Post #45,525
7/14/02 5:58:34 AM
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Almost anything you believe is a religion
If you are a practising atheist, you believe there is no God.
If you're a Catholic, you believe the Pope derives power from an obscure verse in the New Testament, "Upon this rock..." (talking about Peter) he'll build his church.
If you're an agnostic like me, who believes I've seen no real evidence for God but admit that some strange things happen without me being able to explain them, you might admit to the possibility of a Supreme Being. Me, I believe that if it is so, He/She/It is nothing at all like the God of the Catholics, the Muslims, the Protestants, or anything at all like any religious writings some self-serving follower seeking to increase his power base writes.
For instance, Jesus' supposed turning of water into wine, or feeding of the crowd with seven loaves of bread and five fishes (or was it five bread and seven fishes?), or the raising of Lazarus (which itself might have been him recovering from a deep coma) was written up thirty years after the fact, pretty much after anyone who may have witnessed it had died and anyone remaining who *might* have witnessed *something* very likely couldn't have read the account anyway.
And I believe it was the Council of Nicea (three hundred years later) who picked and chose what texts would form what is currently the Bible anyway. I find it very hard to believe what we know as the Bible is "the" Word of God. Even some of the more historically accurate (as far as we know) books, such as those talking about the Jewish rebellion led by the Maccabees, aren't even in the canon (the officially recognized divinely inspired writings.)
Famous last RPG quotes: "I'll just shoot this fireball down the dungeon passageway..."
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Post #45,547
7/14/02 11:53:53 AM
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Strange religions
Like those who worship money as a God, who messed up the Corporations?
I am free now, to choose my own destiny.
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Post #45,562
7/14/02 3:44:27 PM
7/14/02 4:41:18 PM
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Nobody worships money.
Money is only a convenint means to an end, buying power for it's holder. Power gets you worshiped like a god by many, and feared by the rest, and buys you all and any women you could possibly want - which is its evolutionary root.
Those who successfully seek power are swarmed by women and so produce the most children, perpetuating the urge for power. Women swarm the powerful because it gives their children advantage over others, thus perpetuating the urge to have children by the powerful (even if they happen to be married to someone else).
Given this evolutionary background, and observing how harshly it works with other animals, it's surprising we do as well as we do, which can only be credited to the complexity of our society (and our tendancy to gang up on and tear down those whom we formerly built up).
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #45,571
7/14/02 6:53:06 PM
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Call it greed then
and power mongering?
I am free now, to choose my own destiny.
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Post #45,670
7/15/02 2:46:23 PM
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Its easy for some people
money just falls into their lap. Either they win the lottery, or they were born rich and were able to hire the right investors to invest the money for them.
For the rest of us, we have to work harder than them, work ourselves sick, for only a tiny fraction of the money. We end up making others richs, but not ourselves. So how do we get more money or a better job?
I am free now, to choose my own destiny.
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Post #45,673
7/15/02 3:18:39 PM
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Chose your parents carefully.
If you didn't get that part right, the answer is pretty consistent: - Risk. If you're afraid of failure, you're done - get a job. If you fail, you start over with a new angle as many times as it takes.
- Promotion, promotion promotion, and after that, more promotion. If you can't blow your own horn, for sure nobody else will.
Some depend also on a very flexible concept of ethics, but this is dangerous. Ethical "flexability" can produce spectacular results, but they often lead to an equally spectacular fall. Only those born rich are immune to issues of ethics. Years ago I gave a talk about the Internet to a bunch of unemployed engineers. They were all hopeful it was the magic bullet they needed, but when I got to the part where I told them all their efforts would get nowhere unless they promoted their Web site without mercy, the moans and groans were audible. Everyone's looking for a magic way to make a fortune without selling. "No selling" is a constant theme of fraudulent "get rich quick schemes". Unfortunately, you have to get out there and sell, sell, sell the product, even if the product is yourself. [link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #45,672
7/15/02 3:18:06 PM
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Money may lead to more attempts at procreation...
...but the statistics indicate that those in severe poverty are much more adept at producing large number of offspring.
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Post #45,674
7/15/02 3:31:58 PM
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This is an aboration of our times . .
. . due to the current extreme cost and legal reprecussions of offspring to the well-to-do. Historically (and prehistorically) the powerful have had more offspring, and their offspring have had a far better chance of survival - thus the evolutionary factors.
Our current society has bent and violated the natural order and natural limitations to the extent factors such as sex and power have, of necessity, been turned to uses not intended by nature.
Poor and uneducated societies continue in the natural ways in a world where those ways no longer serve, and if they don't learn to deal with the new world order, they face massive die-offs, sooner or later.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #45,710
7/15/02 8:05:45 PM
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Except.. re that last -
..they will not go quietly into that dark good night.Techno, ubiquitous: guarantees that those iron gates around the little islands of Wealth: will be as porous as is needed. Or as Omniscient Tom Lehrer so wisely put it ~ a half-century ago: [link|http://bridge.anglia.ac.uk/~systimk/Humour/Lehrer/An-Evening.Html#GoTogether| We Will All Go Together ][When We Go] When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner o'
Later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec-
Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
(But don't you worry.)
No more ashes, no more sackcloth,
And an arm band made of black cloth
Will some day nevermore adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.
And we will all go together when we go. [Fanfare!]
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we will all go together when we go. ... ... ... sung to a rilly Catchy tune - with bugles and all..
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Post #45,754
7/16/02 9:19:34 AM
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That's the part people forget
Money is only a convenint means to an end, buying power for it's holder.
I've been saying this more often lately, maybe because I just noticed how important a point it is, or maybe because I'm seeing it more often. The quest for money is the quest for power.
But money is also a convention that allows better commerce than the barter system. It only has the value we collectively agree it has. We've divorced the yardstick by which we measure wealth (power) from the things it represents.
And some (many) people have allowed themselves to believe they want the money itself. I don't want money: I want the things money can buy.
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Microsoft offers them the one thing most business people will pay any price for - the ability to say "we had no choice - everyone's doing it that way." -- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=38978|Andrew Grygus]
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