If you want to make Christianity out to be a polytheistic religion, it seems like you'd have more luck with the concepts of God the Father and God the Son, both of whom are straight forward enough. Then there is sainthood and the practice of praying to saints. There is aside from saints in general, Mary, the mother of God. Then there are powerful angels (Michael, Gabriel and maybe Raphael). There is also Satan, the angel with the worst credit rating, but one who is apparently quite active.

I never found the Trinity a very useful concept, and most preachers have difficulty making sense of it to congregations. "It's a mystery" alright.

Unitarian view: there is God. Period.

Right, but there can't be anywhere that God is not located then. Including every cell of bodies, ever elementary particle, etc. — Terrapin Station

So, since God was the very first quantum mechanic, I am sure he has no problem being in the precise location of all those whizzy particles at once.

There are a lot of people all over Ohio. Had Cleveland crashed when you were still there (flaming rivers of muck, etc.)? Never been in Cleveland either. I've been in London, Ohio, and been across Ohio a couple of times. Why, oh why, Ohio. Song written by Betty Comden, Leonard Bernstein, and Adolph Green. It's from the play, Wonderful Town. "Wonderful" didn't reference any burg in Ohio.

This is just for your cultural literacy. Personally, I think the song sucks. Even if LB did have something to do with it.

The idea isn't that every location is the entirety of God. But God needs to be present at every location for omnipresence. — Terrapin Station

Yes, that's my understanding - God is present AT every location. Thanks for the tip on Akron, without which I almost passed up the all-expense-paid 2 week budget tour of Paris for the all-expense paid weekend luxury tour of Akron. What was your impression of Akron? When were you there?

Back in the 80's I read a good book on plant closings called "Magic City". The town wasn't named in the book but I'm pretty sure it was Akron. It was about how the plant closings affected the workers -- not positively. About the time I was reading the book, a large plant closed in St. Paul and the local PBS station did a series of interviews and follow-ups with a group of the workers. The electronics workers and the rubber workers had pretty much the same experience.

But all that is neither here nor there as far as this thread goes. How do you think God feels about Akron?

Full Disclosure: I've never been in Akron, Ohio or Paris, France. It's possible that both of them are fictional places.

So how would you say that God wouldn't be the same as Paris if he's omnipresent? — Terrapin Station

Because I said so? Will that work?

Wouldn't God have a problem being the same as Paris and Akron, Ohio at the same time? I mean, there are limits on what is imaginable, even for god, right?

Look, when people conceived and developed this version of god, they used superlatives: Creator of all things, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, Immortal, Invincible, God only wise, etc. Omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, omni-magnum-cum-laude--whatever you want. God "created" the world. The world-creating god existed before the world, and is not one and the same with the world. Is this contradictory?

If it is contradictory, it wouldn't be the only thing about religion that is.

I've decided I'm going to my grave thinking that god is not one and the same as Paris and Akron at the same time.

You wouldn't suggest those folks be given a tax break? — Hanover

They already have received a tax break. Low inheritance taxes (or quasi legal dodges) is one of the reasons they have a pile to sit on in the first place.

But yes, the reason we tax rich people more than poor people is because that is where the money is. We just don't tax them enough.

Never mind about examples. I know ALL ABOUT IT from personal experience. I've never made much money, but on quite a few occasions a slight hike in income has put me in a slightly higher tax bracket. How about this for unfairness: my property tax (a hefty chunk which goes to support city and county services--it's as much as health insurance and co-pays) goes up because my assessed value goes up, even though I haven't done any value-raising maintenance to the house in 25 years.

Still I don't complain too much about taxes. The local government operations provide a lot of the services that make a difference to the quality of life here (like transit, police, fire, welfare, libraries, schools (not sure if the schools are helping very many) street cleaning and repair, health services, and so on. So do the feds: ss, medicare, medicaid, disability, defending America from Iranians who would otherwise force us to buy their entire pistachio crop a high prices, and so on.

I'm retired, so I'm not paying federal taxes--finally. Yes, the tax system is a blunt instrument, and those can be very painful.

present everywhere — Terrapin Station

I take omnipresence to mean present in all places at all times. So, under this notion of omnipresence God is present at all times everywhere. Time, in other words, does not pass for God, since God is present at all times at once, everywhere.

That's what I think omnipresence means. If I believed in God (as I once did) omnipresence would be a plank in my platform of belief. For God there are no mysteries, because God is present at the beginning and at every moment there after. (Beginning of what? Beginning of the Cosmos? End of the Cosmos? God is presumably infinite, so there is no beginning or end, but lots of sub-units of creation last only a little while. Like our esteemed selves, for example. "Death, like an over-flowing stream, sweeps us away. Our life is but a dream, an empty tale; a morning flower, cut down and withered in an hour" That seems to be a paraphrase of one hymnodist's work by another.

But then Isaac Watts was borrow from Psalm 90:

1 Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

2 Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

3 Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the same.

4 Thy word commands our flesh to dust,
"Return, ye sons of men:"
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.

5 A thousand ages in thy sight
Are like an ev'ning gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

6 The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by the flood,
And lost in following years.

7 Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the op'ning day.

8 Like flowery fields the nations stand
Pleased with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower's hand
Lie with'ring ere 'tis night.]

9 Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

If God is you, then you don't exist.

I am present in front of my computer; I am present in my house; I am present in The Philosophy Forum, yet I am not coextensive with my computer, the house, or TPS. Why can't God be present in Paris, but not be the same as Paris? Or be present in your toilet bowl while not being the same as a toilet bowl?

Correct: HAD NOT rather than HAD.

Your focus on the sad case of Jack and Mary is trivial. A very large number of workers could work twice as many hours as somebody else and their higher income wouldn't put them in a higher tax bracket. Besides, you didn't specify how many hours either of them worked, or what their wages were. If Jack worked 1 hour for $10, and Mary worked 2 hours for $20, they would be in the same tax bracket.

In general, the American tax system is regressive, because the effect of the tax burden is heavier on lower income workers than on high income workers, or people who live off rent and dividends. Taxing someone who earns $50k and supporting 3 other people at the rate of 30% is much more onerous than taxing someone who earns $1,000,000 a year at 30%, even if they support 6 people.

Also, the services individuals receive from governments varies over time and place. Children receive educational services that adults don't. Disabled people receive services that able-bodied people don't. People receiving dialysis receive financial assistance that 99% of the population don't receive. And so on.

Progressivity and regressivity of taxes also changes over time. It depends who controls the Senate and House with veto-proof majorities and which side of the bread the politicians think has the most butter.

By your reasoning, then, everything is God; God is everything. Fine by me, but it seems to me in the scriptures God is not everything and everything is not God. At least that was the message I got several times.

That's not a flaw. Rather, there is a need to plan carefully. — ralfy

Right, I wasn't saying your thinking was flawed. What is flawed is the idea that a simple redistribution of wealth (a check arrives in 3 billion mailboxes) would fix everything.

I agree that a limited supply of material resources (exploitable metals, good soil, fresh water, stable climate) is a fatal limitation on both population and development.

The idea of "original sin" was, as I understand it, created to balance the act of final salvation by Jesus Christ. This wasn't Jesus' idea. It was elaborated many years later by theologians trying to make sense of Jesus' death and systematize a scheme of salvation.

As I understand it, Judaism is not focused on the Eden story the same way Christian are. For one thing, there is a "do over" in the story of Noah. Noah and his family are saved, everybody else is wiped out. We (figuratively) descend from Noah as well as from Adam.

Anybody has to wonder why people can't behave. We seem to be prone to error, as the theory of Original Sin suggests. None of us can go very long without doing something wrongful, in thought, word, or deed, and some of us go very, very wrong fairly often.

A modern, secular thinker can say, "Well, we are primates who house all the base urges of the animal world (of which we are a part), but hitched to those basic animal urges is a high level of intelligence and creativity which can take us both to the heights of goodness and to the depths or depravity. That's just what we are." That kind of thinking wasn't available to the Christians of the first century. (It doesn't seem to be available to some people in the 21st century either.)

it seems grossly unfair because we are saying to some people: “you have to pay more to get the same service as other folks who are paying less than you — tinman917

Wealthy people should pay more because they are actually receiving more services and better than poor people. How can that be?

Government is, as Karl Marx noted, a committee to organize the affairs of the Bourgeoisie (aka, wealthy people). Government provides many services which help wealthy people do business around the world. Sometimes these services are as crude as gunboat diplomacy, but usually the services are subtler. If it had EDIT: not been for the US Government deciding in the 1930s that control over Arabian (and other) petroleum reserves was a critical requirement, a great many fortunes in petroleum would not have been possible. That's one example.

Another example of government assistance is the construction and maintenance of ports and transportation facilities (especially highways). Everyone benefits from these services which facilitate trade, but they are a huge help in accumulating fortunes through trade.

Government activity designed to facilitate business is everywhere. Take the last Great Recession. Had it not been for a huge government bailout of very big financial firms, a lot of very rich people would have ended up broke.

Regressive taxation has been extremely helpful in assisting wealthy people getting much wealthier.

Get the picture?

Then God can't be omnipresent. — Terrapin Station

Why not? I don't see a problem in God being omnipresent in a cosmos that is separate from God.

It seems like some people are often in zero-profit / minimal loss relationships. No body is having a very good, time, and nobody is being beaten up or murdered. Neither the benefits nor the costs quite exceed the other. It's a draw.

There are reasons: One party likes having someone to blame, the other party feels they deserve the blame. Alcohol quite often figures into this, even if only one of the two is alcoholic. It is sometimes hard to balance things out, because the benefits in one area, and costs in another don't have a connection.

All this crap can exist in any relationship--gay straight or otherwise.

Why do people put up with meager maximum rewards?

One reason is the value of having "a relationship". Better to be in a crappy one than be without any. Loneliness can be very unpleasant. Relationships garner a certain amount of status.

People who are reasonably healthy and reasonably strong (referencing psychological traits here) will generally leave these relationships in time. If they are not reasonably strong and healthy, they may stay in the relationship for a long time.

People on both sides of these unappealing relationships, may not be aware of what they are doing, When both people are trapped in a kind of solipsistic habit of just seeing the world from their own narrow perspective, they aren't able to make a good judgement about their own behavior. Our capacity to persist in unproductive behavior is really quite remarkable. Even very bright people, even those with excellent social and observational skills, can miss the fact of their solipsistic POV.

There is a flaw in the redistribution scheme. Before I continue... I believe that the severe disproportionality of wealth should and could be corrected. Be that as it may, though...

If you take the wealth of the richest 2000, 200, or 20 and distributed it evenly to the poor, they would be much better off, but not for long. First, inserting a few billion dollars into the economy of Kenya or Laos would cause an immediate inflationary surge (too much money pursuing too few goods). One could slowly infuse the poor Kenyan's or Laotians share into the economy, which would be better. But however it was distributed, when it was gone, it would be back to business as usual.

The really difficult task of redistribution of wealth is to use the proceeds to develop the economy of Kenya or Laos such that they would produce more of the goods (housing, food, health care... whatever) that they wanted. Further, the proceeds should be plowed back into the Kenyan or Laotian economy to further benefit the people there, rather than already rich people.

One can imagine this happening, but making it happen is quite difficult, especially if the end is to eliminate disparities of wealth.

I have no sympathy with the rich who would be dispossessed; that's fine by me. But actually changing peasants' and slum dwellers' lives takes time and expertise and a great deal of care (lest it blow up in everybody's face).

The development problem is the inverse of getting the American, European, and Asian industrial economies to stop producing and consuming so much so that the global climate won't be totally ruined for human habitation. It's damned difficult to get people to change, EVEN when changing means a better life in the future (or life at all).

God as the only being, in whom everything that was, is, or will be exists, seems consistent with solipsism.

Of course, God as conceived in the Western, Judeo-Christian scheme of things, made the world separate from himself. (It's all there in Genesis.) So the Western God of Abraham can not be a solipsist, because the world (cosmos, universe, multiverse?) isn't one and the same as God.

At least, that's the way I understand it.

Now, you wouldn't be the first person to deviate from the standard God paradigm. Some westerners, yea, even unto North Dakota and farther afield, thought/think that everything is in God, and God is in everything, such that everything that is what it is is*** God.

See that beautiful rose? God. See that bright star? God. See that manure pile covered with flies? God. See me? God. Want to see God? You are already there.

*** Just a bow to the man who made "It is what it is" famous, hereabouts.

I might say, partly in jest, that the world is going to hell in a handbasket because we aren't killing each other on a local level. Peace creates monstrosities. Violence makes people honest (edit: realistic). — yupamiralda

I might agree with you, partly in jest--but not a very big part. Nonetheless, you raise an interesting point about local level peacefulness and large scale armed conflict. If one were to sample interpersonal violence on a local level anywhere in larger scale battle zones (like Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Burma, Venezuela. etc.) it is likely one would find a lot of neighborliness, at least initially.

Large scale violence, such as occurred in Iraq or Syria, or in Nazified Germany, degrades neighborliness. Shia and Sunni Moslems had been neighborly until large scale violence had gone on for a while. Prior to the Nazis, many gentile Germans interacted with Jewish Germans on a neighborly basis.

Large scale conflict doesn't arise out of a lack of person-to-person neighborliness, it arises out of "Real-Politic" concerns: control over resources, territory, and populations. However murky it may be to outsiders, Real-Politic is operating in Congo, Yemen, Syria, et al. Large scale conflict tends to unite people--as it did the Russians, English, and Americans in WWII. But there are exceptions: The managers of large scale conflict may decide to achieve greater unity by means of isolating and delegitimizing a recognizable group (as the Nazis did the Jews, as the Burmese are doing to their Moslem and Christian minorities). Many a white American neighborhood has achieved a greater sense of unity by excluding blacks.

There is an element of Real-Politic in American segregation. People want control over their communities, and want to have things arranged as they like. As it happens, at least moderately prosperous white people have the means to achieve this goal, and certainly at least moderately impoverished black people do not. There is an eternal verity in this: Those who have, get more; those who have less, lose what little they had.

When and how the segregation patterns of the United States might change is very difficult to predict. Certainly, a lot of people are more or less contented with the way things are. The more ethically sensitive of us recognize that the present arrangement is unfair, but even the ethnically sensitive aren't willing to have things re-arranged too much.

"Is it fair for people to compare themselves or their deeds to those of Jesus"?

It seems pretty obvious that people should definitely not compare themselves to Jesus. If they think they compare favorably with Jesus, one can only urge prayer and fasting as a remedy (maybe with a kick in the pants).

I believe that the New Testament attempts to make Jesus look entirely righteous as he goes around preaching and performing miracles — Maureen

Given the purpose of the New Testament (to tell the story of Jesus--someone who was believed to be the Son of God) that makes sense. Why would the authors of the NT have done anything else?

but what is happening in his life outside of that, such as on a regular basis? Nobody knows — Maureen

Nobody knows, and it doesn't matter, because the Gospels aren't a biography of Jesus. What all Jesus was busy with between the his childhood appearance in the Temple and the inauguration of his ministry might be interesting. But it's idle curiosity on our part, because Jesus was born with a purpose, and the purpose was to die for our sins. Before he was executed, he introduced his people (the Jews) to the Kingdom of God. Then he died.

If you accept that he was born to take away the sins of the world, then what his life was like before he was baptized by John is irrelevant. If you believe he was nothing special, it really doesn't matter what he did as a young man.

This is in keeping with most Biblical characters: we read the words of the prophets (written on the subway walls) but we don't hear about what their adolescence was like. It didn't matter to the people who composed the texts of the Bible. Who cares whether Isaiah was a spoiled brat or neglected as a child? To the extent that it did matter, then they said something about it. (Abraham and Isaac, Moses, Jesus' odd parentage, etc.)

You have a habit of raising interesting questions.

Point 1, in the "for what it's worth" category: The bigger the planet, the stronger the gravity. The stronger the gravity, the more resistance against movement an organism will experience. Gravity beyond a certain point (don't ask me) is probably counter-productive for large organisms.

More nerves, more pain? Well... where are the nerves? Our brains, with at least 100 billion neurons, probably more, feel no pain -- themselves. Our brains interpret pain signals from elsewhere in the body. It does make sense that the larger number of pain nerves that are stimulated (by injury) the worse the pain will be. There are limits, sometimes.

Distraction can enable us to ignore pain (provided it isn't too severe, too long lasting). Other sensations, such as cold, can swamp pain (which is why putting ones slightly burnt hand in cold water reduces pain). Acupuncture, hypnotism, relaxation and meditation techniques can reduce pain.

Severe burns are so painful because many layers of tissue (all with pain receptors) are affected. Shingles is very painful when the varicella-zoster virus is very active inside nerve cells. varicella-zoster virus (chickenpox) can cause shingle pain for years. (The chickenpox vaccine does not cause shingles.)

FYI, there are separate nerves for pressure, itching, and for pain. Itching can also be quite severe.

Finally, pain nerves can stop functioning. Diabetes can cause peripheral neuropathy, where the diabetic no longer feels pain in their extremities (feet, hands) and may not notice injuries that can lead to severe infection.

As for the water thing that was verbally told to me — christian2017

As the old saying goes, "Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see."

You doubt that the theory rests on more than blue sky conjecture? I have no objection to your doubt. It's a free country [so they say]; think what you want! It has nothing to do with the price of tea in China whether the water came from Oort Cloud ice cubes or clever bacteria.

that would be hard to prove — christian2017

About as hard to prove as claiming that the cells, molecules, etc. DID have intent.

Some say cells or single cells are what formed the water on the earth. — christian2017

And by what means do those "some say" claim that these cells would have produced all this water?

H2O is native to the pre-earth solar system. The comets, rocks, and icy objects in the Oort cloud (and closer) are as old as the solar system, and they have been out there as ice for 4 to 5 billion+ years. When the solar system was much younger, earth was bombarded by both rocky objects (like the big one that hit the earth and created a liquid rock splash that made the moon) as well as many, many icy objects. The icy objects are probably how we got oceans of water.

Jupiter's large gravitational field probably helped things along by pushing/pulling/throwing a lot more objects into the orbits of the 4 inner planets than would otherwise have been here. Mars seems to have lost a lot of its water (it wasn't quite large enough to hold on to its atmosphere) and I don't know what happened to Venus. Maybe Venus was too hot. Not sure what Mercury's situation was either.

Alot of what scientists say about this original self replicating "creature" or cell is conjecture. — christian2017

Of course it is conjecture -- there were no eye witnesses and there are no fossils from back then. However, the theory does rest on more than blue-sky conjecture.

Should we be able to alter our genetics ... to make our selves smarter, stronger, more attractive, etc.?

I believe we should — SydneyPhilosopher

I don't see any point in making ourselves dumber, weaker, and uglier, so sure. However, breeding smarter, stronger and more attractive humans is not as easy as breeding fancy rats. Humans don't start breeding for quite a few years; It takes at maybe 40 years (might take longer) to fully assess intelligence, strength, health, and attractiveness. Someone kind of homely at 15 might be stunning at 35. And visa versa. There is the problem of matching partners and finding adequate parents. A lot of people that have existed would have been smarter, stronger, and more attractive had they had different care givers or were born in some other society.

Can we blame Columbus for mass emigration? He accidentally brought the existence of the Western Hemisphere to the attention of Europeans, but it doesn't seem to me that mass emigration began in his lifetime. His, and the subsequent efforts of various explorers, immigrants, conquerors, etc. advertently and inadvertently brought about plenty of changes to the Western Hemisphere.

I don't understand why somebody wouldn't adapt to and exploit the environment as it is like the killer apes they are — yupamiralda

Yeah, well, for the most part we all pretty much behave like the naked, smart, ruthlessly exploiting, short sighted, killer apes we are. Though, you have to acknowledge that we don't kill each other nearly as often as we could. Most of the time we are officially "at peace". On a macroscopic sale, the world is indeed going to hell in a hand cart, but on a person-to-person basis, it's relatively peaceful.

Revolution: The Beatles, John Lennon / Paul Mccartney

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right, all right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right, all right, all right

You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right ...

Here is an article from the New Scientist that talks about self duplicating molecules and life.

"Nuclear" here refers to the "nucleus" of the cell. The nucleus is a sub-cellular structure that contains the organism's genetic information. The genetic information is packed into smaller structures, "chromosomes". The nucleus of a cell and the nucleus of the atom are two altogether different things that just happen to have the same name.

It's been a long time since I had a basic biology class. The structures of the cell, and the DNA, all get very complicated.

What SophistiCat was referencing was this:

About 3.8 billion years ago, the earth solidified into rock. There was water, rock, and a mixture of gases. No life. After about 3.5 billion years ago, there was apparently life of some sort. How did we get from "no life" to "life"? The theory goes that were molecules that could form duplicates of themselves. They could do this because of their natural physical and chemical properties. Self-duplicating molecules doesn't require an outside agent or any "intent" to duplicate. The molecules just did what they could do. The molecules could also link up, which is also natural. Self-copying, linking-up molecules got more complicated. At some point in the long stretch of time, the self-copying, linking-up molecules became something we would call "life"--that is, the life forms were able to become more elaborate, maintain themselves, and duplicate their more complex form.

We don't know where on earth this all happened. It might have been inside rock, in thermal vents, in hot slop--we just don't know. But it did.

"Desire", "intent", "a plan", and so forth just don't figure into life at this point. Chemistry and physics governed life on earth. Whether physics and chemistry still govern life on earth (including us paragons of animals) is the heart of the debate about free-will and determinism. But even if one is an ardent believer in free will, one need not think that single celled life had a will. Will presumably requires a complex brain capable of making independent decisions rather than just being a wet robot.

Some people think we are wet robots; some people think we have free will. Maybe it's a mix -- I don't think there is a definitive answer. Since we are immersed in the problem, we can't give an objective answer.

I don't know. The question you are asking goes back to the beginning of life on earth. Once a cell formed, however randomly, accidentally, or purposively that happened, there had to be a way for that cell to make more of itself OR life would have amount to that one, single cell, and that would have been the end of the story.

We could guess that the initial method of reproduction was reproduction through cell division: the cell dust divided itself or got divided and then there were two, then 4, then 8, then 16, then 32, 64, 128, and so on. There was some development over tine: Some sort of genetic pattern developed, and more than one kind of cell came into existence. Prokaryotic cells (E. coli for example) do not have nuclear structures--the chromosomes aren't clustered into a structure (the nucleus). Eukaryotic cells (creatures like you) do have a nuclear structure, and your nucleus divides before the cell divides.

But again, your question goes back to the beginning and nobody was around to observe what (or how) it happened, or nip it in the bud. Nobody was in the lab at that moment to pour the first cell into a bath of acid to make sure nothing like that ever happened again.

The kind of cell division that goes on after an egg is fertilized (mitosis) didn't happen right away. It took millions (billions) of years for that system of reproduction (sperm, egg, union, cell division into new complex organism) to develop.

The crux of the matter is this: How did life happen?

what developed inside of the organism that made it want to replicate — christian2017

Nothing. They don't "want" to reproduce, they just do. For that matter, it isn't entirely clear that the higher animals "want" to reproduce; they just do. Females get pregnant because fucking makes males feels good. It might even make females feel good. Reproduction follows because it does (the machinery kicks in), not because the two agents involved wanted it to happen (at least below the primate level). As far as I know. I could be wrong. Maybe lions, tigers, and bears--vultures, snakes, and lizards-- really do WANT their little offspring running around.

This is also true for single cell plants and single cell animals — christian2017

Many/most single celled creatures in the Archea group (that were neither plants nor animals) didn't even need sunlight. All they needed was a minimal amount of H2O and chemicals from which they can derive energy. There are extremophiles found in very deep rocks that haven't seen the sun for ... hundreds of millions years. There are extremophiles living in very hot ocean floor vents that don't need the sun either.

The blue-green algae that could benefit from sun light and could change CO2 into O and carbohydrates wrecked the stable environment that earth had been perfectly happy with for a very, very long time. The excess O poisoned everything else.

Whether virus-type-structures existed before bacteria is hard to say. Viruses as we know them definitely came later; we know viruses as obligate intracellular parasites--so the bacteria had to come first. But the viruses could have moved in later, even if they existed first.

The viruses we know all have the genetic material to take over the cell, so again, those bacteria definitely didn't come first.


We don't know how life started -- you and I, for two, weren't there when it happened. It all probably began as some sort of crypto-life that just wasn't quite biology yet, but was capable of forming some stable boxy structures. But it's a very long way from stable boxy structures to stable boxes that are able to keep themselves nourished and are able to reproduce -- something they just do, without any desire--as far as I know.

I know intelligent people who managed to reproduce without actually wanting to do so. Fucking felt good, and then there was a baby. "Fuck!" they said.

What's more frustrating is how it seems to go more quickly the older you get. — Terrapin Station

It seems to me that there is a physical explanation for time appearing to pass faster as one ages. Our brains, like some other animal brains, seem to be able to track time. As we age, this facility slows down -- and time seems to speed up as a result.

Time goes by so fast when you are alive.

What are some things that would be important in this new world wide religion or system of beliefs? — christian2017

Christians and Moslems have been trying to convert everyone to their religions all over the world for a combined number of 3400 missionary years, and have so far not exceeded the half way mark. So, were we to have a new religion (or belief system) that could save us from whatever, it will have to spread a lot faster than Abrahamic religions have.

One belief system that has spread very fast is Capitalism. It's pretty much the going thing among most people, whether they like it or not. Communism/socialism hasn't been able to make anywhere close to the same dent.

If some prophet can come up with something as persuasive as Capitalism, then it might become the new world belief system. However, like Capitalism, it might be the very last thing we need more of.

Note to Harrari: Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

My own opinion is that Neanderthals were never really a separate species and that they really were arbituarly classified that way. — christian2017

Neanderthals never died out they just combined into other Cro Magnons or modern humans. — christian2017

If Neanderthals and Denisovans had just merged into the Homo sapiens species, it seems to me one would see much higher levels of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA than we do. I might be wrong about that, but it seems to me reasonable to suppose that it would be higher than 1 or 2%. They could and did breed with Homo sapiens, but there were apparent differences that stood in the way of a species merger--life style factors, ability to tolerate cold, fertility, etc.

Neanderthals were a separate species, so were Denisovans. But that doesn't mean they were radically different. If they had been radically different, they wouldn't have interbred. You know, birds of different species quite often mate producing hybrids that may or may not be fertile. Obviously eagles and hummingbirds are not going to mate (size problem), and parrots and hawks aren't going to mate -- even if they lived in the same tree, their habits, wings, beaks, etc. are incompatible.

I'm not interested in mind reading or minds separate from bodies. Have you ever noticed that fortune tellers never predict that one's life is going to be as boring in the future as it has been in the past? Bad for business.

But I have been reading a not-very-good-book, Title: Gargoyles; author: Ben Hecht***; published: 1922. The set of Chicago characters are chock full of little self-deceptions of various kinds. They often find their words, actions, even their thoughts, to be problematic because they sense that if they are not careful of what they say, do, or think some ugly truth might be revealed to themselves or others.

One character, a widow, having recovered from grief (or at least the habit of living with a husband) has become ambitious. She engages in many charitable fund raising causes, because the fundraising activity serves as a means for her petit bourgeoisie self advancement. She is unusual in that she knows full well that she doesn't give a rat's ass (my phrase, not hers) about the prospective beneficiaries of her charitable work. She admits to herself that they are generally a disgusting lot. She doesn't particularly like the other women she must work with either, especially those who out-rank her socially.

But the widow is unusually honest with herself. Most of the characters engage in all sorts of petty self-deceptions to maintain their self-images. Those who aren't good at this game suffer.

"We Don't Want To Believe - Because, If We Believe, Then..." we might have to deal with inconvenient realities. We won't be honest with ourselves, usually. We may prefer to lead lives of sexual abandon, but don't want to admit it. Instead we maintain a front of sexual probity. Or, like one of the characters in Gargoyles, actually leads a life of sexual gluttony but not without various self-inflicted prevarications.

A lot of people (everyone?) play elaborate games to avoid the inconvenience of truth. Our image is more important than the raw facts.

***Gone with the Wind, Scarface (1983), Notorious (1946) and Spellbound (1945) are some of the movies Hecht wrote scripts for.

I liked Peters' post; I'd just hate to see it squelched by one of the less imaginative moderators. Names need not be named.

But yes, the sentence you called out struck me also as a substantial problem statement.

I don't know where to turn

when nowhere near is any nearer to better — Robert Peters

And congrats on rhyming couplets. It's all good.

You wrote this (it's not a quote)?

If so, nicely done. An elegant howl. You've got good uninhibited momentum.

When will the Valkyries Ride?

Where do I turn when nowhere near is any nearer to better?
How do I dream when all I can hope for is a little clean water?

I don't know when the Valkyries will ride, but you might want to add another post, in prose where you ask or propose something political in philosophical terms, or one of the moderators (our valkyries) will be circling over head about to claim that your post wasn't "philosophical".

I'm just suggesting that no one will open their pay envelope, see a raise, and exclaim "cool - the supply/demand for labor thing is paying off." — Relativist

Right. People don't operate that way. Even professional economists who get raises don't say that. What they say is, "Finally my brilliance has been noticed, however slightly they are rewarding it."

There is still a problem in the wage/unemployment/employment relationship. Some regional chiefs in the Federal Reserves are against an increase in the interest rate, because they believe the reserve of unemployed is still too large. For some reason (apparently not clear to them) structural problems are keeping workers out of the job market. They may not have any of the demanded skills; they may have criminal records which are effective bars to employment; they may be sufficiently out of the loop to even know how to get into the job market. They may not be able to get to jobs. (Transportation between areas with higher than average unemployment and areas with unfilled jobs is often non-existent. If you don't have a reliable car (and most long-term unemployed people don't) getting to a job that is 15 miles away is impossible.

No, the qualification doesn't belong there. The idea is that when there's demand for labor, workers are enticed to move to better paying jobs. — Relativist

OK. Yes. True. And wages have to be high enough. I wouldn't cross the street for a job that paid $3 an hour. That's the problem with "Americans just don't want to work" or "just won't do that job." Slaughter house jobs, for instance, are too dangerous for Americans to work in for anything less than a competitive wage. Meatpackers can hire illegal immigrants at very low wages because the wages they are competing with are in Mexico or Guatemala, not Iowa, Missouri, or Minnesota. And yes, the immigrants get seriously injured working on the meatpacking disassembly lines.