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Changing the world?
- Thread starter Eddi
- Start date
Secret Chief
Very strong language
Reduce or eliminate meat and dairy from one's diet.
Reduce, re-use, recycle.
Reduce, re-use, recycle.
HonestJoe
Well-Known Member
That depends on how you're defining "significantly". In the long term, everything any individual person does throughout their life will eventually melt away to nothing, if anything when the Sun consumes the Earth though almost certainly long before that.
We can each change the world for the better in relatively small, short term ways though but given our experiences are relatively small and short term, that's the most relevant bit anyway. Few of us will have a huge impact and it's difficult for those having a huge impact to make it especially positive as a consequence, so I think that is a counter-productive aim. If instead, we each made just one a small, simple, positive change, even if it's to the life of just one other person, it could all add up to something much more significant.
I agree with what you said
I noticed you used the word "we"
The people with power who are happy to see our planet destroyed are very good as acting as a "we"...
Encourage people with good idea's. The more people you encourage the better your results will be.
Think globally, act locally.
Embrace a more universal perspective of our physical and spiritual nature than the ancient tribal religious views.
Whose better?
I tend to answer these inquiries with "no" because there is no "better" without making value judgements, and value judgements are inevitably a matter of opinion. Can one make "the world" conform to one's particular vision of it in terms of values? I think the better question is - is that a good idea? And whose values loose out (because someone's will)?
I tend to answer these inquiries with "no" because there is no "better" without making value judgements, and value judgements are inevitably a matter of opinion. Can one make "the world" conform to one's particular vision of it in terms of values? I think the better question is - is that a good idea? And whose values loose out (because someone's will)?
Daemon Sophic
Avatar in flux
@Eddi
...and I might also suggest:
Invent something useful, discover something, and/or make something better than it already is.
Whether its a better mousetrap, or FTL drive. Such discoveries/inventions can stay with and improve humanity eons after you’re dust.
^^^ These two.....
...and I might also suggest:
Invent something useful, discover something, and/or make something better than it already is.
Whether its a better mousetrap, or FTL drive. Such discoveries/inventions can stay with and improve humanity eons after you’re dust.
Secret Chief
Very strong language
We are overheating the world and have probably initiated the next great extinction. Who would not judge a change in our behaviour to be something for the "better." Whose values lose out? The CEOs of oil companies?
In the interests of the long-term common good
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Great response, imo, and an article found in the June edition of "Scientific American" reconfirms this.
Secret Chief
Very strong language
Bloody plagiarists
Common good is a myth.
I mean that in the religious sense of what myth means (aka, sacred story), not myth-as-lie. It's a story we tell ourselves about the world that is a reflection of our values and what is important to us. It is something we regard as deeply true, even though it is not objectively true. When we assess what the "common good" is we frame it in terms of our particular cultural norms. In practice this means we consider the "common good" from the vantage point of "my people/tribe" to be rather than all people/tribes. We know that different peoples have quite different needs, especially the non-human persons who human persons often fail to consider in the "common good" altogether.
Thus inevitably I return to the question - whose "common good?"
Tambourine
Well-Known Member
We do not exist or act as single persons, but as parts of a human society.
And because we can only exist and act in a collective, meaningful change can also only be implemented by collectives working together to create a better world, both for us and for everyone else.
And because we can only exist and act in a collective, meaningful change can also only be implemented by collectives working together to create a better world, both for us and for everyone else.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
what do you think I am doing?
Thief
Rogue Theologian
but He died .....trying
BSM1
What? Me worry?
Wishful thinking. Humans have, and can, operate as a single entity since the beginning of time.
BSM1
What? Me worry?
Well, actually, that's part of the great Christian myth. Jesus conducted a campaign to change the inner man, not the outer individual. His teachings were directed at achievement of a world not seen by mere mortals. He, also, was able to transcend the plane of awareness that people of the time accepted as reality through his supernatural miracles and resurrection. I like to refer to Jesus as a bridge between what we accept as real and what we hope is real. The Urantia Book lays this out very nicely, btw.