Terrapin Station
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Do you agree it is natural to experience fear of the unknown?
— Athena

Everything that anyone does or experiences is natural in my view. So yes, it's natural to experience fear of the unknown. There are people who experience that.

The stranger is unknown and this can result in fear, right?
— Athena

Sure.

Under what conditions is this not true?
— Athena

Since it's a statement about possibilities, I think it would be difficult to say conditions under which it wouldn't be true. That doesn't imply that strangers DO result in fear. It's just true that they can. It depends on the people involved, the exact circumstances, etc. — Terrapin Station

I already replied to your post but walked away and thought about it. The reason I am being so bloody picky about how we understand our nature and fear is because I watched a video of Bill Moyer talking about our violence. Someone pointed out, what looks like a lot of anger is actually fear. Now these are macho young men raging and beating the stranger or fight with that other gang, and hell would freeze over before they admitted their behavior is about fear. We need to recognize our fear and think about it. Are we creating a world we want to live in when we build a wall to keep others out and ignore the danger that some people are forced to live with? Is a man screaming at us at these people are criminals and rapist, telling us all we need to know about building a wall to keep people out? How can we throw stones at the Russians for the wall they built and be proud of ourselves for building one? What are we really feeling and how much reasoning can we do?

And for sure, life in a highrise apartment is not living with nature.

Ouch,that thinking is the problem today! And we come to this by leaving moral training to the church and leaving the masses to believe they have God's truth, although they disagree with each other about what that truth is. This is nuts and it will destroy us.
— Athena

What is the difference between the masses thinking they have the truth of God and disagreeing on exactly what that is, and scientists thinking they have the truth of logic and disagreeing on exactly what that is? As you said-
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Hey, that question is too easy. It is impossible to have any evidence of a God creating the first man and woman. While the theory of evolution is based on evidence. When religious people argue the meaning of what is in the bible their arguments are logical but not scientific. There is no evidence to collect and no experiments to do. Although religious arguments can logical there is no evidence.
-Athena
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quote=turtle
So, to restate what I said before, Religion is almost certainly wrong and I agree with that, but I don't think we should be so hasty to adopt the next great thing in entirety and ignore the dead ends that can leave us with. (String theory, unexplained phenomena, the 99% of the universe we have never seen or explored) Doesn't logical thinking kind of backfire when what we came to logically turns out to be a paradox? In other words, a logical solution could not possibly solve some questions we ask, therefore logical thinking may be very powerful, but not powerful enough to explain everything and certainly doesn't always provide absolutes. I agree with you to an extent that logic and reason are the best we have at the moment in terms of explaining our world, but people may have very different things to say about logic and reason in the future and may think of us as just as ignorant as we think of those dark age peasants.
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Religious thinking is also logical. But it is not evidence. I know some people think pointing at what is said in the bible is giving evidence, but by the science standard, holy books are reliable evidence. Holy books are mythology.

My point was we are not absolutely sure of anything and we should stop arguing with the belief that we can be absolutely sure of what we think we know. Our science truths are based on evidence, but it seems evident to us things are solid and it is all energy. That is pretty strange, isn't it.
-Athena
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Speaking of the dark ages, saying that Rome adopting Christianity was the cause would be a bit of a stretch. Generally, the position historians take is one that follows this line of thinking, "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times". Many factors went into the collapse of Rome, and I think most would attribute it to size and corruption (that was present in the government of Rome far before Christ was even born) as well as enemies on the borders seeing opportunities. Even so, it was probably more complex than that. One of the world's most powerful empires ever doesn't fall for just one reason.
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Rome in the west fell because it exhausted its supply of gold and there is nothing they could do to resolve that problem. But that alone is not what lead to Dark Ages. It was the Christians and no one else who turned out the lights. They very intentionally destroyed the papan temples and turn their backs on the accumulated knowledge that is math and science-based. Those pagan temples were places of learning math and learning about the universe. Somehow we have got to get this into our present consciousness. Christians are still standing in the way of science and causing us problems and science we replace liberal education with education for technology and left moral training to the church the problem is much worse.
-Athena
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quote=turtle
I think the majority of human societies throughout all of history have been militaristic.
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The old world order was ordered by family order. The Military Industrial Complex or New World Order is ordered by Prussian military order applied to citizens. The Prussians lived for a love of war. The people in the US lived for a love of God and this is because of the Enlightenment. :grimace: This is all paradoxical and I need a stronger cup of coffee to work through it. I greatly appreciate you backing me into the corner and forcing me to think how to change how people think of this. And for those wars, you write as though you think this is human nature. Raiding parties are human nature. Modern warfare is not human nature.
-Athena
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Quote+turtle
Say what you will about the enlightenment and how those European nations started to slowly encourage thought, but they still had wars and still forcefully took control of lesser off nations as colonies as late as the world wars. Even now, lots of businesses have factories and plantations in poor areas of the world that used to be colonies used for those things anyway, and they pay very little and rule with an iron fist. As for America, I think that Native Americans and Mexicans who lived in the Southwest and colonists from other European powers would disagree in your thought about America being more pacifist than militarist. Manifest Destiny is sort of just militaristic conquest said politely so people don't feel bad for stealing land. Of course, I don't believe in absolutes, especially morally, so I don't have a position on whether that was right or wrong, but I think I can classify it as militaristic.
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All evidence is that the US demobilized after every war and did not maintain the war industries and stand ready for war. Now Manifest Destiny is another matter. May I point out that is a religious problem? Paradox. The world was certainly made worse with a religion the claims there is only one god and this god has favorite people and tells people to kill every man, woman, and child so "God's people" can have the land. But as I said before raiding parties and modern warfare are two different things. We need to raise awareness of the difference. We need to remember it was extremely hard to drag the US into the world wars. If you want to discuss, we need to create a thread for that. What you said of Russian plowing over the US, needs to go in another thread.
-Athena
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quote=turtle
Democracy - a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
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We do not have a democratic form of government. We have a republic. The political power of this republic has steadily increased and is now so controlled by industry and military interest, we are far from the democracy we defended in two world wars. And that democracy was a social order that was defended in the classroom. That democracy is no longer defended.
-Athena
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Quote=turtle
Liberty - the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.

These are copy and paste definitions. I know that definitions are kind of shaky on things like this but I suppose whatever people say it is the most is a good place to start.
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Only highly moral people can have liberty. Anarchy is not tolerable and if it is not suppressed with strong laws and law enforcers, it must be kept at bay with education. There are two ways to have social order. Authority over the people or culture. We stopped usingeducation to transmit that culture and that leaves on authority over the people.
-Athena
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quote=turtle
Democracy seems to be rule by the people in some capacity. I think we can both agree that the people of any nation (and the human mind itself) are very easily deceived. The average person does not decide who they want to be president or what laws to pass on just reason, and sometimes no reason at all. When people go to vote, a lot of complex reactions are happening in their brain and I'd be willing to bet most of them have something to do with emotion. A people can value reason all they want, but unless they modify their own brains in order to only see reason, they will also have emotions and that will skew the result. Personally, I'm not against genetic modification of any kind, but I don't think artists would be very happy about you removing their children's emotions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Yes, we are in a real mess because democracy is protected by literacy in Greek and Roman classics, and we must be prepared for good judgment (liberal education) and Christianity stands in the way of that. Now it is also the Military Industrial Compex standing in the way of the education essential to good moral judgment and democracy.
-Athena
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Liberty seems to have very little to do with rules, especially those by reason. Liberty seems to be the opposite of rules in a sense. If you live by reason, that is totally fine, but telling people what to think is inherently authoritarian, even if you're "right". (Right in quotation marks because we have both already established that speaking that absolute is troubling.) It is also just as authoritarian even if what is right changes with what the evidence is, If anything, that would be more authoritarian because you are then not only telling outsiders what to think but also forcibly changing what your own people think.
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:lol: Yes we have mass ignorance. Our liberty goes with science. Moral is a matter of cause and effect.
-Athena
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Quote=turtle
never had any intention of being cruel. I just wish to have a pleasant discussion about life with strangers on the internet. I have to say that most of your points have been interesting if not flawed (Just like everyone else's, including mine I'm sure.) and I do look forward to further discussion on this. If someone is actually belittling you, I can't do anything to stop it, but I would like to treat you as an equal if not a superior. (I saw in another post of yours that you used to live in Hollywood in the 50's. You have obviously had a lot more life experience than a lot of people here and are a very important asset in a discussion.) So if you take anything away from this, just know that at least I am not deliberately trying to deny things you hold as truths, but challenge them just as you should mine and just as everyone else should to everyone else in the most respectful manner possible. — TogetherTurtle

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I absolutely love the discussion and very much appreciate what you are saying. It is my inadequacy that is the problem. I have been doing this for years and still, struggle to answer questions.

Someone who shared his knowledge of Qabala in a forum many years ago, explained without discussion people do not gain understanding. We have to talk and discuss liberty and democracy daily and this must be a constant part of our lives, just as Christianity is a constant part of life for Christians. Our Forefathers were Masons and they were discussing liberty and democracy or reading about it daily. WE, THAT IS THE HUGE POPULATION OF THE US, ARE NOT DISCUSSING OUR LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY. We can copy and paste, but what do know of the meaning?

I would not say strangers cause us fear but we are programmed to be on guard when our paths cross the path of a stranger. This would include job interviews, public speaking, or walking through a new neighborhood, especially if the neighborhood is populated by people who are noticeably different. The fear is a sign of intelligence and we are programmed by nature to experienced it.

If we are really sure of ourselves and confident we can handle whatever happens, we will be less fearful. Good social skills could reduce our fears. A belief that a God is protecting us can reduce our fears. Being logical can increase or decrease our fears, depending on the reality of the situation. Special military training can override our natural impulses. In public speaking if we think of the feeling as excitement gearing us to do our best, instead of fear, we can trick ourselves into feeling safe and very alert. :grin:

That sounds very interesting. What is a virtual realm? What if a person had a shitty job and wanted to explore other jobs?

I am not understanding your reasoning. Do you agree it is natural to experience fear of the unknown? The stranger is unknown and this can result in fear, right? Under what conditions is this not true?

"Hell if I know. From personal experience, I can tell you that at least where I live, Atheistic ideas and institutions have never really held power. The only reason I ever learned about the concept was a book about the Bill of Rights I read when I was in 5th grade. I grew up around people who thought I was a freak for not believing in God, and for a time I thought that they shouldn't be able to speak their mind because they didn't think rationally, but as I got older I questioned rationality itself. How can we be sure we are correct when our brains forget things and make up new things all the time? It is my belief now at least that a fundamental part of the human experience is not knowing the truth. I find it hard to think that I am above my friends and neighbors and family when I don't even know if I'm right after all.

As for a Military Industrial Complex, maybe. We have been militaristic almost as long as we've been religious, so it would be hard for me to say without looking into it more."
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We can never be absolutely sure we are correct.

Democracy is an imitation of the Greek gods who argued with each other until there was agreement on the best reasoning. And we all know, after everything is settled, someone gets a new insight or our situation changes and we have to start the reasoning process all over again. That is what makes democracy different from religion. Religions are not self-correcting. Democracy is self-correcting.

Our good manners is based on the fact that we can not be absolutely sure we are correct. Being like a 10 year child who can only deal with absolutes is not a desirable trait for adults. We have to live with paradox and opposing rights (this is right and so is that right, but we have choose) and other difficult choices. I used to wish I had a magic ball that would tell me my best choice. :lol: Our reality is not as black and white as education for technology can lead us to believe.

NO, We WERE NOT MILITARIST! :cry: I am overwhelmed by the challenge I face in these forums. The Enlightenment springs out of a lot stupid warring in Christian Europe and a determination to have rule by reason, rather than rule by the reasoning of few men who think life is nothing more than power struggles and their personal purpose in life is to have the most power.

Democracy is rule by reason. Liberty is about living with rule by reason. The US was known for standing against war. It demilitarized after every war. Not until Eisenhower and the Korean war did the US determine to maintain military power. When we geared up for the second world war, we ranked 17th in military might, below small countries. Our American revolution was in part a rebellion against paying taxes for England's military might. US tax payers were strongly against having a large military and paying for it. That they think the power and glory of our military might has always been part of our national pride, is like Jesus putting on an uniform and leading us into war. And damn, but if the Christian Right does not love our presidents who take us to war in the name of God. SOMETHING HAS GONE REALLY WRONG!

The same thing happened to Germany and for the same reasons. Hitler's New World Order and Bush's New World Order are the same. This is the gift of Prussian military bureaucracy applied to citizens and education for the Military Industrial Complex. We lived for the love of God and the Prussians lived for a love of war. We are all Christians you know, but can you picture Jesus dressed like Ceasar?

↪Athena I believe that free speech is important, but some people just don't. A lot of the time people see progress as a straight line, and never consider at all that there could be some truth in different ways. At the end of the day, even though I don't believe in God, I can't say that he isn't real any more certainly than a devout person can say that he is. Free speech and expression help to reach the end that is a society where all views are at least given a platform, but in practice, people use those rights to deplatform their rivals and that sort of defeats the purpose of free speech. It's a tricky situation, but also a problem worth solving.

As for the power of Christianity, as far as I was aware it has been a huge part of American and western culture for hundreds of years. I may be mistaken, but it seems like up until 1958 schools did teach morals, but they were Christian morals, which kind of defeats the purpose of mentioning how they stopped teaching them in an argument against Christians themselves. I would imagine that a lot of moral positions you hold are also ones the church held, (The Ten Commandments and such. Of course maybe not all of those, but for the western world they seem to be the starting point for most senses of morality.) and those were probably taught in schools. Of course, some things the Bible says (Like stoning homosexuals and women being traded almost as property) are certainly bad, (at least today) and I don't disagree with that. So overall, I don't think everything religion teaches is good, or accurate, but they are certainly a useful institution that has had power for a long time and is worth keeping around if for nothing else as a sort of "devil's advocate" (ironically) for an increasingly Atheistic society.

I think my position is something close to pacifism in a political and moral way. There is no universal answer key telling us what is right or wrong, true or false, so hurting others emotionally or physically for holding a view is a risky venture at best. (Of course, I assume you don't do those things, but some people certainly do.) So I don't think the church should be the primary source for moral teachings to the general populace, but I don't think secular organizations in schools should be either. Isn't the most egalitarian way to give both a platform and let the people decide from there? What about the other organizations that have strong moral views? I don't see why they are any more right or wrong than the two mentioned before, so they should have platforms to discuss too. Ideally, society would be governed (at least in the context of morality) by the majority group out of all of those, or by none at all, each acting as sort of guiding hand to those who wish to learn their ways and then apply those.

. — TogetherTurtle

Freedom of speech- arguing with each other about what is true and right is vital. What is essential about this is understanding there are rules of logic that must be followed. Just spewing off at the mouth is not protected freedom of speech. A President of the US refusing to speak with a leader of another country is violating the principle of freedom of speech. The purpose of freedom of speech is rule by reason. It is not power plays carried on by a couple of jerks who unfortunately have positions of power. I will repeat the important points. Democracy is rule by reason and this very different from dictatorships or monarchies that are the rule of humans over humans. Freedom of speech is essential to rule by reason and it must comply with rules of logic.

Religion- religion violates the rules of logic, therefore it violates good moral judgment and rule by reason. Sure religions carry some morals, but it does not prepare anyone for good moral judgment. The story of the Little Red Hen or the Empires New Clothes and most fables from many lands transmit morals. Jesus spoke in parables to transmit moral concepts and this is no different from telling fables. Mythology is about preparing the young to be adults in the communities. While all of this helps us be better humans, it is not truth as science is truth. Believing one has the word of God is nuts and it causes a lot of problems! A lot of problems- from ignorance that leads to people dying of disease, to wars with all sides believing a god is on their side.

A huge part of our problem is spell check thinking, technological thinking instead of philosophical thinking. There is truth, and spell check insist I write "the" truth, not of truth. There is a serious and important difference between thinking of truth versus "the" truth. Education for technology along with leaving moral training to the church and people who think they know God's truth is killing our democracy and liberty.

Education for democracy, liberty and good moral judgment is education in logic and increasingly complex concepts. I repeat, education for good moral judgment is education in logic and knowledge. It was Socrates' goal to expand our conscience- con means coming out of and science means knowledge.

"There is no universal answer key telling us what is right or wrong, true or false,"

"I don't think secular organizations in schools should be either."

Ouch,that thinking is the problem today! And we come to this by leaving moral training to the church and leaving the masses to believe they have God's truth, although they disagree with each other about what that truth is. This is nuts and it will destroy us.

What about logic and social agreements? Please, we are reduced to running around like a bunch of monkeys or pack of wolves without logic and the ability to make social agreements based on reason. Religion with its notion of having God's truth has us really messed up! No one has God's truth in a book written by men. There is only human reasoning and a human concept of truth. Understanding our reality gives us a better reality than the reality that monkeys and wolves have. We came from living like animals, and only recently got out of ignorance and poverty, and today's reasoning would destroy our wonderful achievement. Because of human nature, reasoning and accumulated knowledge(math and science) the ability to have social agreements, we have had a few hundreds of amazing progress. Christianity almost wiped this progress out of human memory when it got control in Rome. Truly history is not a straight line of progress. Christianity threw us into the Dark Ages, and we might return to that because of ending education for good moral judgment and leaving moral training to the church. We are destroying what we have achieved with ideas like the selfish gene and freedom to say or do anything we please. The reason for morals is to avoid that destruction. Morals are logical reasoning.

:heart: :flower:

You make my heart sing with joy because I absolutely love conundrums. Your post makes me feel like a child in a toy store free to play with anything I want.

I operate with a notion that I have duties to humanity, my country, and my family. Oh, and I am also working on my life after death by learning as much as I can. I don't want to sit next to the great people of history and be totally ignorant. :yikes: That would be embarrassing.

If we are in the resurrection it is our duty to learn as we can and work through all the decisions we need to make for all of us. :lol: That is to say I have some pretty good fantasies and a sense of purpose.

Did I have to have children? To fulfill myself as a woman I did have to have children. Would I do it again? Not in this lifetime! Do I regret that I had children? Well, maybe because I can agree with your point of view and our future is not looking good. But there is a chance that all may come out well and taking that chance is kind of like betting a horse race. I am not talking about truth, but an attitude and a feeling, and if we can make this come out good, wouldn't that be wonderful? Could there be a better heaven than one that is this interesting?

There was a time many years ago when I didn't like life and I contemplated suicide a lot. I couldn't kill myself and leave people to hurt, so I had to kill them too, and then I had to kill all the people who would hurt if I killed those people. I realized the circle of people I would have to kill just got bigger and bigger, so I had to give the idea up. Okay, if I couldn't kill myself, then what? Obviously, I had to do whatever I could do to make life better.

A cartoon really helped me turn myself around. It was a picture of a man standing at the complaint desk in heaven and the caption read, "I don't like life. Do you have anything better to offer?"

Hell or Hades is a place we must all go to have a sense of meaning. But we must never go to Hades without the help of the gods, because it is so easy to get lost in Hades. To be lost in Hades is to be depressed or maybe even psychotic. I love Greek mythology. Our lack of a shared mythology today is problematic. Now we each have to invent our won mythology. For sure we can create our own hells and get lost in them. But perhaps we should keep in mind- it isn't all about us. It is also about everyone we know and everyone they know and the circle just keeps getting bigger.

Can we please with begin with the science of our nature? From birth, we are programmed to recognize sameness and differences. Research determined at birth the baby can distinguish between the parent's language and a foreign language. I believe we need to be aware of this programming and from there develop our concepts of truth.

Obviously, culture has a lot to do with our ability to trust others and I that is why I am making my arguments. We had a culture that encouraged trusting each other and we are rapidly destroying our past reality of privacy and trust. In the 1950s I lived in Hollywood, California and we did not lock our doors and we did not live in fear. Today I wouldn't even drive through Hollywood without locking my car doors and there is no way I would attempt to live there. Hollywood is a hell hole compared to when we could ride a trolley to the beach. Trust is not just about how fearful or courage we are. It is also about the world around us.

I distinctly choose to be with people my own age, because I share values with these people, and life experiences that make it easier for us to understand each other, It is more pleasant for me to engage with people like me. Here sameness means feeling comfortable and it requires less energy. I would love to travel around the world and experience people of different cultures, and I eagerly engage with people from other countries. I love differences but in my day to day life, I want what is familiar and comfortable.

I have said it is important to respect everyone, but trust is something that must be earned. A good con person will appear to be like me, knowing that will lead to me being trusting. It is just our nature. However, today it is foolish to be trusting without knowing the other. Brand name companies have shot themselves in the foot by having their products made in China and then marketing a product that is far inferior to the standard we expected from these companies. And then there are the jerks who tried to run on the good name of Windows, who scammed us. When the bottom line is money, morality can go down the toilet, and today we have created a very untrusting reality. The rip off artist in foreign countries have increased our distrust of strangers. The management company that took over the apartments where I live has caused people to move out because they can not be trusted for anything but gorging more and more money from us. In the long run, people who have made money the bottom line will pay for that. Perhaps our whole nation will pay for that as we come to believe no one can be trusted. This is very destructive to even very large and powerful nations.

Freedom of speech is one of our most important freedoms and we need to protect it even when someone is saying something we do not like. It is the principle that must be protected, and I will say only when get rid of religion will we return to the principles of democracy. Because religion is relying on the will of a God and democracy is relying on rule by reason.

Only highly moral people can have liberty, and it is reason that brings us to highest morality, not religion. But we have lost this reasoning because in 1958 we dropped education for good moral judgment and left moral training to the church. Now we are in a real mess and our most threatening enemy is ourselves.

In 1917 teachers were very proud of what their education for democracy had to do with the increasing powers of the unions. Farmers had granges so they could also have shared benefits. Parents had far more control of education than government, through personal contact with the schools and PTA and socializing with each other and going to town hall meetings.

The power of Christianity was manifested out of the strength of its organiation. Secular organizations have tended to be weak and without education for democracy, they are being disseminated. It was a terrible decision to end education for good moral judgment and leave moral training to the church. Our liberty and democracy are being destroyed as the Military Industrial Complex is swallowing up the rather weak secular orgainzation we had. (I am testing this bold statement. If you think me wrong please say so.) Bottom line is democracy needs unions or better yet, replace autocratic industry with the democratic model.

I think what you said is excellent and I want to add to this the importance of liberty and an organization that empowers the people, democracy.

Liberty is not the freedom to do anything we please, but the freedom to determine for ourselves what is right and wrong. This goes with an understanding of morals as a matter of cause and effect, and it requires training for logic. It is not basing our decisions on our feelings but on reason.

Freedom does not imply good moral judgment. Freedom is doing whatever we feel like doing at the moment and it can be disastrous. I think we are in moral crisis because we think about freedom and not our responsibility to use our freedom wisely.

Empowering people who run on emotion and false beliefs is not a real good idea. On the other hand tyranny is an even worse idea, no matter how well-intentioned the tyrant is. The problem with tyrants is not if they have good or bad intentions, but human judgement is better when everyone participates in the decision making. The collective mind is superior to the mind of a few. But here things can get a little dicey. An emotionally driven mob, surely is not to be desired! Steps must be taken for the mass to have both power and good reasoning.

Two reasons for having liberty and democracy are-

1, the collective mind holds more information
2. people obey the laws when they believe they hold the responsibility for those laws. When it is their laws, they want to protect them. When they feel responsible for the laws, they take steps to change laws when they believe they need changing.

This is totally different from religion with rules given by a God and demanding only obedience of the people, not reasoning. Mans' laws are changeable. God's laws are not changeable. At least not until God sends us a new prophet who can correct the misunderstanding of what the last prophet said. :lol: In short the Christian bible does not give us a good explanation of democracy. It talks a lot about being obedient and not thinking too much and then we elect presidents who do not think too much but we hope will do the will of God. This is difficult because Christians have so much control of our country and the religion is not good for liberty and democracy. Obviously, we can not have rule by reason when Christians dominate. That leads to destroying liberty and democracy especially when public education stops preparing the young for liberty and democracy.

One more thing, judging human nature that has been denominated by believers in the God of Abrahman is like Fraud's belief that women envy men's penises. The truth is distorted by cultural exclusion, and not knowing of humans outside the culture. Religions give us a biased point of view.

What is the problem with knowing it is our nature to be on guard when in the presence of a stranger? I thought understanding human nature was always a good thing. What is the problem with that?

Not your personal goal but the goal of the individual deciding to be social or to be a hermit. There are valid reasons for either choice.

There is a delightful story of hell. There are two rooms. In each room the people are dressed nicely and they are sitting at a large table that is filled with delicious foods. In one room the people are enjoying themselves and the other they are not. In both rooms people's arms had been made stiff so no one could feed him/her self. In the room of happy people, they were feeding each other. In the room of unhappy, they were complaining and screaming angrily and not helping each other enjoy the banquet. The moral is, it is as you make it. Happiness isn't out there but in your head. You can be angry because you don't have what you want, or you can be grateful for what you do have.

Or another way of looking at this, is back to the question of the goal. I thought to be fulfilled as a woman, I had to have children. To have children, I had to be married to a man who would support me and the children. This choice to be a fulfilled woman was a choice to depend on someone else and put my family first. A good woman puts others first and cares for everyone in the family and community simply because this is what a good woman does. Before deciding to be a mother, I considered being a nun and that too would be a choice to serve others and depend on others for my needs. I may have preferred that choice, but I do not believe the Christian mythology and I did not know of a Buddhist nunnery at the time.

What must the individual do to fulfill one's self-image? How does this define the relationships with others? I have a video of a man who spent his life as a hermit in Alaska. That was very fulfilling to him.
Given the choice I made, I am happiest when I get a call from time to time to help someone in the family and when I think what I am doing is making a difference in a child's life. I would love to make a difference in the world with my writing and I am thrilled with all the people attempting to make the same difference I want to make. I feel very tied to humanity from the very beginning to the end but this includes a lot of time to myself which is vital to me being any good to anyone else.

In any society there has to be a system for exchanging goods and services. Markets are an ancient institution, whereas capitalism is a relatively recent system (last few hundred years). Socialism is also a recent development, more recent than capitalism. The essence of capitalism is not buying and selling; people have been doing that for several thousand years. Capitalism is a legal system creating corporations directed by boards of directors, selling shares, and existing to maximize profits for the shareholders. A market where a seller exchanges wool for lumber doesn't have to involve any of the essential capitalists features. A market (Target, Amazon) can be a capitalist corporation, but it doesn't need to be. — Bitter Crank

GOOD JOB! I love the way to cleaned up the popular misunderstanding. :up:

I think that people tend to be irrational about privacy issues. Part of that is the degree to which people estimate that anyone is going to really be interested in their private lives.

Feeling safe is fine, but if that involves an aversion to difference, or if it involves people being hypersensitive and rather neurotic, then we have serious problems.

Re trusting each other, that's important in close relationships, of course, but I think it's just as important that we don't automatically trust others, especially not what they say. We put far too much weight on utterances/speech acts in general in my opinion.

I'm not at all a fan of etiquette or "good manners" for their own sake. I want people to be existentially authentic and to be able to accept difference.

I'm very pro-difference, pro everyone letting their freak flag fly, and pro being cool with others letting their freak flags fly, no matter how different they may be from your own, no matter how much you wouldn't choose the same things for yourself.

And respect needs to be earned.

What solves social problems is being cool with difference. Being laissez-faire. Not wanting to control others. I'm extremely against all types of social pressure in the direction of conformity. — Terrapin Station

Feeling safe will always involve an aversion to a difference, or a curiosity because we are primates. It is instinctive to detect sameness or difference. It is instinctive to need to know if this movement or object is a threat to us or not. We can overcome our fears by becoming familiar with the movement or object. That is having enough information to know the cause of the movement or what the object is and can do.

Our fear of the stranger is fundamental to our survival. Let us appreciate that and be respectful of it. Then we can make better judgments based on awareness of our survival need to know and that fear is our friend. Feeling bad about ourselves because we fear something or someone will not help. Apply reason, not blind prejudiced judgment.

Trusting each other is essential to commerce and the economy. Trump's power plays are crippling to the trust essential to good commerce and economic growth. I wish his playing board remained his private affair and had not become a public affair affecting international politics and economies. He is like the bully who brings the ball to the game and drives everyone home by insisting everyone play by his rules. Trust is very important to commerce and economics.

Can you follow the logic of respecting all people because we do so for the sake of being respectful? What happens when we respect another? What happens when we disrespect someone. Might we want one result and not the other? The Greeks understood moral as knowing universal law, (knowledge of how the universe works) and good manners. Practicing good manners for their own sake is vital to manifesting a better reality and avoiding so many of our human problems. Now it doesn't matter if the other has a different sexual orientation or is a different race or ethnicity. There is one rule that applies to all equally. :smile: We are equal and different. The world is a better place when we follow the rule and problems arise when we do not. Do you agree with that logic?

What is the benefit of being pro differences? I am sure there are some benefits but too much of a good thing is not good. What you say of being pro differences leads me to think of being on a small life raft in the middle of an ocean and having no idea which way to paddle to have a chance of surviving. Promoting differences and holding that respect has to be earned do not go together. That would be finding fault with someone who does not meet your idea of a person who earns respect, and that is not promoting differences.

What is being cool with differences if it is not being respectful? Telling me you think respect needs to be earned, does not go with "I'm extremely against all types of social pressure in the direction of conformity." Please check your logic.

I think we need to be careful with our words. Money is not a spirit. Our spirit can be generous or greedy, it can feel safe and bold or afraid and powerless, but money is money. Money has no feeling and cannot be spirit.

A lot happened in 1958. The Military Industrial Complex was embedded in our government. We replaced liberal education with education for technology. This meant the end of education for good moral judgment and transmitting the culture that is vital to empowering the people and liberty. The social, economic and political ramifications of this change are huge.

Yes, the fact that I am not a Christian resolved the problem. He is very sure he does not want to consider having a serious relationship with a non-Christian. :lol: I have to laugh because in this thread we are considering robots and perfect mates.

Personally, I have a preference for a mate who has the same background in the classics and science that I have. For the two men, I had breakfast with, this intellectual focus is lacking in feeling and spontaneity. I was working extra hard to be sociable with these men. I thought their Christian bias made them insensitive. :lol: We, that is all of us, are divided between thinking a president should be a thinking person like Obama or a spontaneous person like Bush or Trump. Christians want to trust in God and the other side wants to trust in education and the perfectibility of man. Then we have those who are sure computers and robots are best. :lol: I am not willing to give up my planet to the computers and robots, nor do I desire to wake up every day with a Christian.

A robot will not motivate you to grow and become the perfect you. With a robot, you can be a complete jerk and there would be no repercussion that prompts you to improve your ability to relate with others. Maybe the robot would correct you, as a teacher may correct us, but that does not motivate our desire to be better people. Here is what is wrong with education for technology replacing liberal education. Learning to be technologically correct, like a robot, does not help us become better humans. We are destroying our democracy with our focus on technological correctness instead of a focus on being human. It is sad that today so many think robots could be superior to humans and appear to willing to submit to rule by computers. Star Trek addressed this many times. Giving up our liberty to have the perfection we believe computers can give us, is desirable why?

I very strongly doubt humans will ever be happy without each other. Here is a movie that explores the possibility of being alone with only robots to interact with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BWWWQzTpNU

This TV series explores living with robots who cannot be detected as robots but appear to be real humans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smBXniHhrrY

We all want the perfect mate and that can lead one to fantasize about that perfect mate, Of course, that would have to be a robot. Go ahead, give it a try. Give the fantasy a few days maybe a few weeks. Does your long-term relationship with the perfect mate still please you? An episode of Humans deals with this possibility of having the perfect mate, but only having your own experience will answer the question of if this really what you want?

Your words demand a reply! :grin:

The problem is hormonal. Some of us avoid men because like you, we are perfectly happy with our independent, private lives. However, we may need help with something, or we may want a male companion, an escort to dinner, travel partner, etc. Problem is, once we start speaking with a man, our hormones can start messing things up. We may want to be intimate and that can lead to a worse hormonal problem called bonding. Then we end up fighting with ourselves with our heads screaming at us to be reasonable and the feeling self screaming at the intellectual self because the feeling self does not want to be denied and the intellectual self does not want to give up her freedom and independence and be stuck with a man.

Obviously, as we age the idea of living with a man seems even worse because our hormones are not at the level where we think if we don't have a man in our lives we will die. We have had our children and know we don't want to go through that again. But when we are young, OMG. Like hunger forces us to stop our lives until we have eaten, our hormones can drive us to sex and bonding and having children. We don't always want to stop and eat but hunger won't leave us alone. We can know we want a career and don't want a husband and children but our feeling self, the hormonal self is driven!

:lol: It is not just The Contradictions in Dealing with Other People but also the contradictions of dealing with ourselves. Now I have to close because I have an agreement to meet with a man I have been avoiding. I hope when I tell him I am not Christian he will stop pursuing me, but I hope he will also be agreeable to me a renting a room from him so I can transition from one apartment complex to another, without having to sleep in my car. I hope he will take me to the Annual Steam Engine Fair this summer. :joke: It is crazy! the worst contradiction is within myself!

Very important. If you know you don't want to be a father, make that very clear. Women can be totally unrealistic about this because their hormones are driving them, so talk about how awful it is to have a child with a man who doesn't one and who will not be a good father. Of course, she will think you are the perfect man because you care about such things, but you must do the impossible. You must active her reasoning. I hate it, we like to think we can have the perfect family even when we know this is unlikely. Stupid hormones! :rofl:

Only when our democracy is protected by the citizens is it protected and only when education prepares them to do this, do the citizens have the mentality to protect our liberties. We stopped that education in 1958.

Our freedom of speech is about spirit not law and because we are not understanding of this we are destroying it. Our spirit has turned very ugly and destructive. Citizens, through laws protecting private property, are destroying our liberties and freedom of speech.

I have a problem with Christianity because of what it has done to our understanding of spirit and morals since we replaced liberal education with education for technology and left moral training to the church. :groan:

We need to understand we protect our liberty by following the social rules, so a mod doesn't have to step in and ban us. Or if we were a cooperation, management doesn't give us a pink slip. Private property rights trump our protected right to freedom of speech, so we have as much freedom of speech as the owners wish to give us. It is their spirit that matters, not exactly laws. The way they interpret the law and how they should use it, depends on their spirit. The spirit of America is dying and the spirit of tyranny is rising. When the bottom line is the dollar, reality gets ugly.

You have to read SUICIDE OF THE WEST by Goldberg. It speaks of tribalism, populism and all that.

When it comes to gay pride and all the other prejudices, I cling to my grandmother's three rules.

1. We respect everyone. It doesn't matter at all who the other person is because this about who we are. Either we are civil and respectful people or we are not and other people's private choices are none of our business! Public choices we share. Private ones are private.

2. We protect the dignity of others. OMG that rule can prevent so many social problems.

3. We do everything with integrity and this goes with being honorable and being honorable goes with having a sense of purpose in life and believing in human dignity, liberty, and democracy.

I was attempting to write a book like SUICIDE IN THE WEST, but more focused on education and the Military Industrial Complex. That is not as fun to think about as the book Goldberg wrote is entertaining and informative. However, I could perhaps write a complimentary book using my knowledge of education and what liberal education had to do with protecting the democracy we had.

You might appreciate all this about liberty and democracy. Gay rights are human rights. And if you want to blame someone for the destruction of marriages and family order, then blame the Military Industrial Complex. Through industry and education, we have destroyed the family order that used to order the whole United States. Since Athens, democracy is family order, and Sparta was military order, but we have replaced our family order that with Prussian military order applied to citizens. This is destroying our liberty and democracy. But OMG is this paradoxical! Family order goes with tribalism so how is destroying family order contributing to tribalism? :grimace: I think I will go blow my brains out. This realization of yet another paradox is another stumbling block in explaining reality. But men's loyalties tend not to be with women and children. They compare their worth by the size of their cocks, and ability to compete against each other, not with how well they match up with women and father their children. Men's loyalties tend to be with men, industrial and military order. :groan: I think I have a headache.

Well, I totally agree with the desire for intellectual discussions and how important the internet is to that! It isn't just that it is easier to find and engage with such people on the internet, but I find my thinking is very different when I am writing than when I am speaking. Also, I like this form of communication because I am alone but not alone. That is I am not concerned with how I look or how close to someone I sitting, or all the other concerns that come up when we meet face to face. For sure avoiding a man's sexual agenda is a huge plus to internet discussion.

When it comes to sex and romance and the desire to bond, yes, women are more hormonally geared towards bonding. They can override that, and there is a lot of pressure to that today, but even your overweight, older women are desiring that romance and bonding. They just know being obvious about that will chase the male away, while the more attractive woman works on the premise that she can have what she wants if she doesn't hang with the wrong guy, and keeps kissing frogs until she finds her prince. So for the attractive woman, it is the male who is most likely to be rejected unless he appears to want the same bonding she wants. It is hormonal.

I like the movie Pretty Woman and the prostitutes' rule, never kiss the guy! We are capable of sex without bonding, and money helps get our mind in the right frame for that. But it must be clear that money is pay for services and not gifts.

You might like the book "SUICIDE OF THE WEST" how the rebirth of tribalism, populism, nationalism, and identity politics is destroying American democracy - by Jonah Goldberg. I found it at the library yesterday and I am skimming through it. In the US public education was about having a strong and united democracy until 1958. While a lot is being said about the disintegration of the US none of the authors are addressing the change in education and Military Industrial Complex as part of the problem.

Wow is that one nostalgic for me!

Reminds me of when I was a child in Hollywood, California and my mother would take my sister and me to the Woolworth store for shopping and lunch, the lunch counter looked about the picture. Growing up I switched from Coca-Cola to coffee and a cigarette. That is just the way life was. And we were pretty girls not bothered with a need to be smart and have careers. We got married and stayed home to care for our families. Then we sat around the kitchen table with our coffee and cigarettes and chatted until the kids got fussy and it was time to take them home for a nap.

Someone has created a place for people with Alzheimer's to reminisce. It is kind of like a small town in a huge building. Many find comfort in the past and a strengthening of a sense of identity.

:lol: funny boy. I never heard of that humor before. Isn't the internet wonderful? It makes our world bigger and expands our understanding of others.

Yes, human relationships have ethical values. Why, because humanity would have not survived without the value of our relationships. We need each other, even if we can be annoying.

A study was done of Italian families because they had an exceptional survival rate living into their later years despite breaking all the health rules about smoking, diet, and exercise. It was discovered their exceptional life spans decreased when they got sophisticated and stopped living together, and separated into single unit families. But of course a hundred, and thousand, and a million years, we all had more risky lives and we were dependent on each other for survival in other ways. All social animals are programmed for the survival of the species, and individuals are must sacrifice for the group while at the same time taking care of their own survival.

On the other hand, we are very limited by the number of people we can deal with in a day, and overpopulation is very stressful for us. We dehumanize each other to cope with there being more of us than we can deal with. We create boundaries to protect ourselves from being overwhelmed. In a small town women can take turns caring for the children, the aged, and the sick, but in a city, this totally breaks down.

What is your goal?

A mother is not someone who lives alone. At least the traditional wife and mother cannot be fulfilled without human relationships with family and the community. I think we have greatly overlooked the importance and value of traditional women.

You already did what? The world is watching what?

I am not good at interpreting poetry. I need better explanations than you are given.

what is nvm?

You are killing me with curiosity.

For sure those who have fame today are unlikely to go down in history like Socrates, Pericles, Cicero, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Hamilton. It is our works that give us immortality. That is quite a different understanding from Martin Luther and Protestantism that is not by works that we gain immortality, and paradoxically Protestantism is known for its work ethic. What to explain that one?

Wow that is a curious statement. To whom are you speaking?

People I admire are not offensive but yet they are bold when asking for what they want. I especially remember a man who was a major in a small town, and he was always cool and in control but not controlling. He listened to others very well and brought out the best in them and bought opposing points of view together. He was awesome!

Some people dominate with charisma. I think this was the Athenian goal of arte.

The Athenian sophist used rhetoric to persuade people and could be both admired and hated. Socrates was surely greatly admired and hated. Cicero was one of the most influential men in history because of his writing and oratory skills and yet he was killed, as was Socrates killed. What do we have to learn from this history?

Where did you get that picture? It looks like it is a small piece of a larger picture.

While the hair is important, the mustache is most often associated with the barbarian aesthetic. While the civilized Romans were clean-shaven or only had hair on their upper lip when it was part of a full beard, the Germanic men set themselves apart by only wearing a mustache – a bit different than the mustachioed, limp-wristed hipsters we see today. For many Romanized Germans, Gauls, and others, the mustache was a way to show off ethnic heritage. These men would wear the traditional styles of the Empire and speak perfect Latin, but still make a nod to their bloodlines by shaving everything but their mustaches.

450px-PazyrikHorseman

Their clothing is also an obvious contrast. Rather than the flowing robes that are impractical for fighting, rough terrain, and the manly art of conquering ones enemies, the Visigoths are seen in leg wraps – believed to have been originally developed to help protect the men’s legs from both the moisture and dense brush common in the parts of Europe from which these tribes originate.

The shorter length of the tunics and the cut-off sleeves allowed for maximum mobility – making them ideal garments for the quick movements required in battle.

Both men and women would dye their tunics, braid their hair, bathe regularly, and many digs have found that most carried a comb with them at all times.

That came from this link http://masculine-style.com/historic-style-barbarian-clothing/

It is interesting the author speaks of the manly art of war. I am sure not all cultures were based on the art of war, and some cultures were a mix of the domestic arts and the art of war. This could make for an interesting discussion of the woman's place in these different cultures.

I think I disagree with you? I have not been as successful in life as I think I would like to be because I was way too defensive and pushed people away. In my old age, I seem to notice those of us who are always on the defense are not likable people, nor are we good parents, and we lack the skills necessary for getting our way. This is a serious political problem because we can not make the world a better place when we lack the skills to get what we want. It is a pretty serious deficiency.

When we were children we were pretty powerless. That is not a good way to spend the rest of our lives. Today we have much more information about social skills than we had the past and a much better understanding of developing support systems. We need to take advantage of this information. We need to open the windows and doors for the good to come into our lives and back out into the world.

We need this forum to share with each other and stimulate the good. :flower:

My goodness you say such interesting things!

Hitler and Trump are the result of education for technology for military and industrial purpose and Prussia bureaucratic order. It is both that made Germany the New World Order and made the US what Eisenhower called the Military Industrial Complex and the Bush family bragged about the US being in control of the New World Order. This is what we defended our democracy against, now we are what we defended our democracy against and only when we realize, only when our democracy is defended in the classroom, will our democracy be strong again.

With the change in education, it is also very important we replace our autocratic industry with the democratic model. If we did both, return education to defending democracy in the classroom and replace autocratic industry with democratic industry, our democracy would be strong again.

What I want to know is, if a law saying we must have medical insurance is unconstitutional, is it also unconstitutional to have a law that requires us to have car insurance? I remember when having car insurance was only a good idea to be covered in case of being sued. It was not a law that we had to have the insurance.

In a democracy, perhaps we all want to own a hospital? Why have an insurance company instead of supporting the medical facility a community needs directly? I think our reasoning is as silly as not having a community paid water supply and sewage system and making water and sewage privately owned and controlling who gets water and sewage who does not, by the person's ability to pay for it. I know we pay for water and sewage but not the same way we pay for medical care. The internet and medical care and our education should have more of a utility mentality behind it, that a private capitalist mentality.

Why are our taxes supporting a Military Industrial Complex instead of our communities?

I love your relating democracy with biological function. Have you read John Dewey a past expert on education? He speaks of an organic democracy and the transition to a nuclear state. The US is experiencing an education problem that shifted its organic democracy to a nuclear Military Industrial Complex. So many people are writing about this now, but none of them have studied the history of education so they are not mentioning the most important part of the ramifications of replacing liberal education with education for technology and what military technology and corporate interest have to do with the transformation.

I am afraid Bill Gates is misled when he pushes for education for computer technology over education for being humans living in human communities. Surely computer technology can improve our lives, but not if we do not develop our independent humanness and sense of our responsibility for the present and future. Our trust in technology is no better than our trust in a God. We need to trust ourselves and each other.

Whoo, wait a minute am I wrong or was that a little misogynistic? What was ever said about Mother Mary for you to say she is concerned about punishing us and would call us sons of bitches? That kind of misogyny is a bit unnerving to me. Are you a safe person for me to interact with or should I expect to be the target of anger? Or perhaps I am misinterpreting you after a marriage with a man who had a controlling and castrating mother?

:lol: I think most of us spend our lives trying to recuperate from our unpleasant pasts. I think that is where we can find most of our problems, and we keep projecting them into the present. Philosophically speaking, this problem is reduced when we follow rules of good manners and attempt to respect everyone. By doing our best we create the possibility of having good outcomes, instead of ruining the moment with past traumas.

I wish you would say more. I think privacy is very important. Do you disagree with that? I think feeling safe is important. Do you disagree with that? I think our relationships are much better when we share social agreements and feel like we can trust each other. Do you disagree with that? What would follow is discretion is important. Discretion, good manners, and respect. Not shoving a difference in someone's face is being respectful and that is conducive to feeling safe and having good relationships. Now who the other person is, doesn't matter because we show all people the same courtesy and respect. It doesn't matter who they are, because it is our behavior that matters. Doesn't that solve a lot of social problems?

Jump on it. Start the thread and pm me. The religious debate is not just are the Hebrew, Jewish, Christian, Islam stories the only true story, and it is not if their God is the only true God, but the worthiness of all human beings who contributed to life on earth for millions of years. Is there a jealous, revengeful, punishing and fearsome God judging all these people and deciding who of them get to enter the good afterlife or who do not, and does he give this power to humans and the right to kill those who are different from them in the name of God! What makes a human worthy?

Or as Thomas Paine asked, in a universe that may be full of planets with life like ours, did Jesus have to play the same drama of enduring torture and sacrificing his life on each of these planets? If this is the way God works, it would have to be the same everywhere, right?

As a White Anglo Saxon Protestant male I have to hope that both of those possibilities are nothing more than wild rumors. Better add a humor emoji. :naughty: :rofl: — Bitter Crank

God bless you for that good laugh. :lol: :rofl: I really needed it. Doctors are giving me information that I do not like and if it weren't for family, good friends and humor, I could choose to leave the playing field. I will take that up in another thread asking folks why they are here because I am asking myself why I am here.

Women's hormones are known for their reaction to a baby crying. I love the subject of hormones and human behavior but maybe that would be going off topic here?

Here is a goal I think worthy. We all learn more about how our brains work and about how hormones effect us and what effects the production of hormones. Our freedom of speech without better information could be folly. :wink:

I would love a thread about fashion and what it says about us and our culture. I am planning on going to an annual Christmas dinner at the Hilton and I always wear a semiformal. It is very disappointing when many people show up in jeans and teeshirts. Stay at McDonald's if you want to dress like that. When I complain I am told this Eugene and in Eugene formal means jeans without holes in them, and not even matters too much. Sorry, Jeans are great on the farm or in the mill, but there is a time and place for dressing up. Do a thread about fashion and culture and PM me.