Mercury wrote:Your a farmer in Ancient Mesopotamia. Above you is the great expanse of Blue and your God, a Giant ball of gas undergoing Fusion . Your world consists of the area you can walk in a day. You were born here on the plot of land you scratch up, in efforts that you might grow crops, the family business. Inheritance, Family and what those at the temple tell you is truth, such as the Law governing grain exchange and order of water rights.
It is common sense that you recieve your water from God, whatever that means, and that males buy wives through slavery sanctioned by the state.
You will live a short life, and if you are female, a harsher one than males. Your priest is in cahoot's with the power brokers in the area, usually because they are his family.
your world is conversations you have with the neighbors and you have no health insurance besides very primitive forms of treatment, usually spiritual in nature, some counterproductive. You hear talk of little history outside your land and what your fraternal family has passed on. You are illiterate and unable to know what laws you break and why unless you go to the priest and ask him, the literate one, to read from a clay tablet that is older than your grandfather.
It seems that your life is ruled by the Sun God.
What parallels to the Mormon hierarchy do I see? I see several. First, the reliance on the Priest as the ultimate authority in law, a class of people benefiting from those kept in the dark so as to sustain power and authority in all matters. This is how a small group of people control many.
6,000 years ago is less significant than one might consider.
The last one in this list has multiple links and is from The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
Lots of reading here.
JAK
Yes yes yes, we have heard from the perspective of Evolution and it never leaves us wanting. But what of societies? What of establishmenst of institutions, Trusts and Laws - both spiritual and physical, legality and currency establish value systems. It is not to know these orders, it is to BE these orders that fascinates me. I buy every single major assumption coming out of the Agnostic camp and some of teh Atheist camp as well.
Mercury,
Your questions are not clear to me.
“What of societies?”
Well, some “societies” or civilizations have long since become extinct. They were more fragile than we assume them to be today. They lacked the communication which interconnects the societies and civilizations on the planet today. That fact is little comfort. With 6 billion people and global warming, we are threatened by our own numbers. While there might be sufficient resource to sustain 6 billion people, I am skeptical. Given wars, the attempt to dominate, nuclear weapons, and the shrinking of life-sustaining mechanisms, humans are an endangered species. Most humans even in the Western World do not recognize the threats. But, I think they are significant. The humans on earth are unlikely to escape the earth by space exploration. So, for the foreseeable future, we humans must cope with human-generated threats.
“Institutions” and “laws” have emerged within various “societies” and “civilizations.” They are continuously changing. While that may appear slow to some, it’s not slow in the context of 4.5 billion years or even in the context of the past million years.
I strongly suspect the priority of greatest threat changes over time. When we had 1 billion people, I doubt many even well educated people considered the possibility that the earth might be feeding too many people one day. But now, we require not only food, we require education, we require space, and we demand more of “societies” and “institutions” than ever before.
A time will come when the total global population will need to address far more seriously over-population for the resources which will be demanded as global communication reveals to the have nots what the richest of humans have.
I strongly suspect there will be significant paradigm shifts on what humans value that are required for quality of life beyond mere quantity of life.
JAK wrote:Well, some “societies” or civilizations have long since become extinct. They were more fragile than we assume them to be today. They lacked the communication which interconnects the societies and civilizations on the planet today. That fact is little comfort. With 6 billion people and global warming, we are threatened by our own numbers. While there might be sufficient resource to sustain 6 billion people, I am skeptical. Given wars, the attempt to dominate, nuclear weapons, and the shrinking of life-sustaining mechanisms, humans are an endangered species. Most humans even in the Western World do not recognize the threats. But, I think they are significant. The humans on earth are unlikely to escape the earth by space exploration. So, for the foreseeable future, we humans must cope with human-generated threats.
[snip]
I strongly suspect the priority of greatest threat changes over time. When we had 1 billion people, I doubt many even well educated people considered the possibility that the earth might be feeding too many people one day. But now, we require not only food, we require education, we require space, and we demand more of “societies” and “institutions” than ever before.
A time will come when the total global population will need to address far more seriously over-population for the resources which will be demanded as global communication reveals to the have nots what the richest of humans have.
I strongly suspect there will be significant paradigm shifts on what humans value that are required for quality of life beyond mere quantity of life.[/color]
JAK
I see either a united global community, or more and more isolation of the countries that have. And I don't see it happening any time soon. That is probably at least 2 generations away. And religion will be irrelevant by then.
I see either a united global community, or more and more isolation of the countries that have. And I don't see it happening any time soon. That is probably at least 2 generations away. And religion will be irrelevant by then.
I suspect also, that as far as your membership in the Church and your vaunted Temple recommend are concerned, they will be, if you do not change course, irrelevant well before the events described in the above long discredited leftwing fantasizing about "overpopulation" and "haves and have nots".
The specific answer to how to feed and educate the masses is capitalism under the rule of law. The broad answer to the world's problems, economic and social, is the Restored Gospel.
These secular humanistic fantasies would be only laughable were they not so sickeningly tired and threadbare.
Coggins7 wrote:I suspect also, that as far as your membership in the Church and your vaunted Temple recommend are concerned, they will be, if you do not change course, irrelevant well before the events described in the above long discredited leftwing fantasizing about "overpopulation" and "haves and have nots".
The specific answer to how to feed and educate the masses is capitalism under the rule of law. The broad answer to the world's problems, economic and social, is the Restored Gospel.
These secular humanistic fantasies would be only laughable were they not so sickeningly tired and threadbare.
Mods!
I see a personal attack, politics and a general scent of water and vinegar.
And crawling on the planet's face Some insects called the human race Lost in time And lost in space...and meaning
harmony wrote: I see either a united global community, or more and more isolation of the countries that have. And I don't see it happening any time soon. That is probably at least 2 generations away. And religion will be irrelevant by then.
Harmony,
By the time-frame for modern man, “two generations” is soon. That’s relatively speaking.
There are other options:
A disease which cannot be addressed a plague taking out humans
A drastic climate change such as one brought on by a giant meteorite or a nuclear exchange of global proportions
There are other options.
Religion is “irrelevant” now, but that’s not recognized by most in the Western World. Politicians in the US will be using God directly and indirectly in every up-coming election one can see on the horizon.