What is sin?

That was a very good argument, but why does anyone need to be saved? Saved from what?

"If Jesus truly walked this earth, then he was the most morally excellent person to have ever walked the face of the earth and, according to Christian doctrine, he was God in the flesh."

Why do you believe that? Are you familiar with Confucius and Buddha so you can make an independent decisions of who is most worthy of our attention?

Presumably, everyone has the "right to property." The problem is some people don't have any. The right is used in justification of an essentially selfish position, though it is a right to which supposedly all are entitled. — Ciceronianus the White

Animals are territorial and they have to fight to claim their territory and keep it. I would say this is in our nature. It is a survival need. But what gives us an unquestioned right to land and resources cut out of the mother? The God Abraham gave only a small part of the earth to Hebrews, but I don't think this means unquestioned property rights for everyone. Native Americans held the notion that we don't have the right to claim pieces of earth for our selves. Violating the earth and taking her coal, gold, oil, and covering the land with concrete and blacktop, may be as much our right as raping a woman?

Yes. Materialistic Science has learned a lot about human physiology, much of which which we share with our ape cousins, who are quite clever as animals go. But Human Nature, as a philosophical enterprise, is mostly about how humans differ from animals. For example, the age-old question of non-empirical Souls. If there is no such thing, how do we account for the gap in reasoning power, which, seems to be our only significant advantage over more instinctive creatures? Even apes have hands.

Based on empirical evidence, our physiological advantage seems to be rather minor. But in terms of evolutionary success, humans have created a whole new form of Evolution : world-conquering Culture. A bigger brain is a Quantitative edge in processing power. But a rational mind seems to give humans a Qualitative superiority. Yet, some think it's our Animal Nature, including irrational hormones, that holds us back morally. While others think it's our over-weening intellectual arrogance that gets us into trouble. Both seem to be involved in Human Nature. :smile:


The Gap -- The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals : . . . psychologist Thomas Suddendorf provides a definitive account of the mental qualities that separate humans from other animals, as well as how these differences arose.
https://www.amazon.com/Gap-Science-Separates-Other-Animals/dp/0465030149 — Gnomon

Perhaps I should read the book before responding, or may be I can just question you about what the book says. How is an uneducated person 8000 years ago, different from an animal?

What does prejudice have to do with our nature?

Are there limits to our thinking? Do we function as well in a group of 12 people as we do in a group of 500? Is there a difference in how we function in a group of 500 and a group of 5000 people?

I'm not arguing against morality based on natural law. I'm questioning one based on claimed inherent rights. I think our concept of rights was unknown to ancient thinkers like Cicero and the Stoics and said as much in the OP. I remain a Ciceronian. — Ciceronianus the White

You skipped my Greek example of our rights being well understood in ancient times. Perhaps not Rome, but surely by Greeks. Think back to that ancient civilization and many gods. Democracy is an imitation of the gods. Each one of us has the freedom of a god because there is no god over us rewarding and punishing us. Now we can not violate laws of nature, which even the gods must obey, but there is no authority higher than our own. There is no god or king over us, only logos.

The restrictions to what we do other than logos, is human customs. In Rome do as the Romans do. All social animals have social agreements, and getting along means falling in line with those agreements. But even before kings sisters buried there brothers. There is an authority higher then human authority and this is the source of our freedom.

If we are belligerent enough to go against all other human authority two things can happen. We will face rejection or we will convince others we are right. This seems to me crucial to our concept of freedom. In short, if you think you know "God's truth" and have the right to impose that on others, you are wrong!!!! You might win the war and destroy my people, but that still does not make you right. Only though reason and consensus can we determine what is right. The law above us is logos (reason), not human authority. Humans have social agreements and customs, but not the ultimate authority and our liberty depends on this understanding.

Of course, Human Nature doesn't "exist" in a materialistic concrete sense. It's a generalization, and an abstraction. So, it's not a testable empirical "thing" to be studied by scientists. But it's certainly amenable to philosophical study. "The writer" must be a hard Materialist, who doesn't accept immaterial things, such as Minds, to be Real. For them, the only things that "exist" are Atoms & Void. But Unfortunately, speculations on generalizations & universals are always somebody's Opinion, not hard facts. What's yours? :smile: — Gnomon

I think science is full of materialistic explanations of our human nature and it most certainly is testable and empirical. Take for example what we know of hormones. Hormones strongly effect how we feel and what we do.

Then there is brain imaging and we know we share in common empathy with other primates.

Anthropology gives us lots of information about social animals and humans are a social animal.

Then there are biological studies of the brain and this is very informative when the brain has been damaged and we can look at the damaged area and study the effect of that damage.

One of the difficulties I have with the concept of rights is that I think acceptance of them gives rise to an ethics in which good, or moral, conduct is defined as that conduct which doesn't interfere with them. Each person has the right to do certain things as long as they don't infringe on or violate the rights of others. Rights are deemed possessions we each have, to which we're entitled, and nobody may take or interfere with those possessions. As long as they don't their conduct isn't objectionable, and they're free to do whatever they like and refrain from doing whatever they don't want to do without censure. — Ciceronianus the White

What makes a right right and a wrong wrong?

“For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Laws — Cicero

Democracy is not blind obedience to law, but the constant search of right reason.

Even before kings sisters buried their brothers. This is an argument that we do have rights that a king can not take away. It is a right, because it is the right thing to do. You speak of laws as though we control what a law will be. Humans do not make the laws of nature, they can only become aware of them. And not every man made law should be obeyed, because they can be hateful laws and oppose natural law. Here is the Greek story arguing we do have rights that a king can not take away.

Prior to the beginning of the play, brothers Eteocles and Polynices, leading opposite sides in Thebes' civil war, died fighting each other for the throne. Creon, the new ruler of Thebes and brother of the former Queen Jocasta, has decided that Eteocles will be honored and Polynices will be in public shame. The rebel brother's body will not be sanctified by holy rites and will lie unburied on the battlefield, prey for carrion animals like vultures, the harshest punishment at the time. Antigone and Ismene are the sisters of the dead Polynices and Eteocles. — wikipedia

" that Law is intelligence, whose natural function it is to command right conduct and forbid wrongdoing" is compatible with Confucius and oriental concepts of moral and laws of nature. Clearly we are not born knowing the laws and must learn them. That is learn to live in harmony with universal law and understanding, to violate universal law leads to trouble. That is not because a God or court of men will punish us, but it is a natural consequence of taking the wrong action. We are not entitled to violate the laws of nature, not even Trump. There is nothing we can do to change the consequences of our action. But we need be clear that we are not born knowing right from wrong and must make constant effort to learn and reason.

Back your argument, men's law and the authority of men can be wrong! Man's law is not the ultimate law. Universal law is above the law of man. Remember, we persecuted the Germans who were just following orders. A deeper understanding of such things is very important because it is what democracy is about.

I myself find it odd that labor unions had been infiltrated by organized crime at the first place. But I think this is a major reason why real income and wages haven't gone up in the US and inequality has become even greater. — ssu

That is a fascinating statement! I must look into that. Do you have any more to say about it?

Awe you speak of the American dream where the only thing government provides is a police force to protect private property.
— Athena
The fundamental idea behind is that well known mantra of "limited government" and giving freedom for everyone to pursuit their happiness. And that is a struggle for many, which is a problem.

In the US the idea of a good education system is neighborhood controlled schools that are as good as want the people in that neighborhood can afford.
— Athena
As neighborhoods aren't similar, in fact even US states differ from each other just like member states of the European Union (even if English is spoken everywhere), one cannot think that neighborhoods, communities and cities can all provide equal opportunity. Hence here is where things start going wrong. Worse schools make it harder to get to the best secondary schools or to apply to tertiary education.

Awe yes, the United States, the richest nation in the world. What would happen to our wealth if threw it away on that scum? Look people get what the deserve and it would be stealing form those who work hard for their money to tax them and give the money to the undeserving.
— Athena
You wouldn't have so many problems or crime, for starters. Not that problems would go away altogether. Still our societies (yours and mine) try to function as meritocracies, which do inherently create inequality. The issue is to have a system with social mobility and not have the classes turn into a caste system.

Do you think? but that isn't what is causing the rioting in our cities is it?
— Athena
No.

Of course there's a long thread about racism and I won't go into that. perhaps the basic problem in the US is that many confuse Bernie Sanders, who basically in Europe would be your average social democrat, with Hugo Chavez and his kind, which are a totally different socialists.

They won the fight. It just took a long time to realize their win.
— Athena
Exactly.

It should be understood that the conservative right accepted and took the idea of a welfare state as it's own in the Nordic countries. This is something that Americans would find really hard to understand from people who call themselves right-wingers. A similar thing happened with capitalism: the modern social democrat does not cry for a Marxist revolution, but just wants to curb the excesses of capitalism, yet understands that there is a time and place for free market capitalism. Especially when elections are around, the ordinary leftist and the right-winger won't admit that they have accepted issues from the other side, naturally, but their silence does tell a lot.

Our unions made some progress and then past President Reagan destroyed the unions.
— Athena
I myself find it odd that labor unions had been infiltrated by organized crime at the first place. But I think this is a major reason why real income and wages haven't gone up in the US and inequality has become even greater. — ssu

Let me begin with "I love you". It is so wonderful to find someone who really knows the value of education and that it isn't only about military and industrial interest. It is our culture and everyone being prepared to give their best to the country.

James Williams in 1899 "If we reflect upon the various ideals of education that are prevalent in the different countries, we see that what they all aim at is to organize capacities for conduct. " At this time for the Germans that meant preparing the young to advance technology for military and industrial purpose. England strongly rejected this education because it wanted to protect it classes, and education for technology tends to make everyone equal, because the child from the poorest home, educated for technology, does not remain in the low class. The focus of English education was to be an English man and woman.

The US with its democratic values, stumbled onto the benefits of education for technology when it mobilized for the first world war. Technologically Germany was the most advanced, and the US had to scramble to catch up. This is not just about having the best war ships and best cannons. It is about having thousands of people who can type, or repair trucks, or build bridges. We did not have that when we faced WWI but rapidly put education for technology into our schools when we knew we were going to entered the war.

Up to this time, US education was limited to literature, reading, writing, and speaking! I collect old books and they are quaint. The goal of education, as you understand it, being to prepare good citizens, so we have social order and a well running democracy. This including promoting associations and unions uniting people to do for themselves what Europeans relied on their governments to do for them. The addition of education for technology was a huge economic benefit that was not expected. Up to this time parents rather keep their children home to help on the farm. When parents learned their children would learn a job skill in school, they were more willing to send their children to school, because that meant their children a had chance of having better lives with more money and the benefit of what money can buy.

We can see how this develops. People have more money to spend, so more businesses become profitable. The whole economy grows and the standard of living is improved. There is no need to say this to you, but more people in the US need to understand the relationship between the education, the military and the economy. This trinity becomes stronger and larger.

But for all the good of this trinity something went very wrong in Germany and the US. If human beings are to be more than well trained, reactionary animals, that obey their masters, or get pushed to the margins of society, then they must learn how to be civilized humans. Leaving moral training to the church does not work in a democracy with liberty. In a democracy with liberty the people must have training for good moral judgment and cultural values. Citizens must be adults, not God's and the king's children.

Germany has progressed as a civilization better the US since WWII. The US missed the lesson's Germany learned and the US took their culture for granted. Now it is no longer a well cultured nation, but I have hope we will return to better education for reasoning and a better economy of independent thinkers who are empowered to make their best contribution to society. Education preparing our young to be products for industry, is good for slaves, and gives us a third world economy of workers dependent on the owners. :rage:

We are now seeing an exodus from California now as the high cost of living and the possibility of working from home gets many to move away from the traditional centers like Los Angeles or San Francisco. Yet many of those moving away do also mention the homeless problem and the tent cities on the street as a reason. Homelessness isn't just a personal problem for those who are effected by it, it does effect the whole society. It easily reminds us how much social cohesion there is in our society. If there isn't any, people are genuinely scared of each other. So I think this is a topic that can and should be discussed on a thread about the economy. — ssu

Do you think? but that isn't what is causing the rioting in our cities is it? Those rioters are anarchist that should be controlled with the National Guard if local police forces can not maintain law and order. You are a foreigner so you can be forgiven for not knowing what our great leader Trump says about law and order. I pray to the heavens you know I am being sarcastic and I am experiencing a great emotion relieve as I attack what we have been living and what is tearing the US apart. Europe experienced peasant revolts long ago, and because they were crushed by those in power, we might think they lost their fight, but you are telling us the did not win the fight. They won the fight. It just took a long time to realize their win.

Our unions made some progress and then past President Reagan destroyed the unions. Our past education explained the connection between unions and democracy, but that was before the 1958 National Defense Education that put an end to education for citizenship in a democracy and gave us instead education for a technological society with unknow values. We are no longer the democracy we once were, and as more and more of our wealth goes to the 1% things are not getting better so we worship Trump who promisers to make things better. We will see how well Biden does. I hope he and Harris can unite our nation, but no one understands what the change in education has to do with the mess we are in, so I am afraid we will continue to be divided and fighting against each other.

Yet there is also a link the other way around: if social problems are left unchecked and become large, this increases the lack of social cohesion, increases crime and heightens political tensions, which then create an atmosphere that decreases economic investment and business activity. — ssu

Awe you speak of the American dream where the only thing government provides is a police force to protect private property. You know, bash people's heads in when they dare defy the authority of autocratic industry and property owners. Anything to do with taking care of the poor, who are exploited by industry and property owners, is a matter of charity and that is not the correct function of government. I mean like get real. If you take care of these people they stop working for poverty wages and that would be terrible for the economy! We are not like Europe you know, where the government might be expected to take care of the people.

In the US the idea of a good education system is neighborhood controlled schools that are as good as want the people in that neighborhood can afford. So in one school district the advantaged students have a superior education, and the kids in the slums who live with crime and violence daily, actually risk their lives going to school that have very little to offer the children and the teachers can actually experience battle fatigue because the uncivilized behavior of students. We have videos of these schools where teachers have no control over students and surely you would not spend your hard earned money on those children, would you? Awe yes, the United States, the richest nation in the world. What would happen to our wealth if threw it away on that scum? Look people get what the deserve and it would be stealing form those who work hard for their money to tax them and give the money to the undeserving.

Like OMG, we don't want to be socialist! Everyone knowns how bad that is. Government is correctly restricted to using tax dollars to support a military force that in turn protects our economic interests over seas, because that is the source of our wealth. Local government provides the services the people can afford, and we just stay out of those bad neighborhoods where those disgusting people live. Like Trump said, we don't want those people in our neighborhoods ruining our property value. Really? arguing in favor of socialist notions and that it is the governments responsibility to spread out the prosperity? What kind of person are you? You do not sound like a Trump supporter! :brow: Someone in this forum must provide the correct understanding of what makes the US great because we must protect our wealth and stand firmly against socialism!

Perhaps I seem to be a "socialist" when I do say that these things ought to be taken care by the government and not to be left only to voluntary organizations as they can do only so much. Above all, it policies have to be smart and understand that homelesness is a complex issue, yet it can be minimized and dealt with. Many need far more help than just a roof over their head. Even if there is mental disorders and addiction problems, many don't have these issues. In my country in the 1950's there were about 70 000 homeless people, in 1987 the number had decreased to 18 000 and now in 2020 it's estimated that there are 4 000. Four thousand in over five million people isn't much (0,008%), which all are sheltered. In the US the number is something like (0,175%), which is twenty times the amount than here. For comparison, LA County has roughly twice the population of my country, Finland, yet has about 60 000 homeless.

I think this isn't a problem of money in the US, but the lack of sound social policies, social work and organization. The biggest obstacle is the view that the Welfare State is socialism and that you cannot force people into treatment etc. Reducing the homeless by 50% is totally possible for starters. — ssu

Your opening statement is excellent and I look forward to reading the rest of your post.

The truth of what you said makes me so mad! :rage: The US has just recently come to the end of its wilderness, and its mentality has not caught up with its changed reality. For awhile we did have facilities for the mentally ill. Some were very nice and others were hell holes because they were overwhelmed by a larger population of mentally ill people than expected. The solution was to close them down and deny the problem. Today where I live, we have an space that provides many services and the mentally ill hang around this area with no place to go. My sister has been rescuing people off the streets at our state capital and her life has been hell because we do not have the organization to help the seriously mentally ill. Our hospitals are dumping people with serious health problems on the streets knowing they have no place to go. A third world country could not do worse than we are doing.

We are just beginning to think in terms of government having a responsibility to care for people needing help, instead of driving them out of town or incarcerating them for crimes. But I am not sure this discussion belongs in a thread about economics? This discussion belongs in a thread questioning if the US is civilized. We are so clueless about the end of a labor intense economy that could more easily assimilate marginal people, and why our high tech society has pushed millions of people out of main stream society and into uncontrolled mental illness and drug addiction. Now that economic change could be an economic issue? But as long as people insist everything is free I don't think we can make much progress in a discussion of economic reality.

Your post is so good, I am excited about what you may say next.

↪Athena The point was just shorthand that the example you provided is fictitious. The budget is never zero. There's always a budget of labour available for starters - there's a bunch of homeless lying around doing nothing after all. And yes, if enough people are homeless they should just take homes from others. Seems fair enough if a society fails to care for all its members. — Benkei

Okay you have 50 labors. Now how do you turn this labor into shelter for everyone?

You can easily create a budget by taking from other people. Or taxation. — Benkei

Please explain that. Who decides how much a tax payer will pay, and who pays taxes? What is the process of getting more money from tax payers? What are the consequences of raising taxes or creating new taxes? What is being taxed, property, things we own or buy, incomes?

When a representative has a history of raising taxes, what happens when the next election period comes? When a representative or president says we must conserve and stop consuming oil or stop cutting down the forest, what happens at the next election? Why? It is the economy and I hope people keep posting.

What in the Heavens is whatever you said and do you stand by the concept it is not a byproduct of God? A useful one perhaps but yes. — Outlander

Yeah, once again I left out an important word. I have corrected the post. Amazing what a difference one word can make. Especially when the word is "not". This time the missing word is "glad".

I became politically active to house the homeless following the 1970 recession. We could not assimilate the young into the work force fast enough and I housed many of them. I sold plasma to supplement my small pay check and was feeding these young people, buying them medicine, buying them clothes so they could apply for jobs, and then things got worse. When an economy crashes the cost of housing stays low but as soon as the economy improves, the cost of housing rises and even more people become homeless.

During the 1970 recession I researched poverty at the U of O document department. I wanted to understand how can wealth just suddenly disappear and such hardships follow?! I learned some interesting things, such as how laws to protect the middle class standard of living, result in increased homelessness. What large populations and diminished resources has to do with the increased cost of housing because the cost of land and everything that makes a house, goes up, making it impossible to build truly low income housing.

I fought very hard to call public attention to the increasing homelessness, and now my retired sister combs the streets of our state capital, rescuing the homeless people she can rescue. Her Facebook page has pictures of the horrors she deals with, and the people who want their story to told. My grown granddaughter manages a camp ground for homeless people and her life is on the line, because of the virus and because, when necessary, she must take knives away from men who are not in their right mind. In my community there is much more for struggling people than in our state capital and this is because of what I was able to achieve long ago. I did not achieve it alone but I got the ball rolling because I wanted to get homeless people out of my home. We could not have achieved anything but our city counsel had hippies running our city and so a lot of good things were done. :flower:

It is hard to imagine anyone being homeless and staying in their right mind for long. Their survival almost depends on going feral, like a feral cat that can no longer be domesticated. I am not as involved as I once was because I just physically can't do much, but I turn on my computer every morning to make this world a better place. After what I have seen and experienced, I really want people to face reality. Never in the history of humanity did the easy life come free, unless the people live in one of the few places that are like a Garden of Eden, such as the tropical islands and Mediterranean areas with large rivers.

The homeless have been robbed of their home which is the same Earth that the rich think they have exclusive right to. Some people think there is some justice or morality in a few people owning many homes and a great number paying to borrow their homes and many more not having homes at all. I think is ridiculous and unneccesary. Everyone should have a garden, and everyone should have a home. — unenlightened

This thread is about the economy and I suppose we could talk about housing the homeless. We have come to that time of year when people freeze to death if they are not sheltered. First we need to decide where they are going to sleep? Then where will they pee and shit? How do they get food? How do they manage their trash? How do they avoid having their few possessions stolen? Our budget is zero. Now create those shelters.

The homeless will be glad to know they get so much free.

Wouldn't it have been better if we'd done it the other way - learned to speak mother earth, Gaia's language, perhaps requiring a getting in touch with our softer, mellow side that has a primeval connection to the Earth?

Something must be done about the so-called global economy. — TheMadFool

Your thought needs our attention. Primitive people learned they must invest in the land to get food. When I speak of being materialistic, my intention is to raise awareness of our disconnection with life. How we develop our awareness will make us ,more or less anthropocentric. We might want to be focused on Gia?

Religion attempts to focus us on God but that focus doesn't work well if it ignores Gai.

A person who does something useful or worthwhile or creates something of the like should be rewarded.
— Outlander

Why?I just created that worthwhile post; reward me.

Nothing is given for free.
— Outlander

Everything is given for free. We come into this world with nothing and helpless to even feed ourselves. — unenlightened

Interesting discussion you two are having. I will argue we do not get things for nothing when we are no longer dependent children. Even what nature gives us, requires us to make an effort to get it. I think everyone should have a garden because gardens teach us a lot about life. A productive garden requires a lot of work, preparing the soil, planting at the right time, watering just enough and not too much, defending the garden from disease, pest, and animals that will gladly eat it and if you don't get it right, you starve. Hunters and gathers lived off the land, but they had to learn where to look for food, and when the food would be there, and how to survive the elements. In some places life was more like a Garden of Eden, but much of our planet is not so friendly, and life was not so easy.

I think that for starters, we concentrate on how things change while something that has stayed the same for decades we simply take for granted. — ssu

For sure our brains are designed to run on automatic without too much thinking. But as our reality changes we need to understand that change and how to adjust to it.

I love how you all force me to think! :heart: Imagine being a primitive person whose survival depends on knowing the environment. You will not be planning a new computer program and giving any thought to technological development, but you may discover a better way to make a spear because your survival pushes you to do what you do better. I have I succeeded in conveying a totally different mode of thinking and different direction of human evolution? Modern man probably would not survive in the past and someone from the past would have a terrible time trying to survive in our time. To begin with What is blazes is economics? What is it and where does it come from?

anthropocentric — TheMadFool

Well "anthropocentric" is a very fancy word and I had to look it up. I totally like that word and would not throw stones at people because that is true of them. We might be a whole lot more rational if we favored evolution over creationism because that would give us a much more realistic understanding of our value, what can be expected of us and what our limitations are. All social animals perceive their group to be the most important.

I mention Christianity because many people understand life through this mythology rather than a study of nature. Primitive people had a closer connection with nature and understood their survival depended on knowledge of the environment rather than on a God's will. Democracy is rule by reason, and that also depends on knowledge of the environment. Hunter gathers learned where to look for food. We learned to look for finite resources and those resources are being exhausted. If we do not take a serious look at what mineral resources have to do with building and maintaining an economy, we are not going to make much progress in a discussion about economics.

In other words we don’t always know what leads people to make poor decisions or what their intentions are. — Emma

Why would the reason for the person's poor decision matter? Usually it is ignorance. Often it is good intensions. So, why does a person's reasoning matter?

On the other hand, if a female becomes pregnant, we can be sure she had intercourse with a male. If she does not have a home for a child, can not feed the child, and does not have help, she is in trouble. I can not think of a time when we can not know the cause of an effect.

I do believe that there are cases where intentions can be important in determining judgments. — Emma

I am confused. What is being judged? The cause of something?

If something cannot be impartial, then it should not judge others. — Emma

I disagree with that statement. If the actions of a person cause harm to another, we do need to judge that person. Same as we need to judge wild animals. Is the person or animal likely to cause harm?

I don't know if there is any reasoning in this post or not. :lol: I think I argued myself into a corner I can't get out of? This is totally looking like philosophy. Very nit picky. I know some people who are apt to do serious wrongs, and I see the good in them. So now we have good people do bad things? But do all of us see the good in others? Do we tend to think bad people do bad things and not good people?

Yes, the "cost" which is a monetary term to my knowledge. I feel like a nonphysicalist with an environmental agenda, equally apalled by the materialistic reductionism as I am about the, coincidentally, "green" reductionism. Isn't it odd that the greenback is at odds with the greenbelt? I guess, we're a bit confused about the whole issue - both are green after all. — TheMadFool

I think a better understanding of our economy might include a study of Christianity. Especially Protestantism, that is tied to Calvinism, a very materialistic/supernatural understanding of life justifying the exploitation of humans and earth. By materialistic I mean a total rejection of animism-

— the attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena. 2. the belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe.

The supernatural power is the God of Abraham, His son the Holy Ghost, all completely separate from nature. The religion prevented us from understanding Gia until just recently and there is still very strong resistance to accepting the science of Gia that was known to aborigine's for centuries. Especially in the US we are in the throws of culture war, and this is a serious, social, economic and political problem that could destroy our democracy.

Well, I do live in a welfare state where there is a) free education even to the university level, b) assistance to housing, c) perpetual unemployment benefits and d) universal free health care. When you have those, you already have been taken care of what universal basic income is for, especially with the unemployment benefit. Then for those who do have income and pay taxes, it is questionable if this is basic income is necessary as it's basically a payback of the taxes. — ssu

And we all live happily ever after, NOT.

We no longer live in labor intense economy. Factories that once employed 300 people are run by a handful of people with high tech skills. Not only is does this mean not enough factory work, but everyone who got only a C average in school, has very little of chance of getting a job that pays a decent wage because the supply of these people is far greater than the demand for them. AND, who is paying taxes? Not the unemployed people, and not those working for low wages.

Since early times governments have been supported by the source of income. At first the source of income was the land. Then as economies developed the source of income was the human time and energy invested in the production of products. Increasingly the source of income is the technology that has replaced the need for human labor and I think we need to rethink our tax system.

At the very least, we need to respect how much time and energy a person gives to earn the wage. Someone working more than 40 hours a week should not be taxed at the same scale of someone who can earn that much money in a fraction of that time. To make our tax system just, it should compensate people for their time and energy. Working 60 hours to week consumes a lot from a human being, and this people should not be taxed the same as someone doesn't work for a living but lives well off of investments. We have a long ways to go before we express human value.

Unfortunately, the way economies are run, perhaps its something inherent in its very nature, has, :smile: "costs" that can't be translated by economists or anyone else apparently into money. Stuff like pollution, environmental degradation, deforestation, global warming, etc. haven't been transliterated into dollars and dollars seem to be the only language people, especially the ones who call the shots, understand. It's as if mother earth, Gaia, hasn't been able to keep up with the way human language has evolved from Hindi, Chinese, English, German, Japanese, etc. into the now global language that's money. In the past, Gaia, could speak to us in moving verse and thought-provoking prose, of course at the cost of losing precious trees to make the paper on which they're written. Now, this simply fails as the language has changed into what to Gaia is unspeakable nevertheless "understandable" — TheMadFool

That is not exactly true. We can talk about the cost of pollution, environmental degradation, deforestation, global warming. Here is a google page that does that.

https://www.google.com/search?q=economic+cost+of+global+warming&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS926US926&oq=economic+cost+of+glob&aqs=chrome.0.0i457j69i57j0j0i22i30l5.11171j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

It is up to us to change the conversation and Biden's administration is more likely to make new conversation possible then the Trump administration dependent on denial of the cost.

We the people have a lot of work to do in the US because it is evident the population is very ignorant of things we need to know, to have good moral judgment. We need to become aware of the most important pieces of information and then be sure the media is addressing them and our schools are preparing the young for a different reality than the one we have lived up to now.

It's not just risky, it's counter intuitive. Increased efficiency and specialisation in production should lead to lower prices. Rising prices are purely a result in increases in the money supply or debt leveraging. If those funds are directed at the "wrong" sector or causes a general glut it's going to collapse. — Benkei

What happens when a vital resource for a product becomes hard to get and the demand is greater than the supply?

I am not sure how your idea of an economy works. Think of this as a computer game. describe your area, does it have a sea port? Is it inland? What are the natural resources. You know, what can be use to start your economy? What is your water supply? Can you feed your community? How? Do you have a source of energy? After telling me how these people meet their immediate needs and develop a product they can sell, what is the transportation system and who is the buyer of the product?

I please there seems to be more agreement here than I expected. Okay, what can we do to get the whole world operating on a better understanding of reality? We desperately need a better grasp of reality. Third world countries are not going have our standard of living, making shoes and clothing for wages that keep these jobs in third world countries. That is not good for them nor all the people in the developed countries needing jobs.

Even if somehow the economy of every country could afford a high standard of living, our planet is finite and the faster we consume its resources the closer we come to economic collapse.

What is a realistic plan that is sustainable? I want to give the world birth control because war is a product of over population and I hate war.

A person who does something useful or worthwhile or creates something of the like should be rewarded.
— Outlander

Why?I just created that worthwhile post; reward me.

Nothing is given for free.
— Outlander

Everything is given for free. We come into this world with nothing and helpless to even feed ourselves. — unenlightened

For thousands of years the woman's and the poet's reward was intrinsic . During the great Depression the arts were funded but we seem very reluctant to do that today. Mothers dependent on welfare are surely not rewarded for being mothers.

Especially in our materialistic capitalism, we do not have a system for rewarding everyone who makes a contribution. Many of our essential workers are living below the poverty level without the protections of wealth. Just how well should they be rewarded?

We might want to provide well for everyone, but being dependent on public assistance is not equal to having dignity and liberty and where is the money to provide for everyone going to come from?

For starters, not everything important has to do with the economy. The economy is first and foremost a tool, if it works well, then the prosperity should be used to preserve nature and make the environment a better place to live for every living creature.

The simple fact is that economy is important just up to a point, it isn't itself a reason. — ssu

What you have said is kind of like figuring the value of a homemaker. Traditionally a man supports the woman, and we know his value by what he earns. The wife does not earn money, so her value is zero, right?

The earth is our mother. We have exploited her and diminished what she has to give. The value of what we take from her is what the men earn. She can be ignored as the homemaker is ignored. :wink:

:lol: I can imagine some men totally regretting the forum is open to women who do not know what they are talking about. While they take their fantasies of economics very seriously. I come to the discussion with point of view of a woman who came of age before women were liberated, and also from a geological perspective. I lost any trust in economist when I realized they are not grounding their thoughts on economics with geological reality.

Then you are one of the people that understand reality and don't go with the hype as the majority will do. — ssu

Heavens no. I don't go along with the hype because I am too skeptical. But I only know enough to know how much I do not know.

This may have nothing to do with what you all are talking about, but there was a time when the there was a formula for determining the prices of things. One third the price of something was the cost of making it. One third of the price was invested in the company. The last third was profit. I was absolutely horrified when large manufactures of cars went bankrupt!

Something has gone very wrong with our capitalism. Successful business should not need to depend on banks for loans, because they should have their own reserve for growth, and bad times.

Far too many industries/businesses are dependent on government contracts! How many bombs does the world need and should we be arming the world because that is good for our economy?

Should we count the whole world as our supply of resources, or should we be aware of our own resources and the nations we depend on for mineral resources? When it comes to mineral resources and the cost of defending our economic interest, I think we are way out of touch with reality.

Can we ignore global warming or should we figure the cost of ignoring it as part of our reality?

The field of post traumatic stress disorder is interesting. I have come across a few people and it is sometimes gets mistaken for borderline personality disorder. In fact, one of the tutors on my art therapy course thought that complex post traumatic stress disorder would be better for what is regarded as borderline personality disorder. To some extent I agree but I am not sure that there is not a subtle difference. Whatever the labels, severe stress does terrible things to us.

Really, even though I am writing about Freud and arguing against Darkneos's dismissal of Freud I think that various schools of thought can contribute to the understanding of various conditions. I am sure that Freud would not be opposed to neuroscience and in his time hypnotherapy was fashionable so he went down that route.

Understanding is an open quest and can learn from the various competing disciplines and fields of thought. I think philosophy needs to engage in this way rather than thinkers becoming too rigid, fixed and attached to any one way of thinking. The philosopher needs to be able to do mental gymnastics to stay adrift in the rocky slopes of our times. — Jack Cummins

I hate labels! The only thing we should label is a behavior, not the person, with a few exceptions that have biological causes that can be validated. I think, when we get to personality disorders, we are getting into skittishy territory. We all know what a unicorn is and there is no such thing as a unicorn. If we can think it, we can create it in our own minds, but that doesn't make it so. That is kind of like becoming aware of a concept and naming a god to represent that concept. Civilizations with multiple gods eventually had to give them up because there was no end to the number of new gods.

Oh but when it comes to specialist and rigid thinking that is a dead end road! I love the gods because they were essential to the development of our consciousness. This is not possible when there is only one God. When there are many gods(concepts) we can realize new ones (concepts) and when they interact, our consciousness is expanded. That just does not happen when there is only one God. Your awareness is limited to what that one God said. Today different fields of study have replaced the gods and too much specialization lead to realizing these specialist must interact to increase understanding. Each god and each field of study is a different point of view. The more points of view we have the more will see up to a point. Too many gods can be overwhelming. Expanding consciousness is kind of like breathing. There is a rhythm to it. Expand awareness, assimilate it. Expand awareness, assimilate it.

You think that speculative bubbles happen in times when interest rates are high and banks don't lend or what? Tell me an example of a speculative bubble happening in that kind of environment. — ssu

That is an interesting thought. I absolutely love it. I tried to warn people of the housing bubble several years ago and no one would listen. Somehow the whole nation has lost its judgment. No one seems grounded in reality.

Your essential argument seems to be most in line with the material reductionist. It is compatible with the behaviorist approach of B F Skinner. You do appear to believe that the neuroscientists have the final word. When you say that the 'mind' does not exist you are making an assertion about the mind and body problem of philosophy, a huge a whole branch of philosophy in itself and yet you write as if you can sum the whole field up in a couple of sentences. — Jack Cummins

Oh, oh, oh I think it should be obvious to everyone that our body and brain are not separate. I believing our bodies hold information and memories our brains may have forgotten.

Also, in your approach to post traumatic syndrome and its healing you say that the experiences come down to a rewiring of the brain. — Jack Cummins

I have no problem with the notion of an experience wiring our body/brain. This is especially true of our sex drive. While hormones play a role in our sexual impulses and may determine our sexual preference, so does experience wire our sexuality. Molesting a child can result in the child becoming a pedophile, or a person can be fixated on feet or rubber. I knew a man who was so cursed, and he lit up like a Christmas tree when children were in the swimming pool. He had lied to me about having this problem and I ended that relationship. The point is obviously he had this reaction without mental control. He had no more control over his physical reaction than I can avoid thinking I am hungry when I see food.

As you are so opposed to Freud's ideas what do you believe the answer is for working with life experiences of the past ? — Jack Cummins

From experience I would say this is where linguistics comes in, self-talk, how we tell ourselves the story. My original trauma happened when I was preverbal so I had a lot of work to do to figure out why I was have a problem. When I pin pointed the experience that caused the trauma and told a counselor what happened, he was able to change the self talk, and I went from experiencing myself as different personalities back to one person having different experiences. What a relief that was.

A key for me was reading a book about traumatized children and realizing I was preverbal when the event happened. I would have had no words for explaining what happened if my mother had not told me what happened. But it was recorded emotionally. First fear and than absolute chaotic terror that could get tripped, if something in the present, tripped the emotional memory. At least for me, understanding all these explanations and getting the right help made a big difference in my life. That counselor introduced me to linguistics and I think of what he did to help me as mind magic because it seemed to rewired my brain.

In my adult life the problem presented as panic attacks and that was fascinating. I got so tired of doctors dismissing what was happening to me as nothing but panic attacks, that I refused to give in to the panic attack the last time I went to the emergency room, many years ago. I calmly told the doctor I was in a state of panic. He didn't believe me but checked my body for signs of panic and sure enough, my body thought I was in a terrifying situation. That is when I began my effort to understand how our brains work and I have preferred the mechanics of how our brains work to Freudian analysis. I think Freud would prefer that too, he just didn't have the tools researchers have today.

↪Athena Trauma is actually rather complex but it has nothing to do with a subconscious. It's literally wiring in the brain. Recent developments in neuroscience show that much of what was "the mind" is just the brain. The tricky part is that it's a little more than just going in there and nip and tuck. — Darkneos

I guess that depends on how we define the subconscious. We surely can not be aware of all the information stored in our brains. Would not the information we are not aware of be a subconscious? I watched a show last night about how we are preprogrammed for prejudice, selecting for our own kind. It is something we do automatically without being aware of doing it.

Yes, a cure for post traumatic disorder would be good. I will be very surprised if a psychedelic gets prescribed, even CBD is being frowned upon by many. In my antipsychiatry voice I would say that psychiatry is far more in favour of antipsychotics for post traumatic disorder than psychedelics because visionary healing is not valued enough. — Jack Cummins

Measure 109
Allows manufacture, delivery, administration of psilocybin at supervised, licensed facilities; imposes two-year development period. — Oregon Voters Pamphlet

Pot was made legal sometime ago and there are stores selling everywhere. We have also moved from stiff criminal sentences for possession of drugs to treatment.

Personally I do not want to be around people who are stoned or under the influence of alcohol. However, when I face death I am looking forward to doing psilocybin in a facility that includes that in its services. I do not believing dying has to be an unpleasant experience and I am glad Oregon has assisted suicide.

Freud's Theories of Life and Death Instincts - Verywell Mindwww.verywellmind.com › ... › History and Biographies
Death Instincts (Thanatos) The concept of the death instincts was initially described in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, in which Freud proposed that “the goal of all life is death.” Freud believed that people typically channel their death instincts outwards. 2 Aggression, for example, arises from the death instincts. — very well mind

PS measure 109 passed.

I agree with you that it is hard to see how issues like post traumatic syndrome can be accounted for without the idea of the subconscious.

Psychiatrists have not dismissed the tradition of psychoanalysis as many undertake training in psychodynamic therapy. Many are progressing thinkers, go beyond sexism and homophobia. Of course psychiatry does use drugs, but most do recognize the importance of the subconscious and the past, especially relevant for both post traumatic borderline disorder.

Of course psychiatry can come under attack. The whole anti antipsychiatry tradition questioned some of the labelling of disorders. — Jack Cummins

It seems today everyone is ready to attack anything and everything. This is a serious spiritual disease. That is something materialist have a problem discussing, but I will say our spirit is as important as material substance. The American Spirit is a high morale. We feel it when we believe we doing the right thing. But something has gone very wrong with our spirit. I am sure those people standing outside of polling places yelling "stop the count" believe they are doing the right thing, but they are angry and threatening. That does not look like a high morale to me.

I have no idea how Freud would judge what is happening now, but I know it is about spirit not just matter and facts.

Oregon has just legalized the clinical use of psilocybin and we have great hope for this drug. I would love to know what Freud would have to say of this? A cure for depression, addiction, post trauma syndrome without pyschoanalysis. Another cure can be art especially if the individual is being creative and making art. I think both the drug and creativity share something in common.

I think Freud's ideas do reflect the prejudices of his times but would say that I am not so sure that he was really against gay issues because he spoke of the dangers of repression. — Jack Cummins

Freud was as accepting of homosexuality as the Greeks were because he got a good share of information from the Greeks. Here Hippocrates is important to our understanding and judgment of Freud. Freud like Hippocrates held a materialistic understanding of disease. He said it is what happens in the body that causes disease, not the gods or demons. This was vital to the Christian understanding of medicine that associated illness with sin and demons. For biological reasons a person could be homosexual and we can dismiss everything the Bible has to say about it being sinful and disliked by a God.

As Ciceronianus the White mentioned there may not be a personal God who deals with us individually or cares what we do in private. No demons or miracles from a God and homosexuality is not a mental disease but a biological reality. HIV is not a punishment from God to punish people gay men.

My personal feeling is we have no good reason to believe (at this time, anyhow) there's anything beyond the universe. Nothing, therefore, that transcends it. Maybe we'll find out there is, sometime, or maybe there are other universes. People speak of a transcendent God, but we attribute characteristics to that God we can only conceive of though our existence as a part of the universe, and cannot even guess what is beyond it. The transcendent God makes no sense to me, and can't be known. If there's a God, I think it's immanent and impersonal.

So I would tend to doubt anything being "our true selves" unless it's thought to be a part of the universe. There's still a great deal we don't know about the universe, though. — Ciceronianus the White

Freud was materialistic, right? Matter follows laws, right? Logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe, is nothing like the God of Abraham. It is not personal. We can live in harmony of the law or suffer the consequences of not doing so.

It is said there could be other dimensions. I think our 3 dimensional reality is only in our 3 dimensional reality and I have no concept of any other. :lol: I am reminded of The Disney movie Inside Out when the girl goes into the abstract room.

As for other controlling rules that are not about matter, Jean Shinoda Bolen's books Gods in Everyman and Goddess in Every Woman presents a realty that is not material. Using the Gods and Goddesses she tells us how these archetypes influence our lives and how our childhood influences us. A concept and an experience are not made of matter yet they influence what we think and how we feel. I don't think we can deny there is more to reality than matter.