Of course it would be, if the economic base were changed and the population levelled off, and we allocated the redistributed resources intelligently. ...
How does knowledge gained by a teeny, weeny life-form on a teeny, weeny planet near the rim of an insignificant galaxy help the universe. Helps it to ...
Any sentient organism can and every sentient organism does place relative values on the things in its environment. There is no 'act' of valuing; we ju...
When economic growth is measured, how is it measured? What precisely is growing? The law of conservation would suggest... strongly recommend?... deman...
Prosperity isn't everywhere. The whole point of disparity is that a small percent of the world's population both control and benefit from the world's ...
Put it in perspective. Put in all the different perspectives you can imagine. What is the value of the life of a defective child to its mother? What i...
Only because you seem to be so vehemently against letting them off some of the accumulated compound interest on their student loans. And maybe because...
Yes, there are. I think you know which they are, and also that you can formulate intelligent ones. What interests you? What's burning a hole in your i...
Oh, I know that. And there is a far deeper down-side to convenience: they can keep track of you all the time. Know what you like, what your weaknesses...
Health care is not a bad gig, with the population growing older and sicker by the day. But who knows whether these old people will be able to afford t...
Yeah, expectation, economic forecast... When i was in high school, guidance counsellors were steering anyone with decent grades in math into engineeri...
Well, who wouldn't? But Congress and Senate are protecting high earners - perhaps because they themselves are high earners? So you'll probably get you...
A debt-driven economy has to grow or die. So it does both: grows and grows and grows for about 30 years and then crashes, redistributing wealth from t...
Student borrowers are taxpayers. The question is, which taxpayers are having to pay more? You say the working class; I say the high earners. Would it ...
Or pogroms, or crusades, or conquests or inquisitions, or the wars between Protestant and Catholic monarchs, or capital punishment.... Of course not. ...
Damnation by the god doing themselves in for selfish reasons; for escaping the nastiness he had planned for them. I don't think Martyrs consider thems...
So, no Christians or Muslims or Jews killed anyone, ever. But all the time the majority of the people believed in God, nobody committed suicide? Or if...
No. Mysticism isn't about truth or falsehood, fact or fiction, reason or logic. It's an emotional response to Nature, and has nothing whatever to do s...
So, you automatically assume that whatever humans need is 'greater' than what any other species needs. That's a normal anthropocentric response. It's ...
That's not happening and nobody's planning it. Well, at least he's not "vastly outearning" the hard-working people who will not have to take up the ta...
Can be this, can be that... are not valid reasons for a loving god to torture the innocent. The excuses come long after the fact and put into a differ...
It's theoretically possible, but I have not encountered it in god-related literature. Well, I dropped some acid in my youth, but all I saw was the Voi...
How does that give anyone a purpose? No and no. The real view? At about age 2, children begin to assert their character (Their temperament is already ...
Which is quite reasonable. Plumbers make about $60,000; a welder's average is $47,000. Still not vast, and they don't start out $50,000 in the hole. I...
We've done a bang-up job so far! That's what I'm doing and I consider myself lucky, so YES. Have you ever drowned? Bull. Shit. By whose definition? Ar...
I am rejecting the concepts of gods. Some that I've read about are less gruesome than others; some are even attractive in their way, but none are cred...
Yes. Not all at once; over time, one observation, idea, judgment and commitment at a time. I do. Aristotle apparently said “Give me a child until he i...
No, we say that about a world full of blindness, leukemia and leeches. It's not about quantity. It's about punishing them for the perceived iniquity o...
No, just the tiny corner of it that we can see and experience. When your car stalls and you have to pull off to the shoulder, you can't help knowing t...
Maybe not, but if it's not of supreme importance, we leave wiggle-room for them. I don't think it is. We may have a theoretical grasp of the situation...
Why? Once you've downloaded something, it's available all the time. You can go back to it, or parts of it, as often as you need to. Not so. A lay or b...
I didn't understand most of that, especially the part about a game. Jumping off a tall building would do it. For lesser commitments, you don't; there ...
I think maybe, to prove our resolution - to the authority (human or divine), to our fellow acolytes, and to ourselves. An absolute commitment is uncon...
That's the second reason not to believe in gods. Whether they're as powerful as the believers claim or not, they're not worthy of praise. I can't wors...
Exactly! The word was not coined by atheists, who were perfectly fine going about their business without a load of guilt or fear and without a label. ...
I'm open to adding as many layers as Maslow, or even subdividing them into more layers. But your meaning of 'transactional' eludes me. It seems to me ...
I attempted to. That's why I didn't say 'just live'; I said 'keep living'. In order to choose any goals or aims, one must be vital enough to choose. O...
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