Can the world change?

[geko]

Do you ever get the feeling that you have the same views as someone else, just a different way of expressing them?

 

Didnt read the question right. My answer is yes.

[IrishEyes]

Why do you ask? Do you feel the same way (excluding your religious beliefs because that would be understandable)?

 

Actually, I generally agree with more skeptical views as well. This even applies to religion, though that's not alway evident here. While I do believe in creation, and God, religion is not something I am fond of. I fight with my pastor on a regular basis about if his messages are based on Scripture or come from his heart. I mean, I feel his heart is in the right place, but he is very old-fashioned. ;-)

 

I firmly believe that the only way to make change happen is to start a change within yourself. I think the world CAN be better. I know that I'm working on my little section that I can directly influence. And it's not a way to soothe my conscience, it's all about greed - I want the world of my children to be better than the world of their mother. And while I may sound like a total zealot in this forum, most of my friends think I'm very liberal in every other area of my life.

 

And yes, I believe firmly in human selfishness. I don't necessarily think it SHOUULD be that way, but I believe it IS that way. We are all basically VERY selfish people. That is good and bad in many ways.

 

And geko, if anyone could ever talk me out of my belief in God, it would be someone who has an attitude that is very similar to yours. You seem to point out a different way of thinking without implying I'm stupid if i don't agree. thanks for that!!

[geko]

Originally posted by: IrishEyes

 

 

a different way of thinking without implying I'm stupid if i don't agree. thanks for that!!

 

you're welcome

[sanctus]

I actually do believe in selfishness, this is the reason why I think that if we want to change the world we have to start to change ourselves.

I think you (geko and irisheyes) have read my posts about the I and the Me, well it is the Me who is selfish, if all the "I"s accept that then I think the world would change.

 

The belief in selfishness implies as well that wanting to change the others is useless, becuse

• or they aren't aware of their selfishness and therefore you can't change them (as I posted earlier on this thread, who likes being told he/she is selfish?)

• or they are aware of and is useless

[Snaky Dave]

Hello Phire, I've been held up learning to use this internet or I'd have sent heaps more by now.

I found the discussion about technology fascinating. There's nothing wrong with good technology that fits in with the planet. I welcome the new electronics that makes it possible to do a great deal of work with tiny devices that require little material in their manufacture and use hardly any power. Such things are getting very close to magic and can only be good for the environment.

 

If you have read the piece I sent in earlier entitled the 'Mystery of God' you'll know my general direction. I am not however, a religeous nutter. I will simply use anything that I think might help in changing the mentality of the world for the better. I want to start a chain reaction of new ideas.. to get people thinking for themselves. I want to begin something that I could not stop if I wanted to, I want to see a new world within my lifetime. That is all..

 

David Brock. [email protected]

[sanctus]

snaky dave, it seems to me you want to change the others, I agree it would be great (and comfortable, one has nothing to do about himself),but regrettably impossible (read to posts above).

 

At the limit what you can do is make people get aware....

[geko]

Originally posted by: sanctus

 

A) I think you (geko and irisheyes) have read my posts about the I and the Me, well it is the Me who is selfish, if all the "I"s accept that then I think the world would change.

 

 

B) The belief in selfishness implies as well that wanting to change the others is useless, becuse

UL>or they aren't aware of their selfishness and therefore you can't change them

 

• or they are aware of and is useless</UL

 

 

 

 

A) I dont believe there is a duality, therefore i cant follow this type of thinking.

 

Unless of course you're saying that for a global change to happen there first needs to be a personal change, in which case i can understand where you're coming from i think (the personal change may rub-off on others and so on).

 

B) Is this saying that it's a waste of a selfish persons' time to try and change other people because the other people dont realise they're selfish? This isnt entirely accurate because many of people's views may not depend on their own selfishness, or lack of.

 

And...

 

My belief in my own selfishness would say that it's often arrogant to try and change other people, not useless. It's not useless to try and change other people because 1) it can be done and 2) it can have benefit to the selfish dude (even if the benefit be an intangible).

[Freethinker]

As the question is "CAN" the world change?

 

The answer is self evident.

 

The "World" has no choice in the matter, it HAS to change. If the "World" were to "stay the same", as time progressed (which at this point we are not able to stop) the reference would change and thus the world being the same in a different frame of reference, would have changed.

 

Change is inevitable.

 

The question really is HOW will the world change?

[Freethinker]

What I see running thru the posts is each individual's idea of what is and what is not a positive change. Some approach the question from the a priori stance of humans being bad and needing outside intervention to make them good. This is typically a religious philsophy.

 

Others see humans independant and often assert that the motivation then is self gratification.

 

Regardless of the approach, there is still the question of what paths/ changes/ ... are good and which bad. And what rubric we can establish to determine it. One person's good is another person's attrocity. Who gets to draw the line?

 

Let's look at a current microcosm, Iraq. Trying not to take political sides... (very hard and I am sure I will not be completely succesful) The POTUS has decided that Democracy is the best thing for it. Or so the claim is made. Yet they know that if they actually allowed a democratic vote today, some Islamic theocracy would be "voted in" and future democracy would be out the window.

 

If Iraq eventually has a Secular Democracy (such as it had BEFORE the US attacked it, as bad as it was) is that better than Iraq being an Islamic Theocracy?

 

Either side can be attacked or supported based on the individual's ideology.

 

Is there an objective measure of benefit/ harm. Is good/ evil directly relevant to benefit/ harm?

 

Cant the world change? It has no choice!

 

Will it be better of worse? That depends on the individual POV.

[lindagarrette]

Don't confuse facts (what is) with values (what you wish). Good and bad (evil) are moral concepts that have nothing to do with reality aside from our desires and aspirations. For Muffin (my cat) there is no right or wrong. There just is.

[Freethinker]

Actually, you can map very specific moral actions for your cat. Cats do not eat their own babies. Some species do. It is against their "moral code". Cat's do not "soil their eating location". They show protective actions to one's they have an emotional connection. Did you ever see a mother cat protect their young? They can be VERY agressive.

 

You may wish to assert that they are not doing it "intentionally". That they are not making a "moral choice". But, while we can show that humans have a greater level of intellect (in general). We can not show that a cat does not have sentience or is incapable of choice at some level.

 

Just as we can not show any ABSOLUTES in "right and wrong" for humans.

[sanctus]

Answer to geko:

 

Ok we can change other people by making them:

 

• A)either blind (that means we bring very good arguments so that they believe,don't understand)

 

• B)either think

 

 

 

Case A) isn't very useful, somebody else can just make him change his beliefs with other arguments.

 

 

In case B) we didn't really change them, as in chemistry, we were just the reaction potential.

 

So yes, if you say being a reaction potential we change people then I agree it is possible.

 

B) is what I try to do whenever I go to a demonstration, I go (always peacefully) to a demo against the G8 for example for making the people, that sees us in the tv, think.

[sanctus]

Originally posted by: Freethinker

 

 

 

Just as we can not show any ABSOLUTES in "right and wrong" for humans.

 

I agree, this is a thing many religions and so-called religious didn't understand (yet, I hope).

 

 

And here we go, I'm judging these religions (or better people who believe in absolutes in general) wrong, because they believe in absolutes. Does this mean there is the paradox inside? Don't I believe in the absolute that whoever beliefs in absolutes is wrong, therefore I judge myself as wrong as well?

But then I believe in the abolute that I'm wrong and therefore.....

 

Can we live without (temporary) absolutes?

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: sanctus

Don't I believe in the absolute that whoever beliefs in absolutes is wrong, therefore I judge myself as wrong as well?

 

But then I believe in the abolute that I'm wrong and therefore.....

 

Can we live without (temporary) absolutes?

 

Absolutely! :-)

[Tim_Lou]

religion is like a society, like your in a school.

 

schools have school rules, societies have the rules of societies.

 

yes, there is no absolute right nor wrong, but once your in the society, or in the religions, you have already signed a "contract", thus you have to follow the rules, or else, simply just leave (you have to be punished b4 that though) or dont even "signed the contract" in the first place. this is how morality is built up.

 

"Can we live without (temporary) absolutes?"

 

no, not really, except you get to a place where there is no gov't (some wild places).

(ex, kill somebody w/ out a reason, that would be "absolute" wrong to your society)

[Freethinker]

I would argue that there are absolutes. Relatively speaking of course!

[sanctus]

Originally posted by: Freethinker

Originally posted by: sanctus

Don't I believe in the absolute that whoever beliefs in absolutes is wrong, therefore I judge myself as wrong as well?

 

 

 

But then I believe in the abolute that I'm wrong and therefore.....

 

 

 

Can we live without (temporary) absolutes?

 

 

 

Absolutely! :-)

 

I don't know if this statement "absolutely :-)" you refer to yourself (I mean that you are able) or to the fact that you believe that it is possible, in the first case just a question: reading your posts elsewhere (mainly in the thread god), I got the idea that you don't accept anything without proof (it may be a wrong interpretation of mine), a thing that I tend to do as well, but isn't this an absolute?

In the second case why do you believe this?

I