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I think more significantly it's the most ferociously opposed human project in history. Human beings have brutally opposed equality or even basic kindness as the underpinning of society.

This assumes that the corporeal self is real in the way you experience it. I think there's a pretty good chance this is not the case.

A very interesting thread. It's quite striking how attempts to create egalitarian societies are always crushed from within or without. The Anabaptists in Munster, the fledgling Soviet Union, (to leap through history!) those who want a truly equal society are a tiny minority and easily crushed...

We simply don't have the capacity to love everybody. Everybody has people they will and won't invite to dinner. We have a few friends and we have a few enemies and that's the same for us all. Our capacity for compassion is limited though that's not to say we shouldn't try to develop it. None...

Maybe we'll see, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that what we'll see has little relation to anything we can imagine right now. I don't hate fundamentalists or even dislike them (mostly) but please understand that it's impossible to discuss with someone who thinks they have all the answers...

The truth - a couple of people in this thread claim to know what it is. One difficulty here is that I've met many people who claimed to know the truth, and they all said different things. So only one of them (at most) could have been right. One simple thing about the human condition is that we...

It's more boredom than anger. There's little to be said for reading from a script and expecting the world to fall into line with your words. Fundamentalism is by its nature dogmatic (and usually intolerant) because its a doctrine of absolute irrefutable truth. They, not me, are the real...

Hmm, I don't think so. I think they're pretty at first and then they start to speak. Interestingly enough I had some very thought-provoking discussions with a couple of young Mormon women. Even after I had made it clear there was no chance I'd join the church they still wanted to discuss...

The guy in question was interesting because he wasn't a member of a church. There was just him and his family and maybe a few friends. It was like almost the ultimate schism where you get one person churches. Also, I used to work with a very mouthy JW. I found making jokes about Noah's Ark...

Sort of, gnosticism is usually seen as evil by fundies so I guess he didn't want to dialogue with the devil.

Yes, absolutely, I once got a fundamentalist christian off my back by approvingly quoting a Gnostic gospel. Never heard from him again.

Yes, but I think indifference is a big factor. It's not hard to be informed these days but you need at least basic curiosity to be so.

I agree there are some people who have real principles but they are a small minority and probably always have been, so yes I am painting with a broad brush because I don't see the good guys and gals ever having sufficient weight in society to change our moral/political/spiritual direction. My...

How would we behave if we didn't have such a comfortable lifestyle in what we call the West? If our standard of living were threatened, or was perceived to be under threat, we'd sanction war without a blink of the eye.

No it's not an accident but my question is, does this situation persist through coercion or consent? It looks like reluctant consent to me.

Dream, So where's the change, slow or otherwise?

Tao, you write about the state of society as though it were the product of indoctrination or conspiracy. As far as I can see over the last few thousand years of human 'progress' only the technology and details of social organisation have changed. I can't find much sign of spiritual or moral...

This is a very interesting point because there's an assumption amongst 'spiritual' folk that any being that communicates from the 'other side' necessarily knows more than we do. Whilst I think there are differing forms of consciousness and sometimes there is info passed between these forms I'm...

Thank you for you welcome. Glad to be here. :) Wiki is hardly the first and last word on anything. Modern evolutionary theory posits that evolution occurs via an interaction of natural (and for many theorists social) selection and genetic mutation. Genetic mutation occurs when a gene fails to...

I think you'd have to say that (within the theory of evolution) human intelligence survived because it's a useful tool. However there was no reason at all why human intelligence evolved. It just happens to be what has emerged from the many detours and blind alleys of the process. If you wound...