No. I think our notion of morality would be irrelevant to it. ... which would also be irrelevant to it. H. sapiens - and not all members of this speci...
Yeah - it would be magical enough for an American movie. 1947 was quite the year. Two ex-colonies getting partitioned into perpetual war, the princess...
Okay. Everyone was being horrible to everybody else, so why not save one man's conscience? He already felt bad, while many who committed worse crimes ...
I get that, too. The hating man would have to learn all about the hated religion in order to bring a child up as Muslim, and that would be good for th...
My insurmountable hurdle was this one: What does 'moral' mean in this context? By what standards? For what reason? What would impel it? Especially whe...
I got the rationale. It may have been fine karmic reasoning as regards the man and his sin, while ignoring the other people involved. I think it was p...
If it was too late for Gandhi's house, I guess the British embassy. Adopt as many orphans as you can provide a safe and loving home for. Why complicat...
Which, of course, is not to say that one shouldn't make use of on-line information sources (including dictionaries and encyclopedias), especially for ...
People who kept learning and talking to one another, who had no urge to kill or dominate, have always been among humankind. Sometimes they were teache...
What else have I got to go on? Wishes? Dreams? Science fiction? With which you are properly aligned, while the rest of us are not? I don't believe the...
My response was neither to nor about you. Sorry. I didn't say that. It's simply that you seem committed to a version of the truth that doesn't very cl...
Yes, sorry I threw a little mud on your idol. I did like him. I suppose I was annoyed by your frequent use of the quotes in big fat letters. Plus, I'm...
Don't forget the Maybe. If. Would that work better for you in bold, with a Sagan quote appended? Maybe IF Don't ask how it will be used or by whom, fo...
Yes, I understand this. Impose your meaning, your purpose on everything. Only because you don't want to. The arguments have been made, though this one...
That can't happen. Only the well-off will be saved; the slums will be washed or burned away. No, Venus cities can't absorb New Delhi, either. The prop...
The first is essential. The second is desirable and possible. The third is provisional: depends on which way "progress" leads us. So, if it can't figh...
I know. It's not a bad idea. There are other examples that appear more homey Check out the solar panels! And some are quite attractive. A low-tech opt...
The floating city looks nice, but I have to wonder 1. where all the produce on those tables came from and 2. what percent of the urban population can ...
Why? If you don't survive, you sure can't thrive, evolve or progress. Progress means to move in a designated direction. Choose the wrong direction and...
Textbooks and encyclopedias are not influenced by the student. The data in them is collected, organized, elucidated, presented and footnoted in an int...
designed, built and programmed by techies. Why would it need to? They're not required to live my life - and it's just as well I don't have to attempt ...
You corrected my accurate term with an inaccurate one, and attributed the age of the genus to the species. Tacking on an extinct related species that ...
You mixed up genus and species. But that's okay, because, no, I don't agree that any of the hominids 'achieved' anything more remarkable than species ...
Yes, I got that piece of irrelevancy, but didn't comment on it. I chose only to compare the success of two organic species. Homo is the genus, and it ...
Did you gloss over the bit where They throve and sustained their ecosystem, then were killed by an unpreventable cosmic event. This overachieving H. s...
You're not given that knowledge; you have to learn it. From some source(s). So what? The outcome is still good. Fine. To whom/what does this hesitatio...
I'm not a believer in formal philosophical systems. I've read haphazardly through some of the philosophical big noises and have been largely unimpress...
What the heck is 'true character'? How are good deeds designated true or false? Adversity and harm to whom is required to prompt those good deeds? No,...
I'm a huge fan of solar energy. In bad weather, of which we've had lots and expect considerably more - there are many power outages in the boonies. We...
Did you see the videos? https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=solar+plane+video+#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:07024ebe,vid:i_QUPJZMAb4,st:0 My tv ...
I don't see that in action. What makes you think people didn't question and propose 100,000 years ago - and always? The purpose of a shared morality i...
165 and 177 million years of existence. We are unlikely to make 1 million. Against a meteor strike, I very much doubt even the cleverest humans have a...
Sez who? Everything is a result of what went before. Our religions grew out of our relation to the environment and the organization of our societies. ...
I'm still waiting for my solar-powered car. The one I want . There are quite a few in development, and the airplane works pretty well, though neither,...
Chimpanzees are the only animals I know that fight their own species for resources. Predatory ants attacking a termite colony does not constitute a wa...
There are no conscious, deliberate foundations. Humans evolved from previous social species. There were no 'perspectives'; only needs, instincts, feel...
Moral systems are very old. They come from humans living together and depending on one another. For the group's and the individual's long-term surviva...
I read a couple of his books, some time ago, so the memory is hazy. I did like them. The story you cite touches on some aspects of the Genesis story, ...
I haven't finished it either. There is a lot of material to digest. I have it on my kindle and read a section between lighter fare, novels and proofre...
The first thing that went wrong was commercial agriculture. That is, previously, people had cultivated some crops alongside their hunting, fishing, tr...
With all the references, like it's some kind of cultural icon, I almost wish I had seen that show. Unfortunately, ever since the travesty of Merlin, t...
To your credit, you didn't fall back on religion as so many do. That's the main draw of religion: absolute certainty; simple answers to hard questions...
Yes!! Romper Room may teach the little tykes about responsibility and good citizenship, but it's immediately followed by Tom and Jerry or Buggs Bunny....
I didn't cite early hunter-gatherers. I specifically referred to mixed economy cultures. They certainly had some reproductive regulation, but nature m...
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