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Author Topic:   Religion Mandating Life
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 16 of 52 (18037)
09-23-2002 11:49 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by acmhttu001_2006
09-23-2002 11:23 AM


Did you read my series of posts on TAXACOM where I came to an "impossible" place that I THEN came out of. I continued from there and If you need to know the True Seekers also looked up Global Biosphere Project when realizing that it was not "a" place I came from.
Anne I am glad you have been able to isolate at least one of my posts but since the 3 papers AT cornell showing that biodiversity is larger than any so made in computer science theory I have coming to work on these posting as I know (ie when) that the diveristy I am familiar with outside is > and not equal to that which is in the "city" etc. Any city!!
I do not know when some one uses phrase "you assume" or "you assume too much" just as I wouldnt understand phrase "what else".
With respect to US, I think that the State of Mass had NO RIGHT to take the clear written directive from the Queen as to setting the land boundary by ANY, Every, or aLL tributaries of the Charles but the MASs people took this that they could mean each three togther.
SO legal documents look like this mess. And post-Socpes the whole evolutioarny law thing is worse than the acutal ability in HABEAS CORPUS to *Know* when to plead the 5th and when not. I am not familiar with law of other lands however etc. But Willimas had Rhode Island to be an Octogon but does West Warwick Look like this today??. No Newport politics and Berkely philosophers had Ciancia envade the federal hill of the evidence and Providence could not even support a hospital let alone the truth for the good the Cathloics do in that city and yet we do not generally discuss the different RELIGOUS perspectives of Seekonk residents that showed once and for all to me that the ACLU was not what it itself even said it WAS.
Conceptual boudaries are one thing but a judge Arragon get jewlry for fixing cases is the same while geography is indepenedt of discrimiation religious or otherwise.
So we have likely a differnce I feel no longer need to bridge the view from Cornell of since it seems you would have to engage me rather IN the Kant thread and not beating aournd th falls of the trail of firefly markers James Lloyd a studnet of my grandfather succeded in behaviorizing without sociobiology.
If i needed all of these turns just to begin to do biochem I guess it IS good I never appealed to the Brown Faculuty and just thought about the School of Desgin and fabricating a Radio show for Pawtucket et ET

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-23-2002 11:23 AM acmhttu001_2006 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-27-2002 12:54 AM Brad McFall has not replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5871 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 17 of 52 (18045)
09-23-2002 12:28 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by acmhttu001_2006
09-23-2002 11:17 AM


Anne - I know this wasn't directed at me, but I happened to be working on an essay that relates, and thought you might find it interesting. The basic premise is that the earliest religious beliefs were originally emergent properties of the physiology of our brains.
Most complex organisms are able, at least at a fundamental level, to "learn". By this I mean through experience they are able to associate two temporally-linked significant events or stimuli. Whether there is in reality a cause-effect relationship between the two events is utterly immaterial. This ability - no doubt the end result of millions of years of natural selection - has distinct survival benefit. It doesn't matter to the tasty bunny whether the rustle in the grass is a predator or just the wind. It flees. Hence the ability to positively correlate "rustle" with "predator" confers a survival advantage.
However, a problem arises when you start dealing with organisms who have more complex brains than our poor deluded bunny. Whereas humans (and I presume our close cousins) still retain this survival-based learning (consider the instant association of a child who touches a hot stove "touch stove" = "pain"), with us the asymmetry inherent in this instant association leads to a lot of mistakes, especially when we think about events that occur together from time to time. Humans are really lousy at accurately judging the relationship between events that only sometimes co-occur. Because we are so heavily influenced by pairings of significant events, we can come to infer an association - even a causal one - between two events even if there isn't one. For example. prayers may correspond with subsequent events only every so often by chance, and yet this pairing may have a dramatic effect on belief in the efficacy of prayer. Worse still, the world around us is full of coincidental occurrences, some of which are meaningful but the vast majority of which are not. This provides a fertile ground for the growth of fallacious beliefs. We readily learn that associations exist between events, even when they do not. We are often led by co-occurring events to infer that the one that occurred first somehow caused the one that succeeded it. We are all even more prone to error when rare or emotionally laden events are involved. We are always looking for causal explanations, and we tend to infer causality even when none exists.
The second aspect that leads to mistakes is our perceptual system. Humans are incredible at detecting patterns. Unfortunately, not all the patterns we detect are meaningful ones. Our perceptual processes work in such a way as to make sense of the environment around us. Perception is not a passive gathering of information, it's an active construction of a representation of what is going on around us, built from information received by our senses. Our perceptual apparatus selects and organizes information from the environment. Since perception is highly filtered by this "pattern recognition software", it's all too easy to infer pattern from the same mis-association of paired events that leads to mistakes in causality. The adaptive value of pattern recognition is fairly obvious - fight-or-flight responses are often sub-conscious even in humans and their ilk.
quote:
An individual is walking through the woods when she picks up information -- either auditory, such as rustling leaves, or visual, such as the sight of a slender curved object on the ground -- which triggers a fear response. This information, even before it reaches the cortex, is processed in the amygdala, which arouses the body to an alarm footing. Somewhat later, when the cortex has had enough time to decide whether or not the object really is a snake, this cognitive information processing will either augment the fear response and corresponding evasive behaviour, or will serve to bring that response to a halt. (LeDoux, R., 1994, Sci Am 270, pp. 50-57)
A third element that causes us to make mistakes, again based on the structure of our brains and central nervous system, is the way in which experience and perceptions are retained. As with preception, memory is a constructive process, not simply data storage as on a computer. Through our own experience, we come to believe in the reliability of our memories and in our ability to judge whether a given memory is reliable or not. Memories are subject to serious biases and distortions, often filtered through or compared with similar memories. It is very difficult for an individual to reject the products of his or her own memory process, for memory can seem to be so "real." Once again, the simple adaptive value of this system is obvious. From location of appropriate fruits to a hawk's shadow and kin recognition, memory serves to increase survival IF you can compare and contrast memories of past experience with current situations. Once you get beyond the "rustle = predator" stage of complexity, the ability to associate experience/memory provides a crucial advantage. However, memory will also include all of the fallacies of perception and cause-effect mis-association.
Humans (and I guess our nearest kin), also have a marvelous facility for assigning emotional content to specific memories. This emotion is, in essence, an environmental feedback mechanism based (probably) initially on the relative significance of the event or perception that triggered it. However this arose, it is apparent that the stronger the emotional content, the more intense the memory, and the more likely the individual will seek to either avoid subsequent iterations of the situation - or conversely seek out repetitions. When you start talking about humans, this emotional content can be assigned to highly abstract memories. For example, if our perceptions show an event that is highly improbable, our brains, filtering the event through the memory, pattern recognition, and learned response systems, may assign a high emotional loading to the memory. (One possible explanation is that the more important a memory in terms of survival, the higher the emotional load - but that's speculation). A really strong coincidence can produce the same result. In fact, humans are SO susceptible to loading peak experience with strong emotion, that we're even more likely than our less "developed" relatives to jump to a completely wrong conclusion inre causation. Once the emotion is assigned to a memory, then later thinking may well be dominated by the awareness that the emotional reaction was intense, leading to the conclusion that something unusual really did happen. And emotion in turn may directly influence both perception and learning - i.e., an event may be interpreted as bizarre or unusual because of the emotional responses triggered when we compare the event to previously retained experiences and this provides an additional filter to both future experience and learning.
Taking all of this into consideration, it's fairly easy to see how the very physiology of our brains and perception system can easily lead to what we now call "belief". For our "primitive", predator-haunted forebears, these systems provided a net survival advantage. In our highly complex, modern society, beliefs stilll help us function. They guide our actions and increase or reduce our anxieties. If we operate on the basis of a belief, and if it "works" for us, even though faulty, why would we be inclined to change it? Feedback from the external world reinforces or weakens our beliefs, but since the beliefs themselves influence how that feedback is perceived, beliefs can become very resistant to contrary information and experience. It didn't matter to our pre-cognitive ancestors whether a belief was rational or not.
We haven't gotten all that far from our prey ancestors. We now live in a highly complex, for all practical purposes incomprehensible, society. We are anxiety laden in ways our evolutionary ancestors never had to face. So how did we end up with religion? Remember, we aren't passive receivers of information. We actively seek out information to satisfy our needs. We may desire to find "meaning" in life. We may seek for a sense of identity. We may wish for recovery from disease or to be in touch with deceased loved ones. In general we seek to reduce anxiety and uncertainty. Beliefs, whether correct or false, can assuage anxiety. Often beliefs that might be categorized as irrational by scientists are the most efficient at reducing anxiety. Rationality and scientific truth have little to offer for most people as remedies. However, belief in reincarnation, supernatural intervention, and everlasting life can overcome uncertainty and anxiety to a great extent. The only way to answer questions about the injustice and indifference in the natural world is to make reference to a higher level of justice in another world.
Religious thinking exists as an outgrowth of the way our brains adapted and developed. At a certain point, religious thinking arose as an expressed need to explain the mistakes in our perceptual, learning, and memory processes. The version that we call modern religion arose later when the "cheaters" (in game theory terms) realized they could obtain personal advantage from that need. Since humans were already "programmed" gregarious and hierarchical (like all our closest relatives except perhaps the bonobo - which may likely be an anomaly whose environment allowed them to take a different path than the rest of the primates), it was fairly easy to substitute the high priest for the high male. We're programmed for obedience. If the high priest can relieve our anxiety, we're programmed to seek it out. Over thousands of years, religions have evolved sophisticated methods of self-perpetuation - sin, reward/punishment, indoctrination, ritual, oaths, etc are all powerful mechanisms to insure the anxiety is both reinforced on the one hand, and relief of anxiety focused only on a single solution on the other.
The antidote to our hard-wired past is a relatively new phenomenon. Reason and science are terms that apply in one way or another to the deliberate attempt to ferret out truth from the tangle of intuition, distorted perception, and fallible memory. Science accepts what few people ever accept - that you can't routinely trust perceptions and memories. Figments of our imagination and reflections of our emotional needs can often interfere with or supplant the perception of truth and reality.
(Some of the basic ideas above are from James Alcock's 1991 essay "The Belief Engine". However, the interpretation and application to religion is my own.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-23-2002 11:17 AM acmhttu001_2006 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-27-2002 12:58 AM Quetzal has not replied

  
John
Inactive Member


Message 18 of 52 (18154)
09-24-2002 2:15 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by acmhttu001_2006
09-23-2002 11:17 AM


quote:
Originally posted by acmhttu001_2006:
Why do we need religion?
I don't think we do. I see religion as something of a side effect. I very much like the way Quetzal put it.
quote:
Obviously it does not encourage human survival [persecutions and Middle Ages].
Religion in itself perhaps not, but in earlier human history, religion was mixed up with what today we call politics, law enforcement, hygiene, etc. In that form, I think it did encourage survival, or at least served as a vector for passing along information.
------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-23-2002 11:17 AM acmhttu001_2006 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-27-2002 12:59 AM John has not replied

  
acmhttu001_2006
Inactive Member


Message 19 of 52 (18391)
09-27-2002 12:54 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Brad McFall
09-23-2002 11:49 AM


I have read this post, but due to limited time, I will have to reply later either tomorrow or this weekend.
------------------
Anne C. McGuire
Cell and Molecular, Mathematics, Piano and Vocal Performance Majors
Chemistry and Physics minors
Thanks and have a nice day

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Brad McFall, posted 09-23-2002 11:49 AM Brad McFall has not replied

  
acmhttu001_2006
Inactive Member


Message 20 of 52 (18392)
09-27-2002 12:58 AM
Reply to: Message 17 by Quetzal
09-23-2002 12:28 PM


Quetzal,
I need more time to read the rest of the essay. It is well-written, I am about half-way down. I should reply to you later in the week regarding this. Thanks for posting it.
Hope to discuss some of its finer points.
------------------
Anne C. McGuire
Cell and Molecular, Mathematics, Piano and Vocal Performance Majors
Chemistry and Physics minors
Thanks and have a nice day

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by Quetzal, posted 09-23-2002 12:28 PM Quetzal has not replied

  
acmhttu001_2006
Inactive Member


Message 21 of 52 (18393)
09-27-2002 12:59 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by John
09-24-2002 2:15 PM


I will concede to that point in earlier history. But, my guess is because they did not know that most of those things were in another area but religion. Ex, all the areas you listed now fall under their own separate magesteriums other than religion.
------------------
Anne C. McGuire
Cell and Molecular, Mathematics, Piano and Vocal Performance Majors
Chemistry and Physics minors
Thanks and have a nice day

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by John, posted 09-24-2002 2:15 PM John has not replied

  
peter borger
Member (Idle past 7665 days)
Posts: 965
From: australia
Joined: 07-05-2002


Message 22 of 52 (18395)
09-27-2002 1:09 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by acmhttu001_2006
09-19-2002 4:07 PM


dear Anne,
If such believe system are founded on "survival of the fittest" we shouldn't allow it. It brings war.
If such believe systems are based on "equality, mutual respect and love" we should allow it. It brings peace.
best wishes,
peter

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-19-2002 4:07 PM acmhttu001_2006 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by nos482, posted 09-27-2002 8:17 AM peter borger has replied
 Message 35 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-30-2002 1:37 AM peter borger has not replied

  
nos482
Inactive Member


Message 24 of 52 (18411)
09-27-2002 8:17 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by peter borger
09-27-2002 1:09 AM


quote:
Originally posted by peter borger:
dear Anne,
If such believe system are founded on "survival of the fittest" we shouldn't allow it. It brings war.
If such believe systems are based on "equality, mutual respect and love" we should allow it. It brings peace.
best wishes,
peter

Peace? You don't know your history. There have been more wars "inspired" by religion than any other cause.
The current so-called "war" on terrorism is really about religion as well. It was mainly the blashpemy of having infidels in the holy land that inspired them to try to drive you out.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by peter borger, posted 09-27-2002 1:09 AM peter borger has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by peter borger, posted 09-27-2002 5:57 PM nos482 has replied
 Message 36 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-30-2002 1:38 AM nos482 has replied

  
leekim
Inactive Member


Message 25 of 52 (18430)
09-27-2002 11:51 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by acmhttu001_2006
09-20-2002 11:21 AM


I wonder then, why we who are Americans, who are very patriotic after 9/11/01, do not remember the fact which you posted.
I have heard nothing short of the great way this country was founded and also the constitutioin [sorry mispelled] which is the backbone to our survival. Why do the religion activists continually forget that there is "separation of church and state"? Surely with everything going on as it is today, they would be continually reminded of this priniciple.
---Of course you are referring to the 1st Amendment of the Constitution which provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Therein lie the infamous "free exercise" and "establishment clause". Yet if one studies the Constitution and if one looks to the practice, intent, contemporaneous writings and actions of the "founding fathers", one would come to the conclusion that the vast majority of them had absolutely no intent and/or interest in seperating God, ie Church, and State (contrary to what some SC decisions have held over the last 50 years or so and yet now seem to be gradually retreating on). Rather, the founding fathers were only concerned that the State should not embrace one particular religion (or have preference for one) over another. Common practices at the time of the founding fathers defy the position that government should be void of religion as congressional meetings were started with daily prayer, God was referenced and permeated govermental decrees, etc.
I do not understand how anyone could forget this basic principle, it is like forgetting 2 + 2 + 4.
---Unfortunately your analysis of the establishment clause is entirely flawed and therefore makes about as much sense as 2 + 2 + 4. I am not resorting to ad hom attack, just noting that you (and many on this board) should do a little LEGAL research (as many here seem to pride themselves on facts and "extensive" research) before expounding on the Constitution, the Ammendments and the priciples contained therein.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-20-2002 11:21 AM acmhttu001_2006 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by John, posted 09-27-2002 12:05 PM leekim has replied
 Message 37 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-30-2002 1:47 AM leekim has not replied

  
John
Inactive Member


Message 26 of 52 (18432)
09-27-2002 12:05 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by leekim
09-27-2002 11:51 AM


quote:
Originally posted by leekim:
Yet if one studies the Constitution and if one looks to the practice, intent, contemporaneous writings and actions of the "founding fathers", one would come to the conclusion that the vast majority of them had absolutely no intent and/or interest in seperating God, ie Church, and State (contrary to what some SC decisions have held over the last 50 years or so and yet now seem to be gradually retreating on). Rather, the founding fathers were only concerned that the State should not embrace one particular religion (or have preference for one) over another.
Have you read and studied those documents? I doubt it, or you might have seen this:
quote:
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short
Or this:
quote:
"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."
Thomas Jefferson (unknown)
Or this:
quote:
The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature.... [In] the formation of the American governments ... it will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of heaven.... These governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
-- John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1788, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
Or this:
quote:
As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.... The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.
-- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), the English version of which was carried unanimously by the Senate, signed into law by John Adams, and translated into Arabic (the original language is by Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul)
------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by leekim, posted 09-27-2002 11:51 AM leekim has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by leekim, posted 09-27-2002 12:34 PM John has replied

  
leekim
Inactive Member


Message 27 of 52 (18433)
09-27-2002 12:34 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by John
09-27-2002 12:05 PM


I am well aware of Mr. Jefferson's and Adams' "take" on religion and it's role, or lack thereof, but they were only two of the infamous "founding fathers" and therefore not dispositive of the group as a whole. If you read my prior post (which I reasonably assume you did because you responded to it), I indicated "the vast majority" of the ff, not the entirety...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by John, posted 09-27-2002 12:05 PM John has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by John, posted 09-28-2002 1:29 PM leekim has not replied
 Message 38 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-30-2002 1:49 AM leekim has not replied

  
peter borger
Member (Idle past 7665 days)
Posts: 965
From: australia
Joined: 07-05-2002


Message 28 of 52 (18457)
09-27-2002 5:57 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by nos482
09-27-2002 8:17 AM


Dear Nos,
You say:
Peace? You don't know your history. There have been more wars "inspired" by religion than any other cause.
Wars are always inspired "to get control over power". Relegion is a good excuse. The european wars in the middle ages were fought by the established powers "bishops and kings" to control. Usually they were family relatives (brothers, nephews). It had nothing to do with religion. The relious wars in Northern Europe were fought to get rid of the catholic doctrines, that kept the people from the word (as Luther had discovered).
The current so-called "war" on terrorism is really about religion as well. It was mainly the blashpemy of having infidels in the holy land that inspired them to try to drive you out.
No, it is on economics (power). Relegion gets te blame.
Think free.
Peter

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by nos482, posted 09-27-2002 8:17 AM nos482 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by mark24, posted 09-27-2002 6:05 PM peter borger has replied
 Message 31 by nos482, posted 09-27-2002 7:48 PM peter borger has replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5194 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 29 of 52 (18458)
09-27-2002 6:05 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by peter borger
09-27-2002 5:57 PM


quote:
Originally posted by peter borger:
Dear Nos,
You say:
Peace? You don't know your history. There have been more wars "inspired" by religion than any other cause.
Wars are always inspired "to get control over power". Relegion is a good excuse. The european wars in the middle ages were fought by the established powers "bishops and kings" to control. Usually they were family relatives (brothers, nephews). It had nothing to do with religion. The relious wars in Northern Europe were fought to get rid of the catholic doctrines, that kept the people from the word (as Luther had discovered).
The current so-called "war" on terrorism is really about religion as well. It was mainly the blashpemy of having infidels in the holy land that inspired them to try to drive you out.
No, it is on economics (power). Relegion gets te blame.
Think free.
Peter

So why were there crusades to the "Holy Land", then. Why not pick somewhere closer to home if all you want to do is shag another nobles wife?
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by peter borger, posted 09-27-2002 5:57 PM peter borger has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by peter borger, posted 09-27-2002 6:47 PM mark24 has not replied

  
peter borger
Member (Idle past 7665 days)
Posts: 965
From: australia
Joined: 07-05-2002


Message 30 of 52 (18460)
09-27-2002 6:47 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by mark24
09-27-2002 6:05 PM


Dear Mark,
The crusades were instigated by Venetian merchants who lost control over the Mediteranian Sea. They complained to the pope about it and wished a war against the seracenes (muslims). Before, the muslims always allowed christians to visit the holy land so actually there was not a problem. If I recall properly, the first crusade actually resulted in a the plundering of the (notably) christian Bysantium, in the Eastern Roman Empire. Thus, not really a crusade. It was all again on economic power. Maybe a historian could comment on it further, I am not a historian so don't pin me down on details.
Best wishes,
peter
[This message has been edited by peter borger, 09-27-2002]
[This message has been edited by peter borger, 09-28-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by mark24, posted 09-27-2002 6:05 PM mark24 has not replied

  
nos482
Inactive Member


Message 31 of 52 (18463)
09-27-2002 7:48 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by peter borger
09-27-2002 5:57 PM


quote:
Originally posted by peter borger:
Dear Nos,
You say:
Peace? You don't know your history. There have been more wars "inspired" by religion than any other cause.
Wars are always inspired "to get control over power". Relegion is a good excuse. The european wars in the middle ages were fought by the established powers "bishops and kings" to control. Usually they were family relatives (brothers, nephews). It had nothing to do with religion. The relious wars in Northern Europe were fought to get rid of the catholic doctrines, that kept the people from the word (as Luther had discovered).
The current so-called "war" on terrorism is really about religion as well. It was mainly the blashpemy of having infidels in the holy land that inspired them to try to drive you out.
No, it is on economics (power). Relegion gets te blame.
Think free.
Peter

Excuse or not, it still got the people to fight. "For God and country!!" "God Bless America!" "One Nation Under God!", etc.
Religion was mostly madeup to gain control and power and to exploit other's needs for an answer to this end. It has always been about power. Preaching love and forgiveness is just the bait on the hook. It helps so much when the suckers actually believe it. You can convinces some to even crash planes into buildings.
[This message has been edited by nos482, 09-27-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by peter borger, posted 09-27-2002 5:57 PM peter borger has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by peter borger, posted 09-27-2002 9:16 PM nos482 has replied
 Message 39 by acmhttu001_2006, posted 09-30-2002 1:52 AM nos482 has replied

  
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