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After a brief discussion with an Allphil fellow staffer I thought Id put this question to you as it has had me seriously doubting human potential for growth. (In this life anyway, come on guys you know I had to say it lol.)
So the question is:
Do you think we have made any real progress as human beings and if so how?
For me I look at this from a view to improving civilisation and spirituality.
Humanity is almost blind to the amazing possibilities of unity because of the usual: greed, pride, vanity, slothenlyness etc forsake of these things open your yes to the bigger more amazing picture. Beyond the he said she said, can we trust them, are they going to attack us crap. No more back biting, sneaky manipulating always trying for the upper hand. Paranoid delusions of he's out to get me. I have to be bigger and better so i dont lose or fail or look a fool. Why oh why are we unable to acheive such a state of mind.
Apologies to all you realists in advance i know this may be hard for you to take in but really this is how i truly feel and have high hopes for..sometimes it dwindles but it fires up again also. Amazingly I tend to find that when confronted by an open minded idea I instinctively look at it primarily though realistic spectacles. But this creates restriction and boundaries and thus preventing progression so eventually my mind will maybe open unless it is WAAAYYY too dodgy lol
So have we really progressed??
Which area of progression is most important to you?
Do you have any ideas for the future?
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we have progressed. women can vote, blacks have become somewhat equal as well as gays.
acceptence of others is most important -
True
In our closest to home environment where our lives are touched in a personal way do you think we have changed socially brother to sister, mother to son, neighbour to neighbour. -
Yes, and No.
For growth it's the advancement and the progress of socitey, but that's destruction too. The factory and the new technology has created polution in the air. Also, Guns, and oil for our new technology is distory the world by polution, and killing of people. Some todays values are false and bad, but in majority it's okay. Some of the bad is war is been as thought as good, and as nice, and as cool. -
Both
Technologically we have progressed little in the past 100 years. Everything now is created in an entertainment effort, not because it's essential or that it makes anything easier. But on the other hand we're much more advanced compared to them as well technologically (essentially). As for the interpersonal relationships, I believe that we have advanced our society to where we can create more bonds with greater ease in a variety of ways. Spiritually I believe that we have made a decline in almost every way. People aren't living what they believe and all are hypocrites, although I am a person of faith myself. Nevertheless we have progressed and declined in almost every subject. -
be the progress
a telephone can be used to make a crank call or be used to call for help in a life threatening situation.
a rifle can be used to bring home food to your family or kill your neighbor.
a poem can be used to woo a lover or topple a government. yes we have made progress but with that progress has come responsibility. the choice is yours to progress. -
We have progressed to the biblical end times (knowledge will increase and man will run to and fro upon the earth). We are at the most technologically advanced state since the beginning of mankind and the most morally bankrupt. Technology has brought us to the brink of total destruction. We now have the ability to destroy every living thing on the earth many times over in a matter of hours. Man has never made a weapon that he has never eventually used. Jesus said that we are about to enter a time of trouble as never was on earth and if He doesn't return, no one will be saved alive. And all of this because we have turned our backs on God.
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Most wars are started over God.
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It can't be turning your back on religion that's done this, but rather turning our backs on compassion. People often abandon this because they're too busy embracing their religious hatred for another group.
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Most wars?? a lot i agree but most im not so sure. Territory, now theres an excuse for a good battle.
religion/tradition are seperate from God. It is religion that causes us to turn our backs on compassion because the tradition ends up coming first rather than Godly character. Religious hatred is definately a dangerous thing. Jesus did not encourage hatred.
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I don't think it's an unfair sentiment to say religion was the cause of most wars. Even when there are various other reasons for the war, the most common and easiest way to get people backing you is to site ideological differences. To demonize them. You cannot wage a war without people willing to back you. It is harder to do for Western countries in today's media centric world focused on a degree of cultural tolerance, but still attempted. In the Middle East many of them hate and attack our countries and openly cite religion as their motivation. We do it back in secret. Most people say we're fighting their way of life but not Islam itself--OFFICIALLY. Otherwise they are widely distrustful of Muslims and talk about how evil Islam is, having no idea how peaceful and normal most of the religion is living within their own countries. I've heard countless people lay claim to the fact that ALL Muslim's hate us, and the ones here that don't do anything are merely the ones that are too afraid to fight.
Take the Third Punic War. There were reasons behind the conflict, mostly grudges and treaty disputes. Roman leaders wanted annihilate their bitter rivals and threats to power. To inspire the people to back them, they cited Carthage's child sacrifices during religious rituals. This was untrue, but the people couldn't stand such a terrible difference in ideology.
Hitler had a lot of twisted inspiration for his war, but used religion as a valuable tool in bringing others to his side. He tried to exterminate an entire race of people based on their religious heritage, and the people loved him for it. Children turned in their parents for being Jew sympathizers and were praised for it. Hitler openly spoke of the greatness of Catholicism and "positive Christianity" that they needed to spread throughout the world, even though he himself was non-practicing Catholic. And even though we didn't need to, we did it right back to the Nazi's. It is still widely believed today, without much legitimate reason, that the Nazi's were involved in crazy occult and possibly satanic rituals on the side. It's treated as a simple fact. In reality they had very little involvement, with some wackos believing they could communicate with their ancestors and others having interest in religious artifacts and legends--about the same level that America had for instance. Every culture in the modern world has people that dabbled in practices like that, but the organization itself had little to nothing to do with it. -
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Wars are caused by ignorance, vanity, and greed.
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And they are not stopped by religious devotion. Especially religious devotion that pontificates that other religions are super wrong compared to your own.
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I do believe that there is one right way with God. He is not a God of division or confusion. He is a God of love and if we are His then we too must love all. We must not condemn them because they made a wrong choice. They will have their opportunity to learn the truth. Everyone will.
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I agree with what your sentiments speak of. Compassion, as mentioned. The best means of doing this is with tolerance and understanding, not blaming people for the world's problems (and end??) for not adhering to your religion.
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Hate the sin, love the sinner,
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humanity has made some progress. we no longer take it as read that the earth is flat, we no longer blame sicknesses and crop failures on witchcraft, we stopped throwing our children into flaming pyres to ensure a good harvest, and we have abandoned the practice of trying to cure all diseases by attaching leeches to the body. in fact, there is a long list of things we used to do, that we have since ceased because they were found to be either useless or dangerous.
however, i do admit we still have a long way to go -
Part of the problem is political
politics often discourages learning, or at the very least endeavors to control it to it's own ends. those with political agendas want to encourage their own ideology, and discourage others. so they place resrictions on education, they ban books that they disagree with, they fire teachers who dare to encourage free thought and self expression, they come up with buzz words like "racism" and "hate speech" to condemn any idea they are uncomfortable with. In this environment, learning and progress are stifled, as human beings are transformed into units with no more intellect or spirtual growth than a drone bee. -
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Am I the only one that thought "organized religion" could have replaced "politics" in there?
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that too. they are pretty much the same thing
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Adding your reply:
Applehead
May 21 4:16 PM 2007
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