• "The Government"
    The elites who remain in power with political power only remain because the "individual" has been dominated by the structure.Gus Lamarch

    True. Very well said this point. But somehow the structure was always evolving to lead us here where we are. Back in the day even in the Roman Empire slavery was legal also there weren't paid jobs, property, representation in institutions, etc... I think it was more clear how the powerful ones was ruling out the structure or "State"

    We can think now everything changed. But you know we have in an interesting paradox of seeing ourselves as citizens: Are we still slaves to the powerful elites? Like back in the Roman Empire no, but... Capitalism drove us in a social structure where you have to work a lot of hours to just pay your bills and if you do not do so you are unemployed or worse in the street while the "Elites" are richer than ever, making the social pyramid structure thicker and having their income in secret bank countries like Andorra or Bermudas.
    They changed the way of thinking but not the role since the Roman Empire.
  • The Dan Barker Paradox
    This quote drives me to another one from the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges when he said about Bible: "it is a good novel to read to" referring it just as a normal "book" not a holy one.
  • "Persons of color."
    Aren't we all "people of color?"TiredThinker

    Absolutely we all are people of colour. It is even of how the media wants to categorized the people themselves. I am agree with you that it can be so offensive when an African is called "people of color" instead of saying black.
    They are black. That's all. We have to call the people by their true names. I am Hispanic so yeah I am brown or "spaniard" but not a "guy of color" pretending I am so different from a white man.
    Nevertheless, sometimes it is true how media, again, uses this terms. I. E. One gang of "black" people stole yesterday a store, etc... Why they use the black word in that news? It is literally pejorative. So I guess the solution of avoiding this kind of categories is stopping the fact of dividing people due to their races.

    Of course we all have different skin colours. But this is what makes us unique. If I see a an African I'd call him black or African not "color person."
    As if the word "black" is forbidden or something.
  • Douglas Adams Puddle Analogy And Fine-Tuning
    luck hypothesis becomes too ridiculous to believe.RogueAI

    But you would have left the game long before that, because while luck is an explanation, after x number of royal flushes, luck stops being a good explanation.RogueAI

    Exactly! This is why is so beautiful and interesting this topic. How many x in a row have we to consider as the player is cheating? Probably this is due (as you well said) of how difficult is to believe something or someone is “perfectly” lucky. But somehow the human specie is so lucky itself. We have to remember here how our ancestors had evolved until we are here without any lethal fatality (I.e what happened with dinosaurs and its deceased).

    Also it is interesting because it reflects what cosmologists explain as you share in the link. It is ridiculously perfect the density of matter and energy.
  • "The Government"
    however, the elites pre-established by the State always end up using collectivism, because with collectivism, you destroy individualism and maintain the structure intact, which keeps them in full control of political power.Gus Lamarch

    Elites always have been one of the troubles that we the citizens have to face in the government. When you deposit your vote in an urn you think you are doing it to change the government for better. Nevertheless the reality is so different. We have to face some interests or powers that are literally occult from our eyes.
    Exactly in this point we can point some classical organisations as Elites: richest, lords, masons, etc...

    So here we end up in a dilemma of empowering our presence inside the government as a collective. Maybe yes we have our representatives but literally you cannot develop the rule of law and so called “State” “Senate” without this kind of elitist powerful bases
  • Douglas Adams Puddle Analogy And Fine-Tuning
    The only two moves the materialist can make to avoid the inevitable conclusion the universe was designed is to assert the existence of an unproveable unfalsifiable immensely large multiverse full of universes with different physical constants, and we're just one of the lucky ones, or it's all a simulation.RogueAI

    It is one of the most beautiful topics to debate about. Do we live in a simulated universe/world? Well I guess in this point it is all about of how we are perceived by others and sadly we do not have it yet. I mean, being seen from other communities or intellectuals citizens of how they see the Earth and also the individuals living there (we the humans).
    As you pointed out we have to assert unprovable large multiverse full with physical constants. Here I have to say that I go for the path of lucky ones. It can happen for just a chain of clever “accidents” which lead us in how we perceive the universe we live in as “square”, “Pi number” “hole” and other physical criteria we the humans established as our order.
  • Do atheists even exist? As in would they exist if God existed?
    No. All an atheist is is a person who doesn't believe there are sufficient reason to believe in any form of God. @Tom Storm

    This is just one of the multiple reasons in atheism thought. Yes they believe there are not sufficient reason for having a credit in "God" and all representatives. Nevertheless, there are also another kind of atheists who think there is nothing afterwards.
    It is valid your point when you say it can exist atheist which believes in astrology, but this is just another path to avoid the belief in God as much as the ones who don't believe in anything at all.
  • What is Ancient
    The word of “ancient” in our vocabulary dependes a lot in how we established the perception of time around the human evolution. We use today the Gregorian calendar as everyone knows. As you well asked
    What about fifthy thousand?
    or five hundred thousand?
    young god
    I guess this is just order in our perception of reality inside of history.

    What I mean here is this: Ancient world is known that historic because it is around “before Christ” time lapse. Everything in history which we have evidence that happened in the past like Greek, Romans or Egyptians and its complexity are organised in “Ancient world” because it was literally an ancient phenomena until the Gregorian calendar appeared, i.e. Mycenaean Greek goes from 1400 to 1200 BF.

    So it doesn’t matter here if that villages ever knew they were the “ancient ones”. It is something historian accorded to do for put an order in our chronology.
  • Free will
    Believing that you have a choice makers life more interestingMondoR

    This is the point where free will stands heavy in its position. Sometimes we tend to think and work that everything around us can be controlled by our own skills and behaviour. If you believe you can change the situation with effort it makes living the life a worthy and beautiful feeling as @MondoR well said previously.
    Nevertheless, this can make a good debate inside of free will (I do not want go for a tangent) and determinism. I guess if you put more emphasis in your own circumstances and trying to get a “better” situation you somehow make “determinism” weak because you have the control of present and what could the future holds.

    So it is interesting how free will can be/or not be a good example of how to face predetermined criteria.
  • Do atheists even exist? As in would they exist if God existed?


    Atheists do not believe only in God but in other type of subterfuge to understand something that complex like death or “life after death”. They are just living without the starting point of a superior abstract figure like God, i.e “I passed this difficult exam because I studied hard the last week but I do not pray to God because I do not believe in his circumstances. It is just myself and move along”
    I guess another point of atheism here is the concept of “heaven”. It is basically for religious citizens the paradise afterward your life ends. But here, atheists do not even believe in the fact that when you die you will be in a dilema if you go to “hell” or “heaven” due to God’s decision. They think there is nothing afterwards that’s all.
    So I guess not believing in any kind of God goes further than “not having any proof of his existence”
  • "The Government"
    True "individual" died when the State was born, since the focus of society was no longer the Unique, but rather the citizen - aka, the concept that represents the individual as being intrinsic property of the government. Thing that it is not -.Gus Lamarch

    This point is so important. Yes individualism dead when the State was born. But is due to about how complex the society is. This why we need to create a concept an abstract term like government to provide us how useful the State is. The rule of law is very important because we can force to live in a society where we can respect each other.
    Also, yes, it is completely flawed our system. I guess we never will have a perfect system because it doesn’t exist at all. Are we the humans perfect? NO. Thus, we can never have a perfect relationship between state-citizens.
  • Solutions for Overpopulation


    Un gran saludo Miguel, ¡que bueno encontrar compatriotas en un mismo foro de cultura!
  • Are the colours an empirical term?

    Are we actually saying the same thing, not just using the same word?
    @Book273

    Literally this one of the most interesting facts in human knowledge. How the different languages can describe exactly the same but with different words. I also think as you perfectly explained that it is the beauty and the flaw at the same time. I am from Spain and Spanish language is full of extraordinary words that depends in which country you actually are, i.e. It is not same the Spanish vocabulary between Spain and hispoamerciano countries like Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica, etc...
    Even is about the interpretation in the colour itself. Example: When a house with its floor and fences are made of clay we say is "rojizo" house. In Mexico or Chile they would say "colorado".
    Putting emphasis as the same example of English words you wrote previously.

    I see are likely not the shade you see, although all are accurate. Cool eh! wow! This one is so cool. Another different glance from the same reality. Nevertheless I so sorry for your chemical accident back in the day.
  • Solutions for Overpopulation
    It is one of the worldwide leadership goals the strategy of how we can live in a world full of people or overpopulated. In my humble opinion it is not about natural resources or how bad is the capitalism. It is all about of how cleverly we can order the citizens in the towns. We have a such problem here because while you have a lot of people living in the metropolitan area you have less people in the rural one.

    Check here my country (Spain). You can clearly see how the metropolitan area is so crowded while the rural or towns look like abandoned. We have to try to find a system where the urbanism would work as equal as possible. Trying to avoid the feeling of "If I were born in the rural area I have to go to the city to become well formed and developed,etc...
    So I guess the point here is building more urbanity in the abandoned areas developing the same opportunities as the metropolitan areas.

    This is the example of my country where you can see the huge difference urban/rural administration.

    [img]http://alyLCi8.jpg
  • Are the colours an empirical term?


    I guess we are getting into the same point when exactly you pointed out this: They could be "Fish" (the colour formerly known as Red)+ "Beer" (the colour formerly known as Yellow)= "Pelican" (the Colour formerly known as Orange). If this were accepted nomenclature by enough people then the phrase
    Well this is what I want to go for. It is so interesting how the human behaviour always wanted to put arbitrary words to phenomenons. In this example of colours we can see one of the principles of human acceptance due to customs.
    If we say "red" to a colour is just because previously we were taught the phenomena in basic vocabulary.

    Nevertheless, this is so paradoxical because there are people which literally sees "blue" instead of "green" and we classified these as "colour blindness" because they are wrong of their interpretation of colour phenomena. So we can say that basic vocabulary is the phenomenons are like a rule of law because you cannot change it by your own. It is so acceptable that instead of saying "red" we say "bike" but the people will not accept because it would make a chaos in their customs (Imagine how crazy it would be when colours are so relevant in all cultures around the world).
  • Why do people need religious beliefs and ideas?
    I think the mystery of existence necessarily points to something beyond our everyday experience. That is, recognizing the existence of God is the rational inference from our being here, in my opinion.Photios

    This point is so interesting. I respect your opinion of proof rational existence when you believe in God as something that powerful which reminds you are “here” and then, gives answers to our perpetual question and mystery of existing.
    Nevertheless, there is a debate here because Descartes purposed the idea of cogito ergo sum. If I am aware, I exist as a human because it makes me feel “alive” of myself. So in this statement sometimes you do not even need a subterfuge to proof you are here or your existence itself.

    Well this opens of course another debate about existentialism which can leads us in a tangent about the original debate or maybe like a circle it drives us to the starting point.
  • "The Government"
    However, I do not see the human being as someone of a "collective" nature, but instead, of "individual" nature
    @Gus Lamarch

    I wish one day we can say we are allowed to live in individualism. I guess in today's world and society is really difficult. It is interesting here how Karl Marx defended in his "communist" theories that is completely impossible to be a human by "yourself" meaning that the humankind by nature is forced to live in communities and social interaction. Those, are ruled by the law and then the government we "vote"
    But why this happen? I guess (as I have shared previously with you) in a negative way that we need this abstract political figure called "State" to just controll or better said "preserve" us in the social community. There are citizens who robb, murder, evade taxes, etc... I mean these type of people which clearly do not want to share in the community. Well the government is there to enforce their duties to stay in the State.
    For this reason if you do not accept the rules the government with the state will punish you with jail, fines, etc...
  • Why do people need religious beliefs and ideas?
    Personally, I do believe that a major aspect of acceptance of an idea does depend on our motivation, to some extent.Jack Cummins

    True! But sometimes motivation in our personal ideas goes dawn and you can feel the stress about to giving up. I guess this is the key where philosophy/religion/dogma, etc... show up to confront ourselves like “everything going to be ok. Move on and believe”
    Nevertheless, it is interesting the nihilism criteria where sometimes one of us led into it. Why should we have a motivation in something? Why do not just live without emphasis? I guess this kind people who is very deep in nihilism probably is due to lack of goals and perspectives. So does humanity have as innate the feeling of pursuing dreams/goals?
  • "The Government"
    Government = The consequent system of humanity's free and successful interactions per individual.

    This statement is so interesting. You are considering the government as a "consequence" no as a need or must. If it exists in today's society the modern term of "governance" is due to human's behaviour. You say freedom and success. I would say selfishness, fear, balance and moderation into the nature of humankind. Every citizen wants to be "free" but how free? This is when the government appears.
    The system of "rule of law" will limit us in the behaviour inside of the state. Therefore, the government wants to put limits in our nature.
    It is comprehensive.
  • Computer for President?
    This question reminds me a lot from an anime called "Psycho-Pass" where the citizens were controlled by a machine called "Dominator". It reflects your behaviour in colours pattern. If it's white you have the right to stay in the society if it is red you are "dangerous" and you do not deserve being part of it. At the end of the day this system went broken because it is impossible to determinate something as complex as human behaviour by a computer/system.
    Abstract and complex theories like law, equality, legislation, governance, rights, taxes, etc... Can't be identified by a computer/robot system as a "0/1 pattern" or algorithms. It depends a lot of where are you living: Countries whose rule of law is a constitution/countries whose rule of law is God or religion (for example Morocco or Israel). So in this fact it will be impossible to determinate equality or governance since the moment where the meaning of those terms are differently interpreted by the governors.
  • Are the colours an empirical term?
    Now possibly because of some of these anomalies of the concept of color compared to the concept of objects, we feel there could be arbitrariness in the naming of colors. This could be true but how is it relevant?Antony Nickles

    Hello there Antony Nickles. Thanks for your answer.

    Yes I am agree with you that could be so arbitrary comparing or interpret the colours as a objects. Nevertheless, I guess it is pretty interesting how the "world" made a pattern about it, i.e. When we see an apple we say "red" because someone taught us in the school the basic vocabulary. But if randomly you say it is "blue" they would answer you have a Color blindness because you do not see the color pattern as someone previously explained. So you are "mistaken" if you see an apple "red" or "green". The point here is how we stand the patterns or principles in an abstract thing like colors. Like you well said we don't have to because they are not object. Nevertheless, if I say the Sun is "Purple" the people will categorised me as a color blindness.

    Another interesting i.e when Descartes said "perfection is when even dreaming you are not mistaken, like geometry" but I guess someone previously had to taught me what is exactly maths and it is specific pattern of "geometry"
  • Why do people need religious beliefs and ideas?
    I wonder how your background still affects you, and whether it affects you as you go through the day to day experience of life.Jack Cummins

    I am in a period of time (I am 23 years old) that I can't believe in anything neither myself. I don't know if my background has led me to this moment. I feeling more sceptical than ever. Probably due to all the negative experiences I am living since the last year when all my teachers say to me "flawed student"
    But I am not praying for someone or something to have more faith in myself because nobody taught in the past to do so (I even went to an atheist school too). I am just sitting like in a fence wondering if I am going to fall down or still there with zero criteria. Sometimes I randomly feel this things can get better.
  • Why do people need religious beliefs and ideas?
    I hope my country realizes that education for technology has destroyed wisdom and that we return to education for wisdom. That is liberal education.Athena

    This point is so much important. I totally agree with you that educational system is flawed since the day when states decided teaching us the "principles" to just work and pay our taxes. Probably yes we are more practical but we lost the path of wisdom and questioning everything.
    When I say questioning I mean the key of not feeling "full" of what ever our teachers in the school/university teach.
  • Why do people need religious beliefs and ideas?
    Hello there Jack Cummins,

    What an interesting question. I want to stand in the idea that believing in God or whatever religion is not innate at all. Probably I going to sound so empirical right now but look the next point.
    Complex and abstract terms like “God” “Heaven” “souls” are learned to us in our way of life when we are getting to the adulthood. I been raised in a house of atheists people. So in my case I never even been or heard about what is God or a church making me feel so impasible about religion. I cannot remember at all feeling in an innate state trying to find a “way” to understand my meaningless life.

    Nevertheless, I understand your point and I guess we can direct it in other path. Sometimes we have that period of life full of complexity where we ask ourselves questions like “why am I here?” “Why am I living this moment?” “What the future holds?” Etc... some authors name this moment as “personal period of thinking” while some people will find the way in a religious path, others in the philosophy branches (determinism, nihilism, empirical, etc...) So somehow I guess it is innate that feeling of questioning everything in our reality but not the answers.
    What I tried to explain here is that you can’t know exactly what being religious is if before someone never explained to you that way of beliefs.

    Nice to meet you. I wish we can have more debate in the future.