@spendius,
Quote:spendius wrote:
Yeah--but we are not in the Garden of Eden. Nor would we vote to be if we were given the chance.
The morality is based upon expediency of organisation and care for the future. The expediency is not based on the morality. The morality is pragmatic. Alternatives need to be justified.
We are still in the garden... We all have enough, but only have to measure our own behavior and manage our resources... To live without God is entirely moral, but once a people is there, then they have to do much the same as God: They have to look into the future, and they have to work and plan to make certain the dangers they see are averted... Look at Katrina or 911... Those were the result of a government blind to consequences counting on God or good fortune to save them from disaster...
Quote:Quote:The stupid society does not work, and the church is much responsible for that ineffectiveness, the rareness of justice, and endless exploitation of people makes life meaningless, to meaningless to share... So I don't like any part of the whole thing but the idea of forcing women to bear the children of men who cannot care, cannot share, and are unaware of the consequences they cast like so many dice is one I cannot accept...
That mush provides no answers. What woman is unaware of the consequences of jumping into bed with blokes like that? How many blokes are like that?
Consequences??? A woman jumping into bed with a man is a consequence of the isolation and injustice all people suffer in this society, of the church turning all people into individuals, and breaking the communities, even the families which once supported their own... The modern individual is a creation of the first modern western state, and that is the Catholic Church...
Quote:We live in the least stupid society that has ever existed. What does Fido mean by saying it "does not work". We have fed and rescued millions of people thanks to our capacity to produce food and other things and to deliver aid to them. And we intend increasing our efforts in that regard. We have brought them pain-killers, drugs to eradicate smallpox and other terrible diseases, surgical techniques, hope and much else. What signs are there they could have done it for themselves in their "traditional" societies.
For sure there's a long way to go and what we do is nowhere near perfect but to call us a stupid society is profoundly stupid. It is narcissistic and self-pitying and leads to defeat and hopelessness. It plays with those who are fed up and seek to lay the blame for their condition on anything except themselves and the more diffused and complex the target the better.
I think Fido's post is complete rubbish.
Yes; our society is knowledgable no thanks to the church that has never wanted more knowledge than it could control.... Giving food to people who have overrun their environments all ready is a mistake... First, introduce people to the modern world, help them to get control of their own populations, and help them to get the skill to foresee the natural disasters that endanger them... Sure; the industialize nations cause global warming that the poor countries will inevitably suffer because those people are already on the margin of survival... At least what they do they do out of necessity, while much of what we do in regard to them is out of a flight of fancy... I don't care if God exists, but if I were to preach God to people handing them food and medicine and the means to overrun their environments still further I would rate hell...
When did we eradicate small pox??? WE did not eradicate small pox, but eradicated the small pox eradication program while certain governments have weaponized smallpox keeping it alive to make future wars that much more horrible...
You have to realize that we first managed our behavior, and family sizes as we grew in wealth and as we grew in wealth our lives became less meaningful and more wealthy.... People on the edge see that life is the only thing with meaning and they want to live through children they cannot support and that their environments cannot support, and we let church people walze in there and hand them a lot of food and medicine which results in lives lived even more on the edge, and in gratitude they will produce the pandemics that may eliminate us altogether... Government should get control of those asses who buy people for their churches, which are really competition for the government, and political organizations, and hold them accountable for the hurt they do with their do gooding... We need to change, but the whole world needs to change... We do not need more knowledge or more contol over the environment... We need self control and religion, not just cpitalism denies this, and says individual freedom is essential...But individualism leads to most people living lives in no sense indiviual or indiviually satisfying... For individualism most people suffer the communism of poverty, taught like, thinking like, dressed like, eating like, behaving like everybody else...