I’m not so sure that the latest lot of criminals, acid throwers, gang knifings have all been indoctrinated by religion.
religion or no, there will always been wars, war crimes, and several other forms of nastiness, I can’t agree that all those people were so deeply religious they just had to do those things.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
I agree, Lyn. The Crusades, Columbus, colonialism generally, they were excused to the people at home and soldiers were recruited by talk of religion but the reason was material greed. Had religion not been invented, those things would probably still have happened, but they'd have been called by another name. In the end, when resources are limited, people will fight, one way or another, to keep or gain what 'we' have for 'us' and take it from 'them'. How we define 'us' and 'them' is largely incidental. We can always find difference when it suits us.
Schools should teach children how to think not what to think.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Religion is/was often just an excuse for violence, power, wealth.
I do feel for those who have lost a spouse just before Christmas. I lost my husband in 1998, I was 47, 4 children. Christmas was awful that year, not much better the year after, but as the years go by it gets better and better. You can't live with that grief forever, life picks up and you find new joys and new friends, you don't forget the past but you learn to live with it and enjoy life again.
I wonder why Mike was alone, he has family.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
It's not the science that's the problem ... it's what we do with it ... if we all thought further than the end of our noses we might have produced something more useful to humanity than the atomic bomb with that bit of scientific knowledge
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Maybe the natural intrinsic violence of humanity is responsible ; as Busy-Lizzie says , " violence , power , wealth " ; someone always wants more ; she missed "greed" from that list .
Be interesting to see what the next 'dominant species' makes of this world .
Dove we tend to forget that war is the mother of invention, the first world war saw it go from a static killing ground to fire and movement with tanks planes and guns synchronised to move forward. Maybe it was just four miles in the hour but it was the start of modern warfare. I have memory of twin wing planes with a single engine and thinking it was the crux of invention, six years later we had Jets, Rockets and the A Bomb, we would never of had them so quickly without the war pushing science to the limit. The Cold war certainly kick started the post war science and technology revolution and for 50 years each new move brought counter move.
The military was based on people wanting adventure, seeing new places and getting paid for doing so, the fact that stupid politicians would decide to send us into harms way never really entered our heads until it happened. The first few years I served they never even brought the bodies home, what happened to those burial grounds in Jaffa and places like that.
Most of us want to get on with our lives in as peaceful a way as possible yet watching the rise of a mad Right and crazy left militant groups trying to impose rabid ideas on those in the middle makes me think the world is crackers, and so are we for letting it happen.
It's not science OR religion. Human beings have always developed belief systems that pander to desire for power and resources. This is deep in our genes. I believe it CAN be overcome, but not by teaching children in schools because children are born into a pre-existing culture which is bigger than individuals and cannot be changed by them. If we are to rise above our instincts we will need science and philosophy and great wisdom to select leaders who can push towards reform. Mr Trump does not quite meet these requirements, I suspect.
Posts
I’m not so sure that the latest lot of criminals, acid throwers, gang knifings have all been indoctrinated by religion.
religion or no, there will always been wars, war crimes, and several other forms of nastiness, I can’t agree that all those people were so deeply religious they just had to do those things.
I agree, Lyn. The Crusades, Columbus, colonialism generally, they were excused to the people at home and soldiers were recruited by talk of religion but the reason was material greed. Had religion not been invented, those things would probably still have happened, but they'd have been called by another name. In the end, when resources are limited, people will fight, one way or another, to keep or gain what 'we' have for 'us' and take it from 'them'. How we define 'us' and 'them' is largely incidental. We can always find difference when it suits us.
Schools should teach children how to think not what to think.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Religion is/was often just an excuse for violence, power, wealth.
I do feel for those who have lost a spouse just before Christmas. I lost my husband in 1998, I was 47, 4 children. Christmas was awful that year, not much better the year after, but as the years go by it gets better and better. You can't live with that grief forever, life picks up and you find new joys and new friends, you don't forget the past but you learn to live with it and enjoy life again.
I wonder why Mike was alone, he has family.
Admittedly Philippa , but science has given us also nearly everything we take for granted nowadays
.
It's not the science that's the problem ... it's what we do with it ... if we all thought further than the end of our noses we might have produced something more useful to humanity than the atomic bomb with that bit of scientific knowledge
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Maybe the natural intrinsic violence of humanity is responsible ; as Busy-Lizzie says , " violence , power , wealth " ; someone always wants more ; she missed "greed" from that list .
Be interesting to see what the next 'dominant species' makes of this world .
The brontosaurus had a brain no bigger than a crisp
The Dodo had a stammer and the Mammoth had a lithp
The Auk was just too awkward, now they're none of them alive
Each one, like Man, had showed themselves unfitted to survive
Their story points a moral, now it's we who wear the pants
The extinction of these species holds a lesson for us Ants
(Flanders and Swann)
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Dove we tend to forget that war is the mother of invention, the first world war saw it go from a static killing ground to fire and movement with tanks planes and guns synchronised to move forward. Maybe it was just four miles in the hour but it was the start of modern warfare. I have memory of twin wing planes with a single engine and thinking it was the crux of invention, six years later we had Jets, Rockets and the A Bomb, we would never of had them so quickly without the war pushing science to the limit. The Cold war certainly kick started the post war science and technology revolution and for 50 years each new move brought counter move.
The military was based on people wanting adventure, seeing new places and getting paid for doing so, the fact that stupid politicians would decide to send us into harms way never really entered our heads until it happened. The first few years I served they never even brought the bodies home, what happened to those burial grounds in Jaffa and places like that.
Most of us want to get on with our lives in as peaceful a way as possible yet watching the rise of a mad Right and crazy left militant groups trying to impose rabid ideas on those in the middle makes me think the world is crackers, and so are we for letting it happen.
Frank.
It's not science OR religion. Human beings have always developed belief systems that pander to desire for power and resources. This is deep in our genes. I believe it CAN be overcome, but not by teaching children in schools because children are born into a pre-existing culture which is bigger than individuals and cannot be changed by them. If we are to rise above our instincts we will need science and philosophy and great wisdom to select leaders who can push towards reform. Mr Trump does not quite meet these requirements, I suspect.
What an excellent 'gardening' forum!!!.........