AllMenAreIslands

The value of religion is in its attempts to answer basic questions about the nature of existence. Compared with not thinking at all, it was definitely a step up. When one clings to beliefs (whether social, religious, political or what-have-you) regardless of evidence to the contrary, is when one is on an unhealthy road. Such wilful blindness is detrimental to every individual who tries it. When one goes further and punishes those who openly question the beliefs, incalculable harm is done. So, on balance and based on the evidence available to us today, religion and religious beliefs are on balance harmful. However, in the context of mankind's history, value can be ascribed to the process of attempting to understand the world and existence.

But in months to come, it may emerge that more aggressive forest clearing policy could have saved lives. May? As in, only if it's allowed to emerge, I suppose.

Thanks to everyone for their replies! I'm just getting caught up (on p. 2) but wanted to thank all for putting their ideas and thoughts into the thread.

Thank you for the links! I will watch it soon with my husband!

And that of course is the problem, isn't it? It is such a shame that the most advanced country so far still felt it necessary to employ the tired old barbaric system of paying for its government by means of coercive action.

I agree with Eric Mathis. The antagonism to capitalism is very deep, sadly. In addition, it is the fact that so many cling to two ideas antithetical to freedom and individual rights: the idea of sacrifice as a virtue and the idea that the mechanism of taxation is the only way to provide "infrastructure" for "such a big country." Even people who agree with Objectivism on many points have a difficult time coming to grips with how a government could possibly be funded (and fully funded at that) by voluntary methods. With a small developing nation, or a brand-new island nation, I think we would have a better chance to enjoy capitalism while at the same time providing an example to the world of "how it's done."

People in government also do not have perfect knowledge. In fact, no-one has it - it's an impossible thing to have. I think it is better to approach the issue by stating that "government" as a concept is not evil in and of itself. The purpose of government is actually to protect the rights of all from criminals at home and from attack by foreigners. When properly defined, the government's role is essential to securing peace and providing an environment in which people can trade freely with one another. In fact, in such a society (with properly defined government), its main role would be to handle passports, be a repository for wills and handle estate matters and settle disputes among men. Actual crime as we know it today would all but disappear. The current high level of crime is in my view due to the weakened morality of our age, which is due to the government being an initiator of force. What has caused our current mess of a situation is in my view totally due to government intervention, especially the tax system, but legislative interventions do their part as well. When the government is given the right to initiate force by taxing people to pay for itself, then by trying to manipulate the market through decrees stipulating how much to produce, when, where and how to produce it, the result is chaos and a destruction of peace. Prosperity that was created, is lost. This is where we are today. The government no longer protects rights but is the biggest criminal of them all, because it acts with the illusion of "right" - the cloak of assumed correctness. "If it is a law, it must be right," is how most people figure it. Now we have no justice, and our civilization is on the brink of collapse. All the ills we face right now are due to government intervention and government transgressing the basic law of human interaction: that no one can have the right to initiate force.

You do realize that the whole galaxy is full of all kinds of hazardous material, right, Steve? Could be people are getting a little over-wrought about the issue.

Nice one, prosperity! Since I was raised atheist, I haven't had to wrestle with this issue the way so many people have who had the concepts drummed (sometimes literally) into their little heads from before they learned to think and speak. But for a long time I was stridently atheist, in that I was hell-bent (haha) on convincing people of the stupidity of belief in god. What changed me was realizing that I, too, have my pet beliefs. I realize that we all do have a belief or two, for example, with respect to what happens when we die. Since there is no way to know, each of us makes up our minds on that issue and frankly - whatever you decide must be filed as a belief. I'm not really worried too much about separating people from their religious beliefs. What I am keen is making sure they understand that their beliefs cannot be used to justify violence on me and mine. Them using their beliefs to guide them in their daily lives, rationally or irrationally as the case may be, is of no concern to me. Of course it would be better if more people were rational on the subject of the meaning of the word "god" and the other issues that come along in the package deal. Browbeating people about the irrationality of their beliefs does not strike me as a recipe for inducing a greater interest in rational philosophy and ideas.

Why can't I define it? I don't accept their definition of the term. I did allude to what I mean by a god-like man. "God" is said to be "the creator". Therefore god-like men are the ones who create - new knowledge, new applications of knowledge. Basically they are the ones who make the extra effort. It's not mystical or magical and it's not unknowable. By adding on all these impossible characteristics, the purveyors of religion succeeded in obliterating a real use for the term. Not to apply to a supernatural being, but to apply to the best among men. Most people don't really apply their minds in what I would call a god-like way. They learn a few basic moves, but they don't really add to the sum of human knowledge. They don't discover or invent or create. What I call godlike men might one day be the norm, but today such men are few and far between, and over the course of our history on this planet, they have so far always been rarities, not the majority.

I think religion is a way of corrupting the concept of "god" so that mankind is denied its proper role as a designator of a class of men who do behave the way a god is said to behave. God-like men are the ones who discover truth about existence and successfully apply it usefully to the business of living. Being the judge on our own behalf all the time is what each of us needs to do. The Age of Individuality is what we need to usher in the concept of Individual Rights and the true freedom to achieve greatness each of us in our own ways. Religion was created by the mediocre who were too lazy to learn how to use their own minds.

How about if the waste is stored in tight well-sealed containers? Even if there were a mis-fire with respect to launching the spaceship, there would not be stuff scattered higgledy-piggledy all over the landscape. Rather, there would containers containing the waste, which could be gathered and sent next time.

Ok, Steve. I will amend that part of it in my thinking. The fetus does NOT get a vote. And Jake, I do not advocate that the man should have the right to compel the woman to either have an abortion or keep the child. I do think that being realistic, some women will take the father's view into account. But it's not something that should be legislated. It's a case-by-case, individual decision-making process. Or should be.

I see your point, Steve. I just know I haven't gotten ANYwhere arguing that the fetus has no rights. My approach is to say that in a rational world, any transaction requires the voluntary agreement of ALL parties. Without the mother's agreement, the transaction cannot go forward. The point of raising the father's viewpoint is this: if a man does NOT agree to caring for the child once it's born, then isn't it wrong to force him to even if he states categorically that he doesn't agree to bringing a child into the world? If the woman can categorically decide to abort (and I agree that she has that right) then the father ought to be able to weigh in at the moment that pregnancy is known to be happening. I am not advocating "majority wins" in this scenario. All "votes" as it were must be Yes in order for the pregnancy to continue. However, if the father votes No, the mother has the option to override his vote and carry through with the pregnancy. But should she have the right to force the father to contribute to the care of the child once it's born? I say no.

I like the contract model because it enables us to cover a lot more of the issues. For example, the father's view on the matter. A man who wants to keep the child would be one vote for Yes. And if he does not want the child, then the responsibility of caring for it when it's born would be the woman's alone. Likewise, if a woman elects to go through with the pregnancy but in the 7th month learns that it's not developing properly, then she should retain the right to change her Yes vote to a No vote. My reason for saying that the unborn is deemed to be a Yes vote is to answer the anti-abortionists who insist that the existence of a fertilized egg trumps everyone else's rights. If each party to the transaction is deemed to have a 'vote' on the matter, then the unborn is just one vote, and its vote alone isn't enough to sway the matter in its favor. There must also be at least the vote of the mother, or one day perhaps we will see that the vote of the owner of an incubator or other artificial womb will be able to step up to nurture the zygote/embryo/fetus through the stages of pregnancy.

May I address this point? I think the same issues will apply to test-tube babies as apply now to fetuses carried in the normal way. The person who takes on the responsibility of nurturing the fetus is the one who gets to make the decision on whether to carry it through to term. A pregnant woman has to decide that issue in terms of keeping the fetus in her body, while an individual who is nurturing a test-tube fetus would be paying for the electricity to keep the artificial womb functioning, and arranging for the nutrients that are being fed to the growing embryo/fetus, etc. So, I think the same rules would apply. Just as a pregnant woman should retain the right to abort a fetus that isn't developing normally, so the individual taking on the responsibility of paying for the upkeep of an artificial womb should also. And that brings us to the basic issue of WHY rights begin at birth. It is to have continuity of protection and to avoid any use of coercion or initiation of force. In the case of a natural pregnancy, the "contract" as it were is between the unborn and the mother. The unborn's views can be taken as a Yes for being born. To be rational, both parties must voluntarily agree to the transaction of the pregnancy. Hence the mother must voluntarily agree to carry the child to term. Once born, the infant is all but helpless. However, at that point, the infant acquires its right to life. The mother no longer MUST be responsible for its upkeep. She can seek and find another willing to take on those responsibilities lawfully. But neither she nor the adoptive person/guardian can have the right to cause harm or kill the infant. Its right to its life is now protected in law. That's my two cents.

I wonder how many thousands will die when they stop shipping all sorts of goods to the state.

I'm glad you like my idea, aj. Steve, I think it would be a function of individual choice. Some power plant owners would prefer to store the waste pending a breakthrough and others would be more comfortable "recycling" it to the Sun. If/when we do find a workable use for the waste, owners should be at liberty to change their disposal policy to take advantage of the new knowledge.

Cool poem, Thomas. Is "space" only a concept of distance? There must be some way to describe its properties which make it capable of transmitting light & energy. Is light a kind of energy? The fact of the force of gravity or EM reducing as the distance between the source of the force and the object acted upon seems like a clue to the nature of "space." Has no spaceship or space station put its detectors just "out in space" to get readings on what all is there?

Electro-magnetic effects - is that what the "ether" - the actual space (as opposed to things in space) is? Is the space a medium on or through which plasma (and gravity for that matter) take effect, or is it a vacuum devoid of everything? That isn't possible, tho, is it? So if space isn't an actual nothing, then what is it?

What names for what we've found so far have we?

Steve, gas filling a chamber is a pretty small system. I've another question. If we could one day ascertain that the Sun were losing energy, do you think we could re-energize it by sending spaceships loaded with nuclear waste (e.g. from atomic energy plants) towards it?

When does that actually occur? Can you give an example of "all the energy in a system being evenly distributed" to the point that no further use can be made of energy?

True, by itself a cash payment cannot serve as punishment. But I think there's a definite role for cash payments to play in the whole structure of punishments.

What crime was Bill Gates accused of in the first place? I agree with you, Zip - a cash settlement should not be the only restitution. But it could and should form PART of the restitution. In order for any system to work, crimes need to be rationally defined. THat's one of the main problems at the moment - rational action is being cast as the criminal act, while criminal actions have been sanctioned and are being legally done, by the government itself most of all.