Changing the world

Live and let live. Let the assholes be assholes, let the greats be great. Balance, yo.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Encephalon

I'm convinced that if religion had never existed, the world would have been a much more tolerant place as a whole. Having said that I just wish people would be more tolerant of eachother and their beliefs or lack thereof; I think we could solve a lot of problems just doing that. :/

I used to think the same thing. But I really doubt it. In today's society, sure, without religion and the world secularized you'd get rid of shoddy theocracies like Iran's, and the world would be a lot more tolerant and accepting of other people's ways and beliefs.

But if religion had NEVER existed in the first place? Then we wouldn't have a lot of the morals that we've been brought up with and think are integral to humanity. If religion had never existed, we wouldn't have any concept of marriage, any real deterrence for laws, and a lot of the stuff we take for granted now that we don't really relate to religion.

Sure, religion has caused its fair share of wars and persecution. But most of the wars were because of idiots who used the names of their religions to gain land. I think the world would be a better place if it wasn't such a sprawl for land.

The thing is, religion, hate it or not, cause the MAJORITY of its followers to stay in line and be 'good.' Don't let the extremists fray your judgement... though it is hard to ignore them nowadays.

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Originally Posted by Encephalon

You're gonna have to help me out here because I'm not seeing the downside to your argument here.

The world would be in anarchy. Kill or be killed. Unless you're incredibly powerful, and a part of the majority, you'll probably die real soon.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Black Jade Rose

If you think that killing some people to make the world better would work, would you kill them if you had the chance? Or would you imprison them if you could?

I disagree with you I don’t think that people would fall into a society of kill or be killed. If there were no laws today and no police would you go kill someone? Killing people is not something natural to people.

People would be forced to live by their own morals and what they think is right or wrong. If there were no laws I don’t think the rich would be rich for very long because I think that the lower classes of society would start to take what they need because there are no laws to stop them. Without laws a person who is starving can take what they need from someone who has more then they need. There will always be people who abuse this kind of system. But people abuse the system we have now.

Religion was one way to make laws that people would obey but the reason people obeyed the laws was out of fear and that is not why people should follow laws. Someone came up with laws in religions and people follow laws because they seem right. Laws make the world work in harmony but not when they are enforced with fear. People will live in harmony without laws once they understand that braking laws even though they are not enforced make the world fall apart. People will obey laws because they make life better.

Laws are always enforced with fear. That's the whole idea of deterrents. We imprison people and punish people so they don't do the things we don't want them to do. Of course the world has come a LONG way from The Code of Hammurabi and the Draconian Laws, but many states in the US still have the Death Penalty and many parts of the world still have some fucked up methods of punishment.

Fear works, and we need it. Without fear of punishment, laws would have no teeth and we would have anarchy. You're entitled to your own opinion of course, but I fully believe that without laws this world would fall into chaos immediately.


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I think we should concentrate more on space. I mean, we haven't done jack since the moon and that Space Race involving Russia. Can China start colonizing Mars already so we all can compete in another space race? That type of sci-fi shit is so interesting to me, and that's the next step for mankind not this mid-east garbage.

Oh, and if I ruled the world, I'd eliminate ownership of land. I'm not a communist by any means, own what you want... but not land, come on.

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Originally Posted by Lord Styphon

The entirety of human history begs to differ.



If people were good enough to obey laws that aren't enforced because they make life better, there wouldn't be a need for those laws at all. Which human history again says isn't the case.

The idea is contradicted by your poor starving guy stealing from the rich guy; even if laws weren't enforced, if the poor guy understood that breaking laws "made the world fall apart", he'd just starve because he knew that taking something that didn't belong to him was wrong.

But he's starving, doesn't have food, and this guy does. He needs it, and to him, his need to eat is more important than the idea of private property or respecting the law to keep society from imploding.

While I wouldn't go as far to say that it's human nature to KILL our own kind. I'd say that we are animals, like every other animal on the planet, and that we value our survival... or listen to our instict of survival more than anything else.

We aren't born we morals and ethics, we are taught them. But without them, we wouldn't necessarily just kill people for no reason. The world would return to the laws of the Animal Kingdom, where the strong ones oppress the weak and use up all of the resources, and the weak die. That is until we satisfy our biological needs and start cognitive thought, where we begin to offer protection for the weak in return for more betterment [most likely financial after we develop the concept of money, again] and we will basically reset civilization.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Digital_Divider

patience is a virtue that is short in supply-- my first goal would be to fix that problem.

I think more than that, action is a virtue. People delay things too much. I'm not talking about the typical procrastinator, I'm saying that shit that's promised never happens.

How ya doing, buddy?

Just wait for a paradigm shift... a REAL one.

FELIPE NO