I very much like your argument. Who would want to play Monopoly if every game were the same? I thrill at the possibility that things could be different and I might effect that difference and nothing is more fun than reading a different point of view that gives me a better sense of meaning than I had before.

The bottom line is I pretty much like life as it is, but I would love to go back in history and change history, putting all of us on a different projector. Such as, what would happen if Abraham and his followers had never settled and remained nomadic herders? What if Athens had the power of Rome and Rome did not have military power? Or what if the Native Americans had been able to keep their land and the only way Europeans could live in America was to conform to the way of the Iroquois Confederacy? What if the US did not take Britain's side in WWI?

The problem may be with religious fundamentalism and its various forms. The subjective ans objective aspects of thinking may be important, especially the way in which ethical ideals and values are based on assumptions of religious belief, or secular perspectives of 'reality', with the religious ones being considered as more objective, in the absolutism of perspectives of religious thinking. — Jack Cummins

Last night, I watched a Nova explanation of "intelligent design" being a modern way of explaining "Creationism" and why it is not science. Creationism can not explain cause and effect and can not predict. Science explains cause and effect and a good check on that explanation is if it can predict the effect of a cause.

I do not have a good understanding of being objective or subjective. If I am trying to figure out how something works, am I being objective or subjective, or how about just curious? Like is wondering subjective of objective? What if we imagine something and check if it can be true like Einstein?

Or if I can get closer to the subject- do we know enough about economics to make good decisions about things that affect our economy? Would that be subjective or objective?

You all inspired me to look for a definition of the word "fact"

A fact is a true datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means. For example, "This sentence contains words." Wikipedia

Now I need to know what a datum is and this definition causes me to think about the Greek philosophers and what math had to do with the separation of rational thinking from the gods and the evolution of science coming out of philosophy.

A geodetic datum or geodetic system is a global datum reference or reference frame for precisely representing the position of locations on Earth or other planetary bodies by means of geodetic coordinates. Wikipedia

A fact is a fact if we are aware of it or not. Washing one's hands in polluted water can spread disease if observers realize that is what is happening or not. Making the ritual of washing of hands in an area that is wet and the well is close to the sewage a hazardous practice leading some to think the ritual of washing hands is not a good idea.

When reading the Bible we might want to do some fact checking before believing it is the word of God.

A theory might or might not be a fact. We can not judge that without checking and rechecking what we believe is true.

Myth is a genre of folklore or theology consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. For folklorists, historians, philosophers or theologians this is very different from the use of "myth" simply indicating that something is not true. Wikipedia

It is not factual. It is not science. It can not predict. What we think about myths is an opinion of what is true and believable.

I would love to go back in time and prevent all suffering, inequality, injustice, and deaths. I would love to make all living things all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful but I can't. — Truth Seeker

Hey, should we start a thread for that? Everyone can pick his/her time in history and place and say what should be changed, why, and how?

I loved Genghis Khan, the early Nintendo game. I loved that we could save the game and repeat a part of it if things went really wrong. I also liked how it expanded my ideas of what is important and how to balance everything. Most important lesson, war can destroy your empire, so don't go to war if it can be avoided. However, if the British are causing the people to starve to death there is no good choice but to try to get rid of them.

↪Athena I live in the U.K. currently but I was born in Bangladesh. I have read the book "Brave New World" and I don't have the time to watch the movie but thank you for the recommendation. Governments are supposed to protect people but they don't always succeed. — Truth Seeker

Why would anyone leave Bangladesh? I think of Bangladesh as very exotic and with a rich history. Meaning, that some of the earliest people at least passed through the region and later inhabitants developed pottery and things of metal. They had a very impressive military with elephants, surely the tanks of their day. That may have kept Alexander the Great from tromping all over them.

Today Bangladesh is one of the most threatened countries because of global warming but when the first people walked through it must have been a paradise with abundant food. I would love to go back in time and check it out.

Who gets to concentrate the wealth that farmers, miners, urban centers, traders, etc. create? — BC

That is a delicious question! But I want to point out the killing of which Truth Teller speaks is emotional and I don't think the US has ever dealt with the number of emotionally unstable people that it has today. Our western TV seems to focus on killing. Every episode someone is killed and that probably is not a realistic account of our past. But today the number of mass murders committed by emotionally unstable people is alarming. I think we need to get past the notion of good and bad people, and be more scientific about our understanding of such behavior. The moral being a matter of cause and effect.

I have noticed some people have a strong opinion of what it means to be a strong person and how this person should have control. I am not sure if they are part of the problem or part of the solution.

Now you have stated an opinion I don't agree with, and we were getting along so well! :smile: — BC

Not where he grew up. He has dealt with a lot of killing and lawlessness. There are areas on earth that are not healthy for humans because humans tend to fill their heads full of lies and than act on them in destructive ways. Hum, that could make a good thread. What is required for safe communities?

↪Athena That's interesting. Time will tell. Thank you for telling me about it. — Truth Seeker

For darn sure we are not going to achieve our full potential with the God of Abrahman and Biblical explanation of reality. As long as we cling to superstition we will not have good judgment about reality and ourselves.

↪Athena I am just going by what I have observed. 99.9% of all the species to evolve so far on Earth are already extinct. The world is full of omnivores, carnivores, herbivores, and parasites. Why aren't all living things autotrophs the way all plants (except for carnivorous plants) are? It would be even better if all living things were nonconsumers. Human history and our present are full of violence, murder, war, exploitation, slavery, genocide, rape, torture, robbery, theft, etc. I have been kidnapped, raped, beaten up and robbed. Six of my relatives were murdered in separate incidents. My best friend was also murdered. The criminals got away with the crimes. If hard determinism is true, the criminals are not even morally culpable. "Might is right. Adapt or die" is what I have seen from my earliest memories to the present. I hate all the suffering, inequality, injustice, and death in the world. I wish we lived in a nice world where everyone is forever happy. I don't think it would be boring. If every living thing were all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful and owned an infinite number of universes each, how could we be bored? — Truth Seeker

Where do you live, Chicago, New York, L.A. the jungles of Africa? We institute governments to protect ourselves from ourselves. However, that alone is not enough. :heart:

There can be no liberty without education for liberty, and perhaps there can be no security until every child experiences security. For sure, technology is essential to better lives, but until we figure out governments must be funded by thesource of income, we will not achieve the economic power required for better lives. When machines replace human labor, the source of income is those computers and machines and they must be taxed because they replace the human laborer that is taxed.
This is not a new idea, taxation began with property taxes, and our machines are property.

Securing the resources for low and high-tech economies can lead to war, so we have to be 100% honest about our need for resources and how to share the resources with the world. This is an intellectual feat we have not achieved. Religion has not helped us one bit when it comes to sharing the earth with others nor has the Bible given us the intellectual capacity for the honesty world peace requires.

Yipes as I struggle to imagine a perfect world, I am reminded of the novel/movie Brave New World. Have you seen it?

It could be fun to form a group that can commit to watching that movie 30 minutes at a time and then comment after each viewing. We must remember our best intentions can go very wrong.

↪Athena The universe of Star Trek is a positive one but it is fiction. I try hard to keep my personal ecological footprint low. Are you talking about New Age spirituality? — Truth Seeker

A notion of a New Age was carried by Masons and the forefathers of the US. It is part of the Enlightenment and hope for our democracy.

Spirituality may or may not be part of a person's understanding of the New Age. It is a time of technology and the end of tyranny. A time of peace on earth resulting from advanced intellectual strength and I believe we can achieve this if we do not destroy our planet before we do. This mental evolution means people in the New Age will not be able to relate to our more our primitive past that is dominated by being as animals without a well-developed intellect.

↪Athena Might is right. Adapt or die. This is how the real world works. I wish we lived in a nice world where every living thing is forever happy but we don't. — Truth Seeker

Be careful you might get what you wish for. It might not be what you want.

I have no desire to go to heaven. The idea of living eternally in perfection is not desirable. There would be no good movies or novels without problems to overcome. I have no idea what would motivate me to get up in the morning. Without problems to resolve, what would give me a sense of propose? Might such a life be intolerably boring?

"Might is right" is pretty primative and comes from the notion that God is the might and chooses who will live and who will die. Really? what kind of statement is "might makes right". You jest, right?

↪Athena I didn't know things were so bad. What is the solution? — Truth Seeker

At this point in time I don't know if there are any good solutions but I am very excited about the possibility of a New Age that could be more moral than any previous time in history. To prepare for that we must consider the possibility that we are in the Resurrection now. The past is being brought into the present by the archaeologist, geologist, and related sciences. It is our job to learn all we can, and reevaluate everything, so we can move into a New Age that is so different from the past those in the New Age will not be able to relate to the history of our past.

You know, like a Star Trek show where an advanced civilization makes us look primitive.

"morality" is that morality as cooperation is the underlying principle that explains why past and present cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist. — Mark S

Cooperation with whom? We are very diverse and we hold different ideas about God and God's will for us. I sure as blazes will not cooperate with people I want to avoid, like the Jevohva Witnesses who want to explain God to me and make me one of them. :grimace: Or the Christian Nationalists who are more authoritarian than liberal.

Neither I am going to support Israel at the expense of Palestine.

To me, it looks like we all have different ideas about what an ideal civilization is and want others to conform to our notion of how things should be. I don't feel very cooperative. My bad.

I've only read a few introductory summaries about Hegel but did not see that connection. — Mark S

I am sure freedom was not the grand Christian idea of what is desired and all German philosophers were influenced by Christianity. Martin Luther thought the witch hunts were necessary and that God decided who would be a master and who would be a slave. The Methodist believed they held the answer to making people good people. Quakers and Puritans competed to produce the most saints.

I have held the impression that Hegel thought freedom was obedience to the state and the state was God.

“The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on Earth. One must worship the state as a terrestrial divinity.” “A single person is something subordinate, and as such he must dedicate himself to the ethical whole. Hence, if the state claims life, the individual must surrender it.”Jan 6, 2017

Hegel on Worshipping the State - Library of Social Science — Library of Social Science

I am no authority on Hegel but for sure he was influence by the Christian notion of God and this blending of religion and the state holds some dangers.

I agree, but I think Mark is saying something more than this. Being a social animal is not a principle that underlies and encodes what it is that people think is moral. Within a societies there may be agreement but between societies there may be disagreement as to what behavior is and is not acceptable. He points to cooperation within a society but this is not the same thing as cooperation between societies. And even within a society we may cooperate with some members while conspiring against others. — Fooloso4

How about you are both right? I think we need to start at a base line. How would we behave if we did not have language and therefore the ability to argue with each other? Genghis Khan told his people to never pick one religion over another and never settle down in cities and begin accumulating things. Among the Mongols lying and stealing could be a death sentence. As Genghis Khan saw it there was no reason to lie of steal because a stranger lost in the storm was always given shelter and food. The reasoning for that is anyone could be lost in a storm and to refuse someone help could be a death sentence. We know these people as great warriors who would kill every man, woman and child and raze their towns to the ground, making the land good pasture land for their horses.

As they saw things people living in cities were immoral as they refused to help those who needed help, and some of them were very rich while others starved to death and had to lie and steal to have a chance of surviving this immoral city living.

Who was the most moral?

Yes, the difference in our environments can lead to differences in our understanding of morals, but we are all human, just as horses are horses and birds are birds. We most certainly can look at evolution and come to conclusions about being human. Then move on to understand why these humans don't agree with those humans. Or we can just study the Greek and Roman classics and pick up where they left off, as we all must work on our agreements just as the ancients did when they traveled and their paths crossed with people who were different.

↪Gnomon Please see https://thehumaneleague.org/article/environmental-benefits-of-veganism — Truth Seeker

:gasp: Just because the factory farm produces plants instead of meat, that does not make them sustainable. It is not possible for us to use soil over and over again without replenishing the nutrients in the soil and even than this does not give us the soil that is replenished by volcanos or flooding or an ice age that shoved top soil into valleys. One of the most important nutrients is phosphate and if current usage of it continues, the world's supply maybe depleted by 2050. Just as serious is our fertilizer is made with petroleum. We are less worried about that than we were before fracking made oil more available to us but believing our farming practices are healthy and sustainable is just wrong. Not only are we depleting the minerals but we are polluting rivers and oceans. "GeoDistinies" by Walter Youngquist.

The huge industrial farms we have today resulted from a study to improve the lives of small farmers. Instead of the study improving the lives of small farmers, it destroyed them because the study revealed the industrial farms could feed more people than small farmers can feed. So the small farmers were sacrificed for the good of the millions of hungry people.

Now we have the global warming that is rapidly depleting our water supply. In area fed by meling glaciers, we can see the trouble coming but the depletion of underground water is not so visible. The world is about to experience severe water shortages that could lead to desertification of our once fertile land.

The moral of this story is the ancients were correct when they foresaw the day when there would be more life on earth than the earth could support. There is nothing mystical about the Biblical last days. It is just Fibonacci math and knowing the struggle for survival.

I do not mean becoming vegetarian would not improve things temporarily, only that solution is temporary.

↪BC I agree that we also go to war over resources e.g. land, oil, etc. — Truth Seeker

And so do most animals. What makes us different is our ability to think about such things. We want to believe our wars are just wars, whereas animals don't ask the question, they just chase away the immigrants. :lol: Do we have anything to gain by allowing the immigrants to move in or take control of a neighbor's homeland? What are the morals we might gain from Greek and Roman history versus the success of Christianity and other religions?

I didn't claim or imply that it did. You make it an empty phrase, Mark, by confessing you do not know what "our ultimate moral goals" are and yet propose that a "science of morality" can describe conditions which determine them. This kind of jugglery is of no use to moral philosophy. — 180 Proof

We used to read our children moral tales and at the end of the story ask them what is the moral of the story. The moral was a matter of cause and effect. The Little Red Hen did not share her bread because no one helped her make it. The fox did not get the grapes because he gave up and walked away saying they were probably sour anyway. The Little Engine that could, made it over the hill because he did not give up.

The book titled, "The Science of Good and Evil" uses animal studies to make its point. I think that pretty well determines some of the science of morality.

That what is thought of as moral is biologically encoded is at best a hypothesis and at worse an unsubstantiated assertion. In either case it is in need of scientific evidence. What is that evidence? — Fooloso4

I am not sure I understand you correctly but I do know doing something nice for others is one of the best ways to feel good. We know our sexual behavior is linked to our hormones. We know men's testrogene level increases when they watch football and this can lead to aggressive behavior. Isn't our knowledge of hormones scientific evidence?

Or how about the study of animals and how it can help us understand our own good and evil? We are one of many different social species. All social animals are biologically influenced to conform to social expectations and if one of their kind steps out of line, another will react in a way that encourages conformity. This results in nonconformers being pushed to the outer circle where they are the most apt to become a carnivore's dinner.

The potential to "do anything." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Looks as though you put some serious effort into expanding your consciousness and writing your reply. I want to respect that. I also want to move the discussion forward with argument.

Potential to do what? Is Trump a good model of a free man grabbing women by the pussy and bragging about it? Is this the model of leadership we want or is there something wrong with that understanding of freedom? Do we want a leader who says he can get away with murder? Are there desired restrictions to "freedom"? Freedom without principles and good moral judgment can be an evil. Education that has nothing to do with principles and good moral judgment, but focuses on power and freedom, might increase evil.

When we tore down all the restrictions on freedom of speech and action and promoted Superman, did we open the bowels of hell? I think this has something to do with the development of Nazi, Germany and what is happening in the US today. The story we tell ourselves is very important so we should pay careful attention to them.

And the father who gets up to tend to the baby may not gladly do this if the mother does not share this responsibility. There are negative consequences to sleep deprivation and taking someone for granted. I am struggling with this argument because I think our motive to do this or that is complex. It is not just about our character but also the circumstances.

How do we decide what is fact and what is opinion? There are more than 8.1 billion humans on Earth and our conflicting ideologies, religions, worldviews and values divide us. I worry that we will destroy ourselves and all the other species with our conflicts. I think that if we could work out what is fact and what is opinion, it would help us get on with each other better. — Truth Seeker

I agree with you. We do need to know the difference between a fact or an opinion. Believing in a God can not be a belief about fact because there is no substance that can be empirically studied. However, we can study animals and learn about humans.

Religion has to be opinion. An opinion that a mythology is true. The temperature of the sea and reality of increasing natural disasters are a fact. Believing a God will save our sorry asses and give us a new planet to destroy, is not based on fact.

One is in our heads and not empirically studied. The other can be empirically studied. However, :chin: math is pretty abstract and not exactly matter but it is amazing what we can know with math. Is there a word for this that is other than "opinion" or "fact"?

Interestingly, for Hegel, this historical question is central the ethics proper. Both what we "have done," and what we "ought to do," are ultimately driven by reason's propelling humanity towards the accomplishment of human freedom. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Freedom from what?

I for one, would rather have a sense of duty than freedom. I want a life based on principles, not a life without them. And I want a society that values virtues, duty, principles, and an understanding of being part of something much bigger than myself.

I forgot to say I want liberty that is curbed with morals.

Descartes wanted to achieve a scientific moral code. Due to the fact he couldn't, he came up with a provisional morality whose maxims, more or less based on common sense, are given in the Discourse. — Lionino

"God's law is 'right reason.' When perfectly understood it is called 'wisdom.' When applied by government in regulating human relations it is called 'justice." Cicero

Many sources talk about the science of morality, but I find no agreement on how to define what it studies. — Mark S

The relationship between cause and effect.

As for the idea of political correctness as a 'horror show', I am wondering who determines what the horror is exactly? — Jack Cummins

:scream: Nazi, Germany-fascism! The essentials for that are firmly planted in the US because it adopted the German models of bureaucracy and education. The good intentions of a fascist political organization are good but poorly thought out.

I was going to start a thread about Christian Nationalism and Shia law and Muslims. In the US past people did not discuss religion as we do today, and they did not blend religion and politics because they held a passion for liberty. That is all changed and today. We have much to fear from Christian Nationalist as we reason to fear Shia law and Muslims. The only difference between the Christian Nationalist and Muslims is the Christian Nationalist out number the Muslims. Both want to control us through politics because both believe this is pleasing to God.

Never mind what such belief has to do with the state controlling everyone, and fascism, and the end of liberty. Both Christian Nationalists and Muslims want the power of God in their hands, to interpret and enforce the will of God as they see fit.

Yes, I’m not speaking about any particular mythology, or even necessarily God. (I did use dead grandma to make the same point.) I’m saying if there was any unexplainable physical event someone experienced (maybe unexplained because they were stupid), but unexplained by all reason they can muster, AND, that fantastical miracle forced into their face came with words and a message, AND those words showed a meaning to that person that was bigger than they knew before - then they might say “no wonder the bush didn’t burn, or the phoenix rose from the ashes. Something even more than all of this happened here. I am now included in this new meaning, by hearing this new message.”

You don’t have to say more here. The point is made. Amadeus gets it and rejects it.

I do think I’d need a pretty big, crazy miracle, with some trusted witnesses around maybe to compare notes, before I delved to deeply into the message. But I’m just guessing how I’d be listening to a “sprit” or something. — Fire Ologist

This argument might do better in a different thread. What exactly is the experience? Words can be "heard" but they do not "show" meaning.

Any sense of meaning comes from the thoughts of the person hearing the words. We are observing animals and attempting to explain the meaning of the noises they make. Only after we have ascribed meaning to the sound do we know the meaning of the sound. Otherwise, the meaning is not implicit in the sound.

If someone believes a burning bush and a loud voice means a god is present, that meaning is based on what that person believes. In other words, you have to believe in gods and that gods do such things, before you can think that is the meaning of the moment.

Nonbelievers just can not believe such stories. If I had an experience like that, I might look for aliens but not a god.

If you are interested in how deductive logic 'emerges' from neural networks, you might like G. Spencer Brown's The Laws of Form — unenlightened

Now that is a little more interesting than the Bible and it goes nicely with my math books. Thank you.

Retrospective accuracy is not a commonly recognized scientific term or concept in the field of science or research. It does not have a specific definition or understanding within the scientific community.
However, based on the words themselves, "retrospective accuracy" could potentially refer to the accuracy of information or data collected or analyzed after an event or study has taken place, looking back in time. This could involve the evaluation of past records, memories, or historical data to assess the accuracy of previous assessments or predictions. It could be a way of determining how well something was predicted or measured in hindsight. — Josh Alfred

As I read this, what I thought you were talking about was how we judge if something is believable or not. For example, one may be persuaded to believe the mythology of Christianity, if one already holds an idea of gods who make things happen and who punish or reward humans. Whereas, if one had no concept of such supernatural beings, the mythology of a god punishing sinners and saving people, may not be believable. Do my beliefs make what is said of a god a possible reality? How empirical is that?

So my point was there may be more reason to think a burning bush was an impossible miracle of God, not because the bush burned but wasn’t burned, but because of the words that were communicated. Something, to that person (not you, I don’t know what words might give you pause, because I’m not God), something to that person brought awe and fear and inspiration and power, something overwhelming making one willing to say God, just because of the words spoken. — Fire Ologist

How about this.... You are speaking of a mythology and not about a god. Do you have anything to say of the concept of "god" that is not dependent on the God of Abraham mythology?

The United states likes to think of itself one of the strongest democracies. But it does not rank with Europe, Canada and Australia, as much as with India, Brazil and Indonesia. — Banno

This has nothing to do with the topic of this thread but here is information about the space efforts made by all the nations. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-space-programs

It was the USSR that was the first to enter space. The Sputnik launch changed everything!!! That is one of my most passionate arguments because it is what resulted in the 1958 National Defense Education Act that replaced US liberal education with education for technology. https://www.nasa.gov/history/sputnik/index.html

Also if you follow my arguments, I credit the Prussians and Hilter's Germany for where the USA is today. Had it not been for the Prussian bureaucratic order and WWII and the USSR developing a nuclear weapon and a satellite that circled earth, the USA would not be the country it is today. Like if you and others want to argue with me about perceived US elitism, I am willing but that should be a different thread. I don't think my arguments are the arguments you expect from a US citizen.

Sis, it is not an emergency. There are always enough competing selfish interests to balance things out. — L'éléphant

Hum, I should never post when In a rush. My post was missing a lot of words. But to get back on subject, I don't think selfish interest are much good compared to having a good understanding of what is so and why.

"Unless we're motivated by principle in our voting, we walk into a mirrored echo chamber, where there's no coherence," Kucinich

am currently watching Fareed Zakaria's Sunday program on CNN. During his "Fareed's Take" segment at the beginning of the show, Zakaria discusses religiosity and political events in the US and elsewhere.

It's worth checking out for people interested in this topic. — wonderer1

Thank you. He seems well-informed and pleasantly rational. He says it as it is without emotionalism. I think he is right up there with Walter Cronkite. :up:

Doesn’t mean it might not still be a hallucination or just a dream, or a fantasy wish, but if what was said really meant something, and hit home to you, and it was new, you might have to wonder about God. — Fire Ologist

Reading these posts and thinking about them often is an enlightening experience. I am holding a new concept or get a deeper meaning of a concept and then wonder why it took me so long to realize it before. When we old we have a much broader perspective. We may have trouble learning facts, but our ability to understand meanings increases.

However, if Einstien were to speak to me about math concepts, I am quite sure I would not understand him. If God spoke to me, he would have to make it very simple. It worries me when someone thinks s/he can know the word of God and God's will. I don't think things work that way.

Notice the contradiction in "Soft despotism gives people the illusion that they are in control, when in fact they have very little influence over their government. Soft despotism breeds fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the general populace." Does soft despotism give the illusion of control or induce fear?

Sure, there were mistakes made in education, as there were in health, economics, International relations. None of these are determinative of the course of history.

Perhaps the problem is a turning against 'merca's own expression of liberal values. Or were they ever broadly understood? — Banno

What a delicious question about despots!!! How do we organize ourselves so the Government can do what Government has to do? The answer may not be that easy. I kind of what to stick with the subject of the thread so I will point out that the organization problem was a big problem for the Church. The Church had to rely on kings to take care of worldly matters. In the competition for power and authority, some kings aligned themselves with the Church to legitimize their claim to power and authority. Then the Church loses the struggle for power and Protestants are broken up seats of power that in the US is no power at all without the blessing of the Government. :lol:

This gets even messier because when Franklin Roosevelt came to power he with the help of Hoover adopted the Prussian model that is Prussian military bureaucracy applied to the masses. This is a huge shift if power and authority away from the people, and the people in the US are clueless. They have no idea that this happened and the are virtually powerless because they are so ignorant of the bureaucratic change and what it has to do with them.

Hum, why would say education does not influence the flow of history? :gasp: How did you come to that notion?

“Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” Aristotle

"Give us a child till he's 7 and we'll have him for life." a Jesuit

"Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."
Vladimir Lenin

Every nation prepares its young for life, just as tribal people did with storytelling and rituals. The word "civilize" means to make another one of us. In some ways, this is even more important in a nation dependent on technology. The US has forgotten what education has to do with being civilized and it may self-destruct as culture wars tear us apart. We began preparing our young to be products for industry. Immigrants who have not had this preparation are not of much value. For military and industrial reasons our children must be prepared as we are doing it but this is not the culture we once had that made us strong in wars.

Oh yes, our liberal values were understood, but the meaning was not shared. In different degrees none Whites were excluded from the benefits of our nation, and most White people saw discrimination and exploitation of the powerless their right. Oh, oh, oh, this has so much to do with the change in our bureaucratic order but now I put so many points into this thread it has lost its coherence. My grandmother walked away from a teaching job when the Principle interfered with her authority in the classroom and today we are seeing teachers, nurses, and doctors walk away from the corporate control of them. Today's reality is not the one I grew up with, where women accepted low pay or did things for no pay because they believed what they were doing was the right thing to do and very meaningful. Our liberty is tied to a sense of dignity and self-worth. We have destroyed that.

There are well known problems with historicism. That civilisations collapse is a Western notion, an expectation that we must reenact the fall of Rome. The collapse of the British Empire was felt keenly in the decline of Great Britain. It did not bring with it social collapse in Australia, Canada, India, and Africa, these nations seeing it instead mostly as an opportunity. The end of the 'mercan hegemony will similarly have the greatest impact inside that nation. — Banno

I think our economies are intertwined and the fall of the US would strongly impact other economies and possibly technological advancement as well. Which other country could maintain the satellites and earth studies? I expect China to become a technological leader but it is taking longer than I expected. Japan is very impressive but it is too small to have the economy for space projects. Again I am not confident of what I think but it sure is fun making the effort to think. What if the world united to save our planet and advance technology for the good of the whole world. :groan: That is not going to happen with religion or leaders like Trump because religion relies on a god not the potential of humanity. The religious still have not adjusted to reality of what we have done to feed the world, keep the young and old alive with medicine, improve life on earth with clean water and in-door plumbing, etc.. We have over come evils with science but the religious folks don't see it as what we have done with our desire and effort.

I am watching college lectures about the rise and fall of South American civilizations and they also lived with a prediction of doom. I am thinking, their expectation of doom caused their doom just as it could cause ours. Whoopy, we could be entering a world war and prove all the religious people right about the will of God is to destroy us just it destroyed Mayans and Aztecs who walked away from the great cities.

am not disagreeing. However, doesn't this apply, even if to varying degrees to: Communists, Capitalists, Racial Supremacists, Certain groups of Academics and Scholars, etc. Note also that while historically, the same might not have applied to "Hinduism," but the Hinduism of Modi? — ENOAH

I am out of time but want to say all this is very complex and it is my hope when have a good understanding of the complexity, we will gain power and avoid disaster. A lot is going on here beginning with evolution gave us some thinking power but enough to manage without a strong way to work together.

Democracy is underpinned by a liberal system of values. that system was distorted to individualism and greed in the Seventies, and has been exposed to oligarchic alternatives with the opening of trade and travel since then. Libertarian absurdities abound, community institutions are underfunded, the common wealth has been striped to feed private wealth. — Banno

I am reading and rereading what you said and that brings me to a second thought. Around 1835 Tocqueville wrote "Democracy in America" and he warned because of Christianity, Christian democraies would become despots.

Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people.[1]

Soft despotism gives people the illusion that they are in control, when in fact they have very little influence over their government. Soft despotism breeds fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the general populace. Alexis de Tocqueville observed that this trend was avoided in America only by the "habits of the heart" of its 19th-century populace. — Wikipedia

"habits of the heart" come through education and the US replaced its liberal education with education for technology and left moral training to the church in 1958. The US added training for technology to education in 1917 for military and industrial reasons but it kept its education for citizenship as a priority until the 1958 National Defense Education Act.

Because of forum communication, this change seems to be universal, even in third-world countries. So the only question would be how might things have been different before leaving moral training to the Church? How has technology birthed a backlash against science? What might the New World Order have to do with destroying family order?

I agree with you but I don't know enough to organize that complexity in my head. I am also loath to give up the notion that this is related to education and a failure to understand the importance of culture and how it is transmitted. However, I want to know more.

What about the book "Immoderate Greatness> Why Civilizations Fall" Might this book be worth buying?

Book Overview
*Immoderate Greatness* explains how a civilization's very magnitude conspires against it to cause downfall. Civilizations are hard-wired for self-destruction. They travel an arc from initial success to terminal decay and ultimate collapse due to intrinsic, inescapable biophysical limits combined with an inexorable trend toward moral decay and practical failure. Because our own civilization is global, its collapse will also be global, as well as uniquely devastating owing to the immensity of its population, complexity, and consumption. To avoid the common fate of all past civilizations will require a radical change in our ethos-to wit, the deliberate renunciation of greatness-lest we precipitate a dark age in which the arts and adornments of civilization are partially or completely lost. This description may be from another edition of this product. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/immoderate-greatness-why-civilizations-fail/9180382/item/7370178/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pmax_high_vol_scarce_%2410_%2450&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwwr6wBhBcEiwAfMEQszmao1Nvr8VQL1R4emGu6cGu0hSDDjBWtbAQhuk2cgBNivMVNrFS6RoCo-MQAvD_BwE#idiq=7370178&edition=8527883

There is a tone of 'Mercan chauvinism in your posts. But your democracy is broken by far more than a touch of religious thinking. — Banno

Please explain. Do you mean you think that I think the democracy in the US is superior to all other nations? If so why do you think that?

I so envy Europeans who in my opinion have a much better sense of democracy than Americans, and on the internet, I met a Syrian Professor who was amazing in his knowledge of democracy as it came from Greek philosophy and through the history of that region. Maybe we can establish some talking points?

No one saw democracy in the Bible until there was literacy in Greek and Roman classics. That literature is essential to defending democracy and Americans stopped transmitting a culture based on that literature when liberal education in grade schools was replaced with education for technology and moral training was left up to the Church. God has not chosen Trump to be our leader. But evangelicals believe Trump is God's choice. These people have a lot of power.

I am, trying to keep the focus on the subject of the thread. This is a matter of power and authority and the abuse of religion. In America Protestants were thrilled with science that was part of the break from Catholicism. Now they believe telling people to wear masks, wash their hands, and get vaccinated is a conspiracy of the government that did those things to have control over us, not because science says that is the best way to deal with a pandic. What is happening here, happened in Germany only today it is rural Evangelical Christians causing the problem not Nazis. The Evangicals can get the upper hand because of mass ignorance and emotional appeal, just as Nazis were able to win by being emotionally appealing to rural people with a strong belief that God is in control and evil is real like Satan and devils.