I want World Peace. Yes/No?

[MagnetMan]

Clarification: The way the universe behaves naturally cannot be supernatural by definition If you could prove that ghosts were in fact caused by non-local quantum "echoes" then we could stop calling them "supernatural phenomena" (which implies they are not subject to the normal rules) and start calling them "creepy non-local quantum effects."

 

TFS

I prefer the words physicists are currently using regarding the ghostly antics of quarks. Strange; Charming; Beautiful. Same words shamans and witchdoctors have been using for thousands of years regarding the invisible protective properties of magical fetishes.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Fair enough.

 

But not supernatural.

 

TFS

[Pyrotex]

I prefer the words physicists are currently using regarding the ghostly antics of quarks. Strange; Charming; Beautiful. Same words shamans and witchdoctors have been using for thousands of years regarding the invisible protective properties of magical fetishes.

The words, Strange, Charming, Beautiful have been used by nearly every cogent member of the human species since writing was invented. This is not a very great coincidence, and doesn't mean anything.

 

It is not Strange that we all use the same words as we have only a small finite supply. How we use those words is often Charming and often not. That we can say so many things with so few words is altogether Beautiful, do you not agree? Does this make me a witchdoctor?

[MagnetMan]

It is not Strange that we all use the same words as we have only a small finite supply. How we use those words is often Charming and often not. That we can say so many things with so few words is altogether Beautiful, do you not agree? Does this make me a witchdoctor?

Just a few hundred years ago anybody who could decipher sqiggles on a pieace of parchment was considered a wizard. So yes, absolutely, like all the rest of us moderns, you are a born alchemist. The ingredients you are working with are atoms. Turning lead to gold is simply a determination to make the mundane mix become profound. Keep stirring and keep chanting that charmingly beautiful mantra.

[InfiniteNow]

The alchemy conversation's in another thread... :evil:

[MagnetMan]

The alchemy conversation's in another thread... :evil:

Beg pardon. But there is a connection between world pieace and spirituality. In fact it is impossible without it.:doh:

[Pyrotex]

Beg pardon. But there is a connection between world pieace and spirituality. In fact it is impossible without it.:)

Yeah! Look at the "Stepford Wives". They were really into spirituality, and that was the most peaceful damn town in New England!!!

:)

[MagnetMan]

The most influencial culture on the planet today is based on the Christian principle of peace and love for our neighbors. How can one born to the privileges that this culture has struggled for twenty centuries to establish, now feel free to turn around and deny its basic moral precepts? We can argue that we have an individual right to denigrate the beliefs and struggles of our forefathers. But is that cultured? Is it even smart? I can understand the argument that war may be unaviodable, or even inevitable - but not to cast a vote for Peace anyway and thereby uphold all that our culture stands for, seems ungrateful to me. One can only thank God that at least 75% see it in a hopeful light.

[Boerseun]

The most influencial culture on the planet today is based on the Christian principle of peace and love for our neighbors. How can one born to the privileges that this culture has struggled for twenty centuries to establish, now feel free to turn around and deny its basic moral precepts?

The Christian principle of peace and love... hmmm...

There's quite a lot of Northern Irish folk who would take up issue with this concept. Matter of fact, I know of quite a few people in my home town who'd take up issue with that statement, being first-hand witnesses to the 'peace and love' of the Church.

What you see as the 'priviledges of this culture' is the result of developments in philosophy, political science, the physical sciences, and medical science. A very short few hundred years ago, this was not the case, and the scientists of the day were silenced, if not tortured.

I would say the 'priviledges' of this culture is not thanks to Christianity, but in spite of Christianity.

 

Think about this carefully.

[Kayra]

It might be best to separate spirituality from any specific religion in this conversation, or I will pretty much guarantee there will be no world peace :shrug:

[MagnetMan]

All the major cultures in the worlds are civilized expressions of human behavior that originated via the founders of religious cults. The leaders and disciples of each cult formulated rules of ethical behavior and taught the common man scripture so that our specie could become literate and learn to express a universal statement - that a compassionate God existed, that He set a Divine standard of ethical behavior and expected same from all of us.

 

It was on this base of painstakingly cultivated spiritual and social behavior that man progressed beyond narrow clannish claims to totemic supremacy and upon which science was eventually able to find its intellectual footing and develop further.

 

Science is simply one of the many serviceman's expressions of human consciousness, as is agriculture and craftsmanship. Divine revelation and the arts still claim our rapt attention and their saints and heroes and heriones are legion - and it is by them that we continue to define the sophistication of a nation's culture.

 

Should we end up with scientists and merchants defining human character, culture will disappear - and with it, the ancient inspirations of faith, hope and charity.

[Kayra]

That is an interesting perspective MagnetMan.

 

Here is mine.

 

Religion has been used from tribal times all the way to today as a means of power and influence over people. While the VAST majority of of practitioners are honest, moral, hard working folk just following the genetic programming that has been twisted by the cult creators into a power structure.

 

Evolution created a survival mechanism in humans that helps to offset the drastically reduced instinct set that we have. Children up to puberty are vastly influenced by their parents, or anyone in the tribe that they see as authoritative. Parents, Uncles, Tribal elders, Etc. If someone in a position of authority tells them not to swim in the river or they will get eaten, and expresses themselves with solemn emotions appropriate to the situation, the child will accept those statements without needing to prove it themselves. This is an evolutionary means of passing on the wisdom of our elders. Acceptance of facts not in evidence. Past puberty, different people are still affected by this survival mechanism to varying degrees.

 

With a built in (and survival wise, completely appropriate) propensity to "Believe" those in a position of trust, exploitation of this system was only a matter of time.

 

Religion memes evolved as a side effect of this evolutionary trait.

 

• The religions did NOT teach the common man to be literate. They often horded that knowledge to themselves until much later in the game.
  
• The vast majority or religions did NOT teach a "Universal" statement except to say they were right, and all other religions were wrong.
  
• The God was often portrayed by religions leaders as vengeful and jealous, not compassionate (unless you begged the gods forgiveness)
  
• The "painstakingly cultivated spiritual and social behavior", in the context of all of the strife caused in the name of religion and GOD, speaks to intentions of these religious leaders as being anything but the icons of culture and civility that you try to portray them as.
  

 

World Peace will come as a result of mans trancendance of religion, and evolution, not by thier adherance to it.

 

To make those changes on a global scale (for those that want it) will require changing a lot of our genetically programmed evolutionary traits. Many of the traits that served us so well in getting to this point are now counter productive and eventually can be removed from our genome. Most people though, fear that this will mean that we are no longer human. They may just be right about that.

 

World peace may just require that we become.. not-human.

 

Just my Opinion :esmoking:

[MagnetMan]

That is an interesting perspective MagnetMan.

 

Here is mine.

 

 

I am not too sure that scholars in the world's seminaries will take your view seriously Kay. But hey! Who knows? Why not go to one and give it a try.:hihi:

[Kayra]

I am not too sure that scholars in the world's seminaries will take your view seriously Kay. But hey! Who knows? Why not go to one and give it a try.:hihi:

 

The scholars in the worlds seminaries are, for the most part, sincere and good people I am certain. I spoke of religion in a historical sense. I noticed you did not try too argue on any single point I made, simply tossed out your standard reply when you have nothing to say.

 

You are correct MagnetMan, I have not studied in a seminary for the last 45 years trying to understand life. I have instead been living it. I have had my share of relationships, fights, parties, friends, enemies, scars, hardships sorrows, wife, children, and all the other messy things that real life is made up of. I have not spent the last 20 years sitting on a rock avoiding the messy life thing while I try to "Contemplate" my navel.

 

My mother is Irish and roman catholic. My father was French and Jehovah witness. My step father is protestant. My first girlfriend was Jewish. I have friends that cover the gambit from bud-ah to atheist. I have been exposed to a wider variety of religions then most, and the only constant I have found among all of them is that they were rigid artifacts devised by man for man.

 

My personal opinions on religion and it's effects on family, Friends, and mankind in general are not particularly pleasant, and I have shown a fair amount of restraint on this issue.

 

My deep personal beliefs in regards to God are a different matter, and not one I wish to discuss in so impersonal a setting.

 

Enough on that. Your dismissal of my thoughts with an offhand comment like "Why not go to one and give it a try" is belittling. It tries to imply that you know everything, and no other soul has figured it out yet. The implication is shallow, and beneath one claiming enlightenment.

 

If you have a case to make with my statement, PLEASE make it. I enjoy our discourse when there is discourse.

 

But hey! Who knows? Why not go to a forum and give discussion a try.;)

[MagnetMan]

That is an interesting perspective MagnetMan.

 

Here is mine.

 

Religion has been used from tribal times all the way to today as a means of power and influence over people. While the VAST majority of of practitioners are honest, moral, hard working folk just following the genetic programming that has been twisted by the cult creators into a power structure.

Evolution created a survival mechanism in humans that helps to offset the drastically reduced instinct set that we have. Children up to puberty are vastly influenced by their parents, or anyone in the tribe that they see as authoritative. Parents, Uncles, Tribal elders, Etc. If someone in a position of authority tells them not to swim in the river or they will get eaten, and expresses themselves with solemn emotions appropriate to the situation, the child will accept those statements without needing to prove it themselves. This is an evolutionary means of passing on the wisdom of our elders. Acceptance of facts not in evidence. Past puberty, different people are still affected by this survival mechanism to varying degrees.

 

With a built in (and survival wise, completely appropriate) propensity to "Believe" those in a position of trust, exploitation of this system was only a matter of time.

 

I am not sure what you mean by tribal times. For me that means the Bronze Age of oral-based agricultural traditions. During that period a written scripture had not evolved, simply because each clan of any single language group, based its moral precepts and cooperative contracts on their own particular take on who's clan originator was of exclusive Divine descent (Only son of God). Each clan paid allegeance and worshipped their own totemic ancestral image and were unifromly engaged in vendettas with other clans. There was no need in that Age for a binding scripture that united all totems behind a single national Godhead. Indiividual spiritual angst, (especially on the deathbed) related to lies, sloth, laziness, selfishness, etc was adminstered by shamans who acted as mediums between the living and departed ancestors. There was little or no social manipulation involved, except for those few shamans who practiced the black arts of ill intentions and were consulted by jealous individuals who wished harm on those they envied.

 

The Bronze Age ended when population growth impacted adversely on regional environments, which could no longer occommodate endless farm divisions and a purely agricultural-based economy. In order for a national industry to evolve that would support a larger population, the clans had to be united, usually via a ruthreless warlord, who trampled on totem images and escalated clan vendetta into total war. Such dynasties could not last forever, and clans would have reverted back to totemism, if a rigid, orthodox scripture had not been introduced. A written geneology that traced all clans back to a common root and a common Godhead was needed. A uniform set of ethical rules had to be written out and obyed. An Absolute standard of Goodness had to established. That Go(o)d, of necessity, had to be omnipotent, jealous and wrathful in order to uphold the Laws and and for the nation to find a lasting sense of cohesion. Thus all nations came to believe that their royalty was via Divine appointment, and other nations were not. (ie. England up until America challenged it. and Japan up until the end of WWII) This period of rigid scriptural orthodoxy, in which mankind developed a concientious sense of industrail craftsmanship and built the wonderous cathedrals and temples aross the planet, lasted for some 160 generations and known as the Iron Age.

 

The Iron Age ended, when once again, population expansions impacted on the environment and and a greater degree of scientifically, orientated technology was required to sustain the evolutionary momentum. It was at this stage that our intellectual advancement reacted to analytical intake, and mankind first began to question religious dogma,( and not feasr being burnt at the stake for heresy) and eventually even challenge the idea that there was even a God at all.

 

 

Religion memes evolved as a side effect of this evolutionary trait.

 

• The religions did NOT teach the common man to be literate. They often horded that knowledge to themselves until much later in the game.

Pious missionaries where usually sent alone to remote locations with instructions to teach native people how to read scripture. Many were boiled alive for their troubes as they tried to break down totemic imagery.
 

The vast majority or religions did NOT teach a "Universal" statement except to say they were right, and all other religions were wrong.

Only Judeo/Christianity does that.

The God was often portrayed by religions leaders as vengeful and jealous, not compassionate (unless you begged the gods forgiveness)

In the early stages of religious conversion this was necessary.
 

The "painstakingly cultivated spiritual and social behavior", in the context of all of the strife caused in the name of religion and GOD, speaks to intentions of these religious leaders as being anything but the icons of culture and civility that you try to portray them as.

As you stated the vast majority of us are good and kind. The few Godless power mongers amongs us always exploit the humble in any system

 

World Peace will come as a result of mans trancendance of religion, and evolution, not by thier adherance to it.

Eolutionary forces are triggered by exponential poplation growth impacting adversely on the environment. That force is once again leading us to a massive paradigm shift of consciousness. It might take a nuclear war - but mass change is inevitable and has nothing to do with religion. I believe that the only thing that can make mass change a peaceful process, is a universal statement of our common brotherhood and common spirituality. ie no clan totem, no national totem is greater than anybody elses.

 

To make those changes on a global scale (for those that want it) will require changing a lot of our genetically programmed evolutionary traits. Many of the traits that served us so well in getting to this point are now counter productive and eventually can be removed from our genome. Most people though, fear that this will mean that we are no longer human. They may just be right about that.

Each of us are imprinted with 100,000 generations of hard-won ancestral disciplines.

Everyone knows that sharing meticulously is a universal value.

Everyone knows that a chore-based work-ethic is a uiniversal value.

Everyone knows that courage is a universal value.

Everyone knows that conscientious craftsmanship is a universal value. Everyone knows that love for neighbor is a universal value.

Everyone knows that intellectual smarts is a universal value.

Everyone knows that artistic vision is a universal value.

 

None of these ancestral imprints can be erased from our gene pool.

They define humanity.

And they underline our essential goodness.

 

World peace may just require that we become.. not-human.

 

Just my Opinion :cup:

 

I believe you are quite wrong on all counts. And that man may become a creation of Dr Frankenstein is monsterous. Just my Opinion.:)

[Kayra]

MagnetMan, that is singularly best post I have read to date.

 

Untill the end it was free or retoric and very educational.

You countered most of my points perfectly, and forced me to research and contemplate some of what I believed, only to determine that much pf it was false.

 

Cudos

 

Each of us are imprinted with 100,000 generations of hard-won ancestral disciplines.

Everyone knows that sharing meticulously is a universal value.

Everyone knows that a chore-based work-ethic is a uiniversal value.

Everyone knows that courage is a universal value.

Everyone knows that conscientious craftsmanship is a universal value. Everyone knows that love for neighbor is a universal value.

Everyone knows that intellectual smarts is a universal value.

Everyone knows that artistic vision is a universal value.

 

None of these ancestral imprints can be erased from our gene pool.

They define humanity.

And they underline our essential goodness.

 

The imprint of 100,000 generations is lost on any child removed from his social environment. This would imply that none of these traits are in fact universal. You can not erase what is not in the gene pool.

 

What does enter the gene pool are traits that encourage reproduction(short and long term). Nothing else makes the cut. Any traits we aquire beyond that are due to social learning and the amazing plasticity of the brain, and are easily lost.

 

I believe you are quite wrong on all counts. And that man may become a creation of Dr Frankenstein is monsterous. Just my Opinion.:)

 

I was certainly schooled on almost all of my points, but I do not beleive I am wrong on that one.

I am going to repost something here I posted in this thread.

 

http://hypography.com/forums/biology/5539-what-evolved-reasons-our-motivations-impulses-5.html#post104927

 

(Please remember that I speak only in generalities, and not in specifics)

(Terms Nature and Evolution are interchangeable)

Nature will have her way.

 

Nature understands that all life is selfish. It will attempt to do absolutely everything for itself that it can for itself and itself only. Always.

 

Nature harnesses this selfishness to accomplish its goals.. Long term survival. This goal simply does not apply to a selfish life form. Having children, supporting a mate, hunting for food for an entire family, these things are hard. The selfish life form would never do these things beyond doing them for itself.

 

Nature had to find a way to make a selfish life form do apparently selfish things that would accomplish natures goals.

 

The lengths that nature has gone to is astounding. There is a type of fungus that, in order to reproduce, has most of the colony give up their lives and form a stalk. A few lucky fungi get to be the bud and pass on there genetic material. What stops the fungi from cheating? We are pretty certain that life tried cheating over and over and ever again. Long term survival though found a way. Nature eventually tied the ability to bud directly to the ability to form the stalk. If you did not have one, you could not perform the other. While the cheaters got to live longer then their brethren, only the self sacrificing brethren got to pass on their genetic materials. These colonies were more successful at passing on their genetic material then colonies that did not have such cheating control. Nature finds a way.

 

As higher life evolved, with brain, and adaptability built in (not needing to evolve for each change of environment), new requirements became evident to nature. New methods for motivating a selfish life form to work for the long term survival.

 

With the brain came memory and emotions. Pain and pleasure. Memory of pain and memory of pleasure were good motivators. Memory of fear and love associated with pain and pleasure vastly more powerful.

 

It is understandable why we evolved fear, pain, and even pleasure as motivational tools of nature, but what of the positive emotions?

 

It would seem that the brute would always have a better chance of procreating. He could simply take the women he wanted, rape them (not to produce children, but simply because it felt good), and watch his children grow. Nature would be satisfied because the strongest survived. But Nature, in her endless experimenting on how to improve things, discovered something else. That high aggression made cooperation difficult.

 

In some of the millions of permutations and mutations, some animals evolved that had the ability to understand what another was thinking. Empathy. The ability to get inside the others head. Mirror their thoughts. Understand if that person was going to help or hurt them.

 

Nature also figured out that empathy was a fantastic moderator of aggression. By forcing empathy upon an aggressor, they would be able to feel the other persons hurt, pain, and fear. An act of aggression on someone else was an act of aggression on ourselves, and being the selfish life forms we are, we would only do so when there was a perceived net gain for us that outweighed the harm.

 

Empathy could not be expanded to far, or else we would not be able to protect ourselves or hunt for food. We tend to extend it only to those close to us for that very reason.

 

The flip side of Empathy was the ability to feel the pleasure of our fellow life forms. Give someone a gift of extra meat we had no need for, and instant self gratification. Every positive emotion we feel in regards to other people stems from this simple process. We sense the adoration of our children, the Pride our mates have in us. We hunt and fight for the village because of the feedback the villagers give to us, but seldom at the intentional loss of our own life or limb.

 

Nature had found the greatest motivator for the ever selfish thinking life form.

 

In the end, each life form serves it's own selfish reasons for almost everything it is doing. Evolution just discovered ways of harnessing this for it's own purposes.

[MagnetMan]

The imprint of 100,000 generations is lost on any child removed from his social environment. This would imply that none of these traits are in fact universal. You can not erase what is not in the gene pool.

This is true, but only at the superficial level. Genetic behavioral imprints remain in the sub-conscious and may never be activated if the parents are uncaring. If they are cruel, the even deeper imprint of the original primate surfaces and the greedy gorilla grabs for all the bananas again. However, the sharing imprint that took the whole of the Stone Age to imprint (plus/minus 99,000 generations) can be activated within the first seven years of life if the parents concentrate on evoking it. This imprinted sharing asset is the reason why we do not have to train a chimpanzee from the start every time a human child is born, and is the fundamental foundation of human intelligence. Sharing extends individual awareness beyond the self, and makes for a more attentive pupil. (A large family group of well-spaced siblings is the best nursery milieu for evoking this imprint.)

 

What does enter the gene pool are traits that encourage reproduction(short and long term). Nothing else makes the cut. Any traits we aquire beyond that are due to social learning and the amazing plasticity of the brain, and are easily lost.

Each Age of human evolution served to indelibly imprint specific social assets that would ensure the on-going momentum of our kind's developmental process

Sharing defined the Stone Age psyche and lifted human intelligence to a supernatural level. Not to the level of other highly socialized species like bees and ants admittedly, (I am not on your level as regards study of botanical associations) but far above other mamalian specie.

 

The Bronze Age imprinted the chore-based work ethic, without which, sustained scientific study (with the short-attention span of the normnal primate) would be impossible. That intellectual asset cannot be learned in one life time. The Bronze Age of agricultural focus lasted some 600 generations. The courage to face a lion with little more than a spear, was also an essential imprint of the Bronze Age. (If we had not faced the lions and triumphed we would all still be dirt farmers.)

 

Constientious craftsmanship took over 160 generations to imprint.

 

Science has taken over 100 generations to date.

 

There is an underlying foundation of long-term design here that is hard to dismiss out of hand. That big brian of ours holds the key to future potentials that we can only guess at.

 

Succeed in teaching any of the foregoing to a chimp and I will buy into your assertion that we learn only from this birth.

 

I am going to repost something here I posted in this thread.

(Please remember that I speak only in generalities, and not in specifics)

(Terms Nature and Evolution are interchangeable)

Nature will have her way. Nature understands that all life is selfish. It will attempt to do absolutely everything for itself that it can for itself and itself only. Always.

 

I agree completely with what you say in this earlier post. Selfishness is the ultrimate goal of survival. What you are saying is that Nature has found ways and means to ensure this. When we look at it broadly speaking, we see that all forms of self-sacrifice are designed to lift selfishness to ever higher levels. Among humans, the highest form I can think of is that of the Bodhisatva, a Chinese Buddhist sage, who refused to enter Nirvana until all other sentient beings entered that blissful state first. IE. Heaven is not possible while another suffers in hell. So, by saving others, he is just trying to ensure that his eternal bliss is not spoiled by any concern for others.

In this respect. God then, is the most selfish Being in existence, for He wants us all back with him.

 

These is precisely the reasons why I am rooting for world peace. So that I can enjoy my game of golf without feeling guilty about some poor kid dying of starvation. Ergo, I am as selfish as one can get. :eek: