taghayee]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '3'). Human communities are imperialistic. Islam was happy to expand when it was capable. Today Secular Western Capitalism is able to expand so it is. That is because both are made up of homo sapiens.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Taghayee', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '3'). Human communities are imperialistic. Islam was happy to expand when it was capable. Today Secular Western Capitalism is able to expand so it is. That is because both are made up of homo sapiens.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', '[') A war mongering tribe of Mongols swarming over the plains raping and pillaging along the way tends to have a lower net worth than a bunch of Polynesian Fishermen living in Hawaii, for instance. Not to say there wasn't evil in that society either, just not quite so rampant, eh?

The bigger the society, the more rampant the Evil. Small is good. The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth.

Reverse Engineer

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', '[') A war mongering tribe of Mongols swarming over the plains raping and pillaging along the way tends to have a lower net worth than a bunch of Polynesian Fishermen living in Hawaii, for instance. Not to say there wasn't evil in that society either, just not quite so rampant, eh?

The bigger the society, the more rampant the Evil. Small is good. The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth.

Reverse Engineer

[wisconsin_cur]

and it is the nature of human beings to grow beyond their britches and whenever they can grow beyond their britches they will. So you can either a) so destroy the environment that humans beings are incapable of outgrowing their britches or b) wait for humanity to evolve either 1. smaller brains or 2. higher nature

I find (a) rather distasteful and to be avoided and puts the species at risk since a marginal existence is well an existence on the margins. (b) may happen but I find it rather a waste of time since I can do nothing to effect it and if it does happen it will (probably) not effect my existence in the world. It is kind of like worrying about a potential galactic catastrophy 100,000 years from now; it ain't worth worrying about when you have more immediate problems (global warming, peak oil or the need to raise propaganda savvy children).

Today and for the foreseeable future homo sapiens are homo sapiens. Being angry at them for being them is a waste of energy. Hoping they will become something other than what they are is a waste of time. The best we can do is to live as wise and a good life as is possible for a community of homo sapiens in a world full of homo sapiens... If that is a goal and you work towards it there is not enough energy left to be angry nor enough time to try to reform the species.

Exhibit One:

Nickle Mines

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'a')nd it is the nature of human beings to grow beyond their britches and whenever they can grow beyond their britches they will. So you can either a) so destroy the environment that humans beings are incapable of outgrowing their britches or b) wait for humanity to evolve either 1. smaller brains or 2. higher nature

I find (a) rather distasteful and to be avoided and puts the species at risk since a marginal existence is well an existence on the margins. (b) may happen but I find it rather a waste of time since I can do nothing to effect it and if it does happen it will (probably) not effect my existence in the world. It is kind of like worrying about a potential galactic catastrophy 100,000 years from now; it ain't worth worrying about when you have more immediate problems (global warming, peak oil or the need to raise propaganda savvy children).

Today and for the foreseeable future homo sapiens are homo sapiens. Being angry at them for being them is a waste of energy. Hoping they will become something other than what they are is a waste of time. The best we can do is to live as wise and a good life as is possible for a community of homo sapiens in a world full of homo sapiens... If that is a goal and you work towards it there is not enough energy left to be angry nor enough time to try to reform the species.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', '[')

Well first off, Peak Oil insures that eventually here, Human Beings will never be able to get THIS fat and roll over their britches quite so much as now, so that in itself is hopeful news. Regardless of what you perceive to be the inherent nature of human beings, if the environment and resources won't support so large a population, you won't have near the amount of Evil growing that results from that. That is a direct consequence of your own observation.

Second, I disgree that there is nothing we can do to promote human beings moving toward a higher level of consciousness and personal responsibility. That is what you must TEACH to your children, so that this is what gets passed on to the survivors, NOT the tendency toward Greed and Selfishness. If you regard this as immutable and universal, it will of course never change, its your EXPECTATION that it will never change. Children live up to the expectations of the adults who surround them,if yours are low, then your children will live up to the lowest of them, guaranteed.

Will you or I ever see a better world in our lifetimes? I hardly think so, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't preach what is Good to our children, or that we shouldn't be angry about the sad state the world is in now either. I personally am damn angry about this, and I have no issues with saying so either, regardless of what the DSM IV might say about this aspect of my personality.

Its not important what comes about in my lifetime, its what I stand for now that counts, and what I preach. I won't see the results of it here in this life, but I will see it from the Great Beyond.

See You on the Other Side

Reverse Engineer

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'Y')es you can train your children but that is no guarentee how they will turn out let alone how their great-grandchildren will turn out. Some people come out of awful childhoods to become quite reflective some grow up with every spiritual advantage and are not. Part of a good life is to do what you can to tutor those who will take your place in the future but each of the students that truly takes up the task will live in a world much like ours with about the same ratio of enlightenment vs base behavior among the population as a whole.

Again show me a communtiy that has raised its children right in such a way as to weed out greed out of the population as a whole... you already confessed that it does not exist. You have that great human secularist eschatology which is as faith-based as my theistic one (which I do not talk about here because it is faith-based). "If only we teach out children right they will..." I see no evidence that they will and since I do not share the secular-humanist hope for the inhierent transcendence of human character I lay that hope where it belongs, with the divine.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', ' ')you have a tendency to look for universalities of behavior and a fatalistic attitude toward it that I do not agree with.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', ' ')you have a tendency to look for universalities of behavior and a fatalistic attitude toward it that I do not agree with.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', '
')
I would argue back that it is hubris to think you know what you cannot control. Who are you to define the limits of a man?

Reverse Engineer

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '
')
presuming to be able to do what no other human or society has been able to do or accepting that things are as they are and attempting to live a life faithful to one's values in the world as it is.... which one is hubris?

[wisconsin_cur]

And those who set unattainable goals... what are they?



I have goals and purpose, and have been quite open with them in this thread. To live a faithful and fullfilling life in the world. This goal is meaningful and attainable. It is not capitulation to accept what cannot be changed; it is maturity. It is not fatalism to focus one's self on what is within their power and control but smart.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RE', 'I')t is not my job to change humanity, it is each person's job to change themselves, and in so doing humanity will change.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RE', 'I')t is not my job to change humanity, it is each person's job to change themselves, and in so doing humanity will change.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') can have more effect than that. Karl Marx's & Friederich Engels Communist Manifesto certainly had a large effect on people, wouldn't you say?

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'C')an you guide humanity into your vision, up to this point you have claimed yes, by teaching children you can have a small part in the species. To not have such hope would be surrender or "fatalism."

Now you are much more humble, comparing yourself only to Marx (another failed prognosticator of humanity's grand evolution) a person who through their vision of a better tomorrow was used to justify the murder of millions, another person with an emotional need to think that humans were progressing. He is the perfect example of secular eschatalogical thinking at work... and you mirror him in many ways... humanity would have been much better served if he had concentrated more on tending a garden and less on committing his secular religion to paper.