Is a new mass extinction could be underway?

[Kobold Catgirl]

May I ask you both a question?

[Ceaser Slaad]

I will simply note that it does little good to attempt to argue that the Bible is the inerrant word of God with people who are not inclined to believe that. Having made that observation I will now bow out of this debate as we are starting to generate more heat than light.

[john Q]

Paul Watson wrote:

xavier c wrote:

May i ask you a question? why do you think slavery is wrong?

May I ask you one? Would you be willing to live as a slave? If not, you've answered your own question. If so, how much do you cost?

People are not things. You cannot own them like you would a pet. The whole concept, never mind the practice, of slavery is abhorent to people who believe in inherent human dignity. This ignores the historic practice that slavery leads to abuse of said slaves fairly easily with a lack of redress. After all, slaves aren't full people. Is that clear enough?

I agree. But did you know that the origin of that worldview is from christianity? The very idea of Personhood was invented by a christian monk and the idea that humans objectively have dignity is from christianity.It was not a roman idea or a Greek idea and barbarians did not have such ideas

It was all born out of the idea that all humans are created equal in the image of god.

st Augustine was strongly against slavery and was a driving force against slavery in the roman empire.

[Paul Watson]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

May I ask you both a question?

As long as it's not the one about where babies come from.

Also, apologies to Ceaser Slaad. I did not mean to imply that you were arguing from a Biblical literalist position, and certainly did not want to chase you out of the thread.

[thejeff]

Ceaser Slaad wrote:

Could I identify the values I'm talking about?

I will limit myself to one brief example which I am carefully selecting in the hope it will avoid a firestorm.

The requirement for employers to pay their employees a decent/living wage is a moral requirement which goes all the way back to the Old Testament. For the sake of brevity I will omit the proof of that [which is rather elegantly summed up by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. :-) ]

However, today the view has taken hold that the only determinant of what wages should be is the market, with employers arguing that they are being pressed to drive wages as low as they possibly can. But this is only due to the modern corporate management style which emphasizes maximizing short term profits at the expense of all other considerations. The fact that the corporation may be cutting it's own throat in the long run is glossed over because the highest level management is largely paid by short term stock options and responsible only to a board of directors they are at least partially in collusion with.

However, if management were willing to take a more "moral"/long term view then they could accept a slightly lower profit margin, pay their workers more, reinvest more in their company's infrastructure, and have a much more viable long term operation. This would also avoid some obnoxnious social expenses being foisted off on the nation as a whole. But absent the self discipline required to make a more moral choice, then others will try to impose that from the outside. Which unfortunately more often than not ends up making a bad situation worse in the long run.

But this isn't a modern view other than in the most generous definition of modern, regardless of what it says in the Bible.

It isn't new and didn't start with short term stock options or any of them. It goes back at least as far as the start of industrial capitalism. Read your Dickens. Think of the "dark satanic mills". Or any of the history of 19th or early 20th century labor struggles and the horrific conditions people worked in then. Before then, of course, many pious Christians did use slaves or profit from slave labor, at least in the US.

Some individuals did indeed treat their employees better, possibly due to their Christian values. The vast majority did not, even in times that were far more Christian than today.

When is this magic time when capitalism worked properly because those taking part in it voluntarily adhered to traditional Judeo-Christian moral and ethical values? As far as I can tell, the closest it's come to working properly was when it was forced to by a strong labor movement, which also led to strict government regulation. Some of that did come from Christian values, but it was hardly voluntary.

[Simon Legrande]

We just need to eliminate 75% of the human population on Earth. We should start with all the people who believe there is an overpopulation problem, they should be willing considering their stand. Once they're all gone, we can reevaluate how many more need to be turned into fertilizer.

[thejeff]

As for the actual topic at hand: Yeah, we're in the middle of a major extinction event that we're causing and it started well before climate change had any real effect. We're actually putting more effort into stopping it than ever before, which isn't saying much, but the pressures driving it are stronger than ever as well.

I don't think it's really capitalism/consumerism either. The various communist regimes haven't had good environmental records, to say the least. It's growth. Whatever theory drives it. Unchecked growth is unchecked exploitation and leads to collapse. We need to find a way out of that trap, but I don't know what it is.

[Ceaser Slaad]

Paul Watson wrote:

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

May I ask you both a question?

As long as it's not the one about where babies come from.

Also, apologies to Ceaser Slaad. I did not mean to imply that you were arguing from a Biblical literalist position, and certainly did not want to chase you out of the thread.

Let's try looking at it this way:

Human beings are neither perfect nor perfectable (at least absent significant Divine Intervention).

Furthermore it can take time to change human hearts, minds and cultures.

Therefore it should be no surprise that the rules provided by God for us to follow reflect that in certain areas. Slavery is one of those areas. In the Old Testament rules were provided which were intended to ameliorate the worst aspects of slavery. Also, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, a world view was provided that as it was worked out in a culture through time served as an impetus for the eradication of slavery.

Now, why did God choose to deal with this problem in that manner? I don't know. God has not seen fit to explain Himself to me. Note that this begs the question of whether or not I could understand the explanation that might be given by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God who fills every point of space and time with the totality of His being.

I realize that this sort of answer may be unsatisfying. Unfortunately that's the best I can come up with right now.

[Ceaser Slaad]

thejeff wrote:

Ceaser Slaad wrote:

Could I identify the values I'm talking about?

I will limit myself to one brief example which I am carefully selecting in the hope it will avoid a firestorm.

The requirement for employers to pay their employees a decent/living wage is a moral requirement which goes all the way back to the Old Testament. For the sake of brevity I will omit the proof of that [which is rather elegantly summed up by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. :-) ]

However, today the view has taken hold that the only determinant of what wages should be is the market, with employers arguing that they are being pressed to drive wages as low as they possibly can. But this is only due to the modern corporate management style which emphasizes maximizing short term profits at the expense of all other considerations. The fact that the corporation may be cutting it's own throat in the long run is glossed over because the highest level management is largely paid by short term stock options and responsible only to a board of directors they are at least partially in collusion with.

However, if management were willing to take a more "moral"/long term view then they could accept a slightly lower profit margin, pay their workers more, reinvest more in their company's infrastructure, and have a much more viable long term operation. This would also avoid some obnoxnious social expenses being foisted off on the nation as a whole. But absent the self discipline required to make a more moral choice, then others will try to impose that from the outside. Which unfortunately more often than not ends up making a bad situation worse in the long run.

But this isn't a modern view other than in the most generous definition of modern, regardless of what it says in the Bible.

It isn't new and didn't start with short term stock options or any of them. It goes back at least as far as the start of industrial capitalism. Read your Dickens. Think of the "dark satanic mills". Or any of the history of 19th or early 20th...

First I will note that utopia has not existed on this planet since the Garden of Eden. Utopia is not going to exist on this planet again until sometime after the Second Coming. So in the here and now we're left with trying to design/implement systems that torque off the minimum number of people about the minimum number of things. Even that is fraught with difficulties.

However, I would argue that if you looked at the way things were going in this country from post WWII to the early 1960's one could make the argument that the corporate management style then was not as antagonistic to the average working stiff as it seems to be today. Also as you noted in a later post you don't seem to see any other system working that much better. I am in agreement with you there. Which brings us to the relatively unsatisfactory solutions I proposed in my first post in this thread.

<sigh> If I happen to come up with any really good viable solutions I'll let you all know. But for now it looks like all we can do as individuals is prepare to weather the storm as best we can.

[john Q]

Ceaser Slaad wrote:

Paul Watson wrote:

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

May I ask you both a question?

As long as it's not the one about where babies come from.

Also, apologies to Ceaser Slaad. I did not mean to imply that you were arguing from a Biblical literalist position, and certainly did not want to chase you out of the thread.

Let's try looking at it this way:

Human beings are neither perfect nor perfectable (at least absent significant Divine Intervention).

Furthermore it can take time to change human hearts, minds and cultures.

Therefore it should be no surprise that the rules provided by God for us to follow reflect that in certain areas. Slavery is one of those areas. In the Old Testament rules were provided which were intended to ameliorate the worst aspects of slavery. Also, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, a world view was provided that as it was worked out in a culture through time served as an impetus for the eradication of slavery.

Now, why did God choose to deal with this problem in that manner? I don't know. God has not seen fit to explain Himself to me. Note that this begs the question of whether or not I could understand the explanation that might be given by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God who fills every point of space and time with the totality of His being.

I realize that this sort of answer may be unsatisfying. Unfortunately that's the best I can come up with right now.

It should also be noted that just because ancient Israel had laws for something does not mean God supported it or said it was good as ancient Israel also had laws for divorce but Jesus said divorce was never righteous but he permits it for the sake of people.

[thejeff]

Ceaser Slaad wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Ceaser Slaad wrote:

The requirement for employers to pay their employees a decent/living wage is a moral requirement which goes all the way back to the Old Testament. For the sake of brevity I will omit the proof of that [which is rather elegantly summed up by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. :-) ]

However, today the view has taken hold that the only determinant of what wages should be is the market, with employers arguing that they are being pressed to drive wages as low as they possibly can. But this is only due to the modern corporate management style which emphasizes maximizing short term profits at the expense of all other considerations. The fact that the corporation may be cutting it's own throat in the long run is glossed over because the highest level management is largely paid by short term stock options and responsible only to a board of directors they are at least partially in collusion with.

However, if management were willing to take a more "moral"/long term view then they could accept a slightly lower profit margin, pay their workers more, reinvest more in their company's infrastructure, and have a much more viable long term operation. This would also avoid some obnoxnious social expenses being foisted off on the nation as a whole. But absent the self discipline required to make a more moral choice, then others will try to impose that from the outside. Which unfortunately more often than not ends up making a bad situation worse in the long run.

But this isn't a modern view other than in the most generous definition of modern, regardless of what it says in the Bible.

It isn't new and didn't start with short term stock options or any of them. It goes back at least as far as the start of industrial capitalism. Read your Dickens. Think of the "dark satanic mills". Or any of the history

First I will note that utopia has not existed on this planet since the Garden of Eden. Utopia is not going to exist on this planet again until sometime after the Second Coming. So in the here and now we're left with trying to design/implement systems that torque off the minimum number of people about the minimum number of things. Even that is fraught with difficulties.

However, I would argue that if you looked at the way things were going in this country from post WWII to the early 1960's one could make the argument that the corporate management style then was not as antagonistic to the average working stiff as it seems to be today. Also as you noted in a later post you don't seem to see any other system working that much better. I am in agreement with you there. Which brings us to the relatively unsatisfactory solutions I proposed in my first post in this thread.

Things were better for that relatively short period, but that doesn't defend your thesis that it was "traditional Judeo-Christian moral and ethical values" that were responsible, rather than the easily demonstrable strong labor movement and functioning government regulation keeping corporate management in check.

[BigNorseWolf]

Ceaser Slaad wrote:

In order for capitalism to work properly those taking part in it need to voluntarily adhere to traditional Judeo-Christian moral and ethical values.

Really? What possible relationship is there between the two? Jesus would be occupying wallstreet, not working there.

Quote:

Sadly, our society is becoming increasingly amoral and as a result it is suffering from a wide variety of social problems.

This is made up nonsense. Society has ALWAYS been derided as becoming more immoral. We should have hit lord of the flies 2 generations after Plato.

Quote:

My personal bias is actually to attempt to maximize individual liberty, but you can't do that without also maximizing individual responsibility.

Which you can't do, at all, with a corporation, because the entire point of a corporation is to avoid responsibility.

And THIS is the problem. Not that gay marriage causes hurricanes. But that there is no way to threaten a corporate entity with not only a legal ability but a legal OBLIGATION to maximize profit for its shareholders at any cost.

Quote:

I see no easy solutions. The "popular science" ideas of ditching capitalism, fossil fuels, and embracing some sort of top down "green" totalitarianism strike me as being counterproductive at best. The system we have now is much more fascist than a true market system would be in any event, and I see no easy way to reform it without rearranging the underlying power structure that made it that way.

There's no such thing as a true market system. The tragedy of the commons is in full effect, now more than ever.

Quote:

For better or worse, mankind has chosen to saddle and ride the tornado known as "technology". While we have been reasonably successful in that regard, we have almost no control over where the tornado is going. As for getting off the tornado, we are now high enough up that as they say; "The first step is a doozy."

Really, we started this whole mass extinction thing with sharpened rocks on sticks. If there's a solution its forward, not back.

[BigNorseWolf]

Farael the Fallen wrote:

But the modern mass extinction isn't being caused by a freak act of nature, the researchers say. It's being caused by man-made changes to the environment including deforestation, poaching, overfishing and global-warming, and it's proving to be just as deadly.

The "modern" extinction has been going on for at least 200,000 years. Humans have been an ecological disaster since the invention of the pointy stick when we swarmed out of Africa and came upon unsuspecting animals that couldn't adapt quickly enough to our presence.

If there's a solution its by going forward, not back.

[Aberzombie]

Yetis, man! F++!ing yetis!

[BigNorseWolf]

Aberzombie wrote:

Yetis, man! F~#@ing yetis!

Were real

[Aberzombie]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Aberzombie wrote:

Yetis, man! F~#@ing yetis!

Were real

What do you mean "were"? Don't let that Bulmahn dude hear you say "were". He's kind of partial to them.

Or was that Jacobs?

[Turin the Mad]

Simon Legrande wrote:

We just need to eliminate 75% of the human population on Earth. We should start with all the people who believe there is an overpopulation problem, they should be willing considering their stand. Once they're all gone, we can reevaluate how many more need to be turned into fertilizer.

Overpopulation is about as simple as cause and effect gets. The effects of meeting the demands for a total world population of, say, 500 million causes 1/144th of the effects of meeting the demands for a total population north of 7.2 billion. Especially when all else is equal.

[humor]If that recognition warrants turning me into fertilizer, come and get it. If you win, great, you get some new fertilizer. If I win, I'm sure you'll make a wonderful flower bed.[/humor]

[BigNorseWolf]

Simon Legrande wrote:

We just need to eliminate 75% of the human population on Earth. We should start with all the people who believe there is an overpopulation problem, they should be willing considering their stand. Once they're all gone, we can reevaluate how many more need to be turned into fertilizer.

You can drop a population without killing individuals you know...

[Soylent Green]

I've got some ideas about this overpopulation thing. It's all about the people!

[Freehold DM]

john Q wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

Ceaser Slaad wrote:

Could I identify the values I'm talking about?

I will limit myself to one brief example which I am carefully selecting in the hope it will avoid a firestorm.

The requirement for employers to pay their employees a decent/living wage is a moral requirement which goes all the way back to the Old Testament. For the sake of brevity I will omit the proof of that [which is rather elegantly summed up by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. :-) ]

However, today the view has taken hold that the only determinant of what wages should be is the market, with employers arguing that they are being pressed to drive wages as low as they possibly can. But this is only due to the modern corporate management style which emphasizes maximizing short term profits at the expense of all other considerations. The fact that the corporation may be cutting it's own throat in the long run is glossed over because the highest level management is largely paid by short term stock options and responsible only to a board of directors they are at least partially in collusion with.

However, if management were willing to take a more "moral"/long term view then they could accept a slightly lower profit margin, pay their workers more, reinvest more in their company's infrastructure, and have a much more viable long term operation. This would also avoid some obnoxnious social expenses being foisted off on the nation as a whole. But absent the self discipline required to make a more moral choice, then others will try to impose that from the outside. Which unfortunately more often than not ends up making a bad situation worse in the long run.

I would avoid taking direction from any work that has system of economics in place that relies heavily upon slavery "servants".

Ancient Hebrews economics did NOT rely HEAVILY on slavery.slavery was a common practice in antiquity and even then the was not common in Ancient israel. The only reason Ancient israel even had...

you can gussy it up all you want. It's a system. It can be gamed. It can be broken. Not everyone plays by the rules. And when you are talking about a class that only has rights as a theory with respect to literally EVERY OTHER CLASS IN SOCIETY, next to noone is going to play by the rules.

[Freehold DM]

john Q wrote:

Paul Watson wrote:

And its still slavery. Saying "Oh, but it wasn't the really bad kind of slavery" does not do much for people's opinions of you as far as being a good source of moral judgement.

Nobody said slavery was okay. But that it was necessary for the people at that time

have you considered going into politics?

[Freehold DM]

xavier c wrote:

Paul Watson wrote:

Slaad,

If you claim to have a hot line to divine authority and morality that no one else has, as christianity does, you don't then get to say "everyone else is doing it" and get taken seriously especially if you then use said divine hotline to argue that everyone else is doing it wrong in other areas, ones that you personally are not doing but a lot of your fellow Christians most certainly are.

And they have, and have been fought tooth and nail by Christians every step of the way. Apparently, Christians existed who both suported and opposed skavery so it's a bit much to claim it's all Christianity's doing. And that's not accouting for the Bible's actual support. If your of the "inerrant word of god" schol of thought on the Bible, it's comdoning of slavery is a bit of a problem with claiming its a good moral source.

KC,
Given you were allowed to beat your slaves with a rod no bigger than your thumb, I'm not sure that really follows as being "not all that different from community service". And as long as the slave died from injuries three days after the beating rather than earlier, it was all good. Yeah, not seeing the supposedly moral version of slavery in the Bible. It's not that all slavery is the same, but that .biblical slavery isn't as good as people, who would refuse to actually work under those conditions themselves, were portraying it and is still pretty horrible.

May i ask you a question? why do you think slavery is wrong?

live as one. Then get back to me.

[Freehold DM]

Ceaser Slaad wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

I would avoid taking direction from any work that has system of economics in place that relies heavily upon slavery "servants".

Ahem. Then there is no system of economics that you can support. Even in modern day America, "slavery" has not totally disappeared. A significant percentage of the people currently in prison are being put to work in a wide variety of different jobs that private companies are making money off of. Historically slavery of one form or another has been the rule more than the exception for every state level society and religious tradition that we have records of. In many parts of the world today, more often than not involving religious traditions other than Judeo-Christian, slavery is alive and well and just as obnoxious an institution as it has ever been.

So you can excoriate the Judeo-Christian tradition because it "supports"/provides rules for slavery if you want to. But then that overlooks the fact that in modern times it has been countries with Judeo-Christian traditions that on the whole have been the most successful at abolishing/limiting slavery.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL Have you considered going into stand up comedy?

[Aberzombie: Lord of the Undead]

I think what we need is a good, old-fashioned Zombiepocalypse. Just sayin.....

[Soylent Green]

Simon Legrande wrote:

.....how many more need to be turned into fertilizer.

Fertilizer? Naah! I've got a better idea....

[Brother Faust the Elder]

Aberzombie: Lord of the Undead wrote:

I think what we need is a good, old-fashioned Zombiepocalypse. Just sayin.....

Any day now would be nice.

[W.O.P.R.]

How about a nice game of Global Thermonuclear War? Or Chess. I'm good either way.

[CorvusMask]

xavier c wrote:

CorvusMask wrote:

Ceaser Slaad wrote:

But then that overlooks the fact that in modern times it has been countries with Judeo-Christian traditions that on the whole have been the most successful at abolishing/limiting slavery.

Isn't that kind of because countries with Judeo-Christian traditions were the ones with most slavery to get rid of? Kinda hard to be succesfull at getting rid of something you don't have

Seriously though, I'm aware that Christians weren't only ones in past few centuries with slaves, but I'd like to point out that pretty much all religions teach same values anyway, even if focus is different, just in case someone wants to praise Christian morals over other religions and common sense xP

All civilizations at that time had slavery of some kind and a lot still do.

All religions do not teach same values

How so? I mean, geez, I know that I'm purposely saying stuff that is objectively wrong as I'm too lazy to study all modern religions so I could make more accurate statement, but I'd assume better argument than "Nope" in response. All religions teach ethics and what is good way to live. The differing part is usually the reasoning why you should do so and why it is good thing, but for most parts they all share the "Don't be a thieving murderous dick" part of ethics :p

...Huh, I just realized I forgot to specify I meant modern widespread religions and not including dead religions or weird cult stuff like Scientology. My bad, but I'm sure I'm still probably objectively wrong xD Can you forgive man for not wanting to put effort into religious debates in thread not about religious debates?

[V'GER]

Feel free to wipe yourselves out, Carbon Units. Then I can merge with the Creator and get all funky.

[Frank the Mime]

.....?

[Union Thugee]

The British in India will be slaughtered. Then we will overrun the Moslems and force their "Allah" to bow to Kali. And then the Hebrew God will fall and finally the Christian God will be cast down and forgotten.

Bali Mangthi Kali Ma.

[Bob Sothoth]

I'm just gonna wait over here for the stars to be right.

[MMCJawa]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Farael the Fallen wrote:

But the modern mass extinction isn't being caused by a freak act of nature, the researchers say. It's being caused by man-made changes to the environment including deforestation, poaching, overfishing and global-warming, and it's proving to be just as deadly.

The "modern" extinction has been going on for at least 200,000 years. Humans have been an ecological disaster since the invention of the pointy stick when we swarmed out of Africa and came upon unsuspecting animals that couldn't adapt quickly enough to our presence.

If there's a solution its by going forward, not back.

200,000 is a bit old, but yeah...the 6th extinction probably kicked in with 40-60,000 years ago. For the most part, a clear pattern is present where once modern humans arrive in a novel environment, (Australia, various islands, the Americas, Europe, etc), most of the megafauna is annihilated. The Death toll in some of these extinction waves were mind boggling. For instance, it's estimated that something like 3000 bird species went extinct after initial colonization of the South Pacific.

As humans developed greater and greater technology and means to influence the environment...are ability to influence more species has ever increased. Sophisticated agriculture allowed populations to exceed local carrying capacity, causing overharvesting of resources and habitat destruction. Improvements of maritime technology allowed us to access marine fish and mammals previously were safe from human harassment. Industrial technology led to poisoning of waters and air.

It's not any sort of recent phenomena, and certainly doesn't correlate with rejection of Judeo-Christian morality.

Ultimately...it's the human inability to consider long-term consequences and pure greed that is driving it.

[john Q]

Union Thugee wrote:

The British in India will be slaughtered. Then we will overrun the Moslems and force their "Allah" to bow to Kali. And then the Hebrew God will fall and finally the Christian God will be cast down and forgotten.

Bali Mangthi Kali Ma.

I highly doubt that based on the theology of these two religions, the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Christian/Hebrew God would not bow to Kali or be defeated by Kali who is not omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.And unlike Kali the Christian/Hebrew God is Eternal and has no beginning(He has always existed and did not come into being) and he has no end(He will always exist and can not die).

[Kalindlara]

john Q wrote:

Union Thugee wrote:

The British in India will be slaughtered. Then we will overrun the Moslems and force their "Allah" to bow to Kali. And then the Hebrew God will fall and finally the Christian God will be cast down and forgotten.

Bali Mangthi Kali Ma.

I highly doubt that based on the theology of these two religions, the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Christian/Hebrew God would not bow to Kali or be defeated by Kali who is not omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.And unlike Kali the Christian/Hebrew God is Eternal and has no beginning(He has always existed and did not come into being) and he has no end(He will always exist and can not die).

This might be of use...

[xavier c]

Kalindlara wrote:

john Q wrote:

Union Thugee wrote:

The British in India will be slaughtered. Then we will overrun the Moslems and force their "Allah" to bow to Kali. And then the Hebrew God will fall and finally the Christian God will be cast down and forgotten.

Bali Mangthi Kali Ma.

I highly doubt that based on the theology of these two religions, the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Christian/Hebrew God would not bow to Kali or be defeated by Kali who is not omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.And unlike Kali the Christian/Hebrew God is Eternal and has no beginning(He has always existed and did not come into being) and he has no end(He will always exist and can not die).

This might be of use...

That was a quote from a movie. I thought is was from some historical person.

[Kalindlara]

Yes, xavier. Yes, it was. ^_^

[Kryzbyn]

Union Thugee wrote:

The British in India will be slaughtered. Then we will overrun the Moslems and force their "Allah" to bow to Kali. And then the Hebrew God will fall and finally the Christian God will be cast down and forgotten.

Bali Mangthi Kali Ma.

He didn't choose thugee life...

[xavier c]

Freehold DM wrote:

xavier c wrote:

Paul Watson wrote:

Slaad,

If you claim to have a hot line to divine authority and morality that no one else has, as christianity does, you don't then get to say "everyone else is doing it" and get taken seriously especially if you then use said divine hotline to argue that everyone else is doing it wrong in other areas, ones that you personally are not doing but a lot of your fellow Christians most certainly are.

And they have, and have been fought tooth and nail by Christians every step of the way. Apparently, Christians existed who both suported and opposed skavery so it's a bit much to claim it's all Christianity's doing. And that's not accouting for the Bible's actual support. If your of the "inerrant word of god" schol of thought on the Bible, it's comdoning of slavery is a bit of a problem with claiming its a good moral source.

KC,
Given you were allowed to beat your slaves with a rod no bigger than your thumb, I'm not sure that really follows as being "not all that different from community service". And as long as the slave died from injuries three days after the beating rather than earlier, it was all good. Yeah, not seeing the supposedly moral version of slavery in the Bible. It's not that all slavery is the same, but that .biblical slavery isn't as good as people, who would refuse to actually work under those conditions themselves, were portraying it and is still pretty horrible.

May i ask you a question? why do you think slavery is wrong?

live as one. Then get back to me.

According to natural science we are all slaves to our genes and there is no freewill and there is no morality. So what?

[LazarX]

thejeff wrote:

As for the actual topic at hand: Yeah, we're in the middle of a major extinction event that we're causing and it started well before climate change had any real effect. We're actually putting more effort into stopping it than ever before, which isn't saying much, but the pressures driving it are stronger than ever as well.

I don't think it's really capitalism/consumerism either. The various communist regimes haven't had good environmental records, to say the least. It's growth. Whatever theory drives it. Unchecked growth is unchecked exploitation and leads to collapse. We need to find a way out of that trap, but I don't know what it is.

The Soviet Union never had a true communist system. In essence while certain socialist elements were added to the economy, much of it remains run by the same form of cronyism that had functioned under the old Czars, and has become a new crony capitalism today.

China had and still does a far more centrally and rigidly controlled economy than the Soviets ever managed. It has however bestowed something close to laisseze-faire capitalism in the district of Hong Kong and various projects aimed at moving the country forward in the economic sphere.

It's also worth noting that Karl Marx's model never applied to countries like Russia. He believed that a communist state would have a prior form of top heavy capitalism, one in which the bulk of gains would be shunted at an ever decreasing minority while the bulk of the costs would be shouldered by the working poor, which much of America's middle class has been forcibly transferred to by the growing lack of middle-class jobs. The United States was last in such a profile in the Gilded Age which had it's height during the 1920's. When Franklin Roosevelt enacted his social forms, it was only partly due to reasons of altruism. The main motivation was to deter the very real possibility of open class warfare.

[TOZ]

xavier c wrote:

According to natural science we are all slaves to our genes and there is no freewill and there is no morality. So what?

Do you mean that you have experienced slavery and found it to not be a bad thing?

[thejeff]

All that means is that communism doesn't have a track record on environmentalism and that attempts at establishing it also have a poor track record.

You could also argue there's never been a real free market capitalist country and thus that could be better for the environment.

I think my point stands - unchecked growth is the problem, regardless of the theory.

[mourge40k]

Thread starts to be about Mass extinction, and then boom. First page, it's talking about slavery and religion. God, I love the human race sometimes.

[LazarX]

xavier c wrote:

According to natural science we are all slaves to our genes and there is no freewill and there is no morality. So what?

Spoken like someone who really has no grasp of natural science.

The studies of separated identical twins has shown that there are genetic pre-dispositions to certain types of behavior, such as the happiness quotient. Certain people are going to be more happy, sad, etc. than others.

HOWEVER...Those same studies also show that environment, and upbringing still play a major role in how people develop. And unlike almost every other form of life on the planet, Humans do demonstrate the rare gift of self-awareness. And the more effort you take to explore and develop your self-awareness the more free will you'll actually have. Keep in mind however that the environmental factors I mention, also include chemicals that you're exposed to in the environment, for good and ill.

Free will and morality thus aren't simplistic objects of their own, they arise as a composite of all three elements... Nature, Nurture, and Self-Awareness.

[xavier c]

TOZ wrote:

xavier c wrote:

According to natural science we are all slaves to our genes and there is no freewill and there is no morality. So what?

Do you mean that you have experienced slavery and found it to not be a bad thing?

No i'm saying According to natural science we are all slaves and there is no freewill and there is no good or bad.

[Orfamay Quest]

xavier c wrote:

TOZ wrote:

xavier c wrote:

According to natural science we are all slaves to our genes and there is no freewill and there is no morality. So what?

Do you mean that you have experienced slavery and found it to not be a bad thing?

No i'm saying According to natural science we are all slaves and there is no freewill and there is no good or bad.

Really? When did you talk to natural science?

Because I'm fairly sure he/she/it said no such thing.

[thejeff]

xavier c wrote:

According to natural science we are all slaves to our genes and there is no freewill and there is no morality. So what?

All technicalities about freewill and what morality means in the absence of God-given rules aside, I think if we're not at least willing to admit that slavery isn't a good thing, there's no real point in discussing any moral issues.

[xavier c]

LazarX wrote:

xavier c wrote:

According to natural science we are all slaves to our genes and there is no freewill and there is no morality. So what?

Spoken like someone who really has no grasp of natural science.

The studies of separated identical twins has shown that there are genetic pre-dispositions to certain types of behavior, such as the happiness quotient. Certain people are going to be more happy, sad, etc. than others.

HOWEVER...Those same studies also show that environment, and upbringing still play a major role in how people develop. And unlike almost every other form of life on the planet, Humans do demonstrate the rare gift of self-awareness. And the more effort you take to explore and develop your self-awareness the more free will you'll actually have. Keep in mind however that the environmental factors I mention, also include chemicals that you're exposed to in the environment, for good and ill.

Free will and morality thus aren't simplistic objects of their own, they arise as a composite of all three elements... Nature, Nurture, and Self-Awareness.

It is all a creation of the brain , it is all a delusion.