Is there hope for humanity (in America)?

[Revoltingest]

Revoltingest, that's just new age Eastern mumbo jumbo and you know it!

And all along I thought I was just being pragmatic, & taking control of me life.
I'm so ignorant!

 

[Penumbra]

If there is I can't see it anymore. Sure there are the few of us good people, but lately I've noticed people being so selfish they can't even help out or personal profit. They try to rip you off, manipulate you, take advantage of you. Even the closest friends you have usually do not have your back or view you in a negative way. People just use each other everywhere you look.

The main religions are teaching division, self hate, conformity, submission. Authority exerts a massive amount control - even modern adaptions of Milgram's experiments prove just as strong. People ate divided by labels like "democrat" and "republican" rather by ideas. What are politics or religion achieving? More negative than positive, that's for sure. On the other hand, secularism exists to almost the point of dogmatic fanaticism in many cases. We still have people who honestly believe the earth is flat, 6,000 years old, and is orbited by the sun. Not a small amount either!

Education just keeps declining year after year. People won't even spend an extra cent per dollar to give education a much needed boost.

Stupidity is encouraged and almost worshipped. Ignorance is bliss. Social norms are so ingrained we often don't realize they exist.

The list goes on forever it seems, and this is coming off as more of a rant. What hope do we have? What's your religion doing to help this. Not it's ideas or preachings, what is it actually accomishing?

You can't do much about the larger culture but you can try to surround yourself with good people. The people immediately in one's life play a bigger role than the millions of anonymous people.

 

[Sunstone]

If there is I can't see it anymore. Sure there are the few of us good people, but lately I've noticed people being so selfish they can't even help out or personal profit. They try to rip you off, manipulate you, take advantage of you. Even the closest friends you have usually do not have your back or view you in a negative way. People just use each other everywhere you look.

The main religions are teaching division, self hate, conformity, submission. Authority exerts a massive amount control - even modern adaptions of Milgram's experiments prove just as strong. People ate divided by labels like "democrat" and "republican" rather by ideas. What are politics or religion achieving? More negative than positive, that's for sure. On the other hand, secularism exists to almost the point of dogmatic fanaticism in many cases. We still have people who honestly believe the earth is flat, 6,000 years old, and is orbited by the sun. Not a small amount either!

Education just keeps declining year after year. People won't even spend an extra cent per dollar to give education a much needed boost.

Stupidity is encouraged and almost worshipped. Ignorance is bliss. Social norms are so ingrained we often don't realize they exist.

The list goes on forever it seems, and this is coming off as more of a rant. What hope do we have? What's your religion doing to help this. Not it's ideas or preachings, what is it actually accomishing?

I'm pretty pessimistic about the long term prospects, too, but I think it's possible to be too pessimistic.

Some things get better while other things decline. A hundred years ago, many things were worse than they are today, and many other things were better. To always emphasize the negatives is a personal choice. Perhaps it would be better to take into account both the positives and the negatives.

 

[nazz]

You can't do much about the larger culture but you can try to surround yourself with good people.

In truth, there are no good people. Just people who are capable of doing good, or people who may act better than others. I learned a long time ago I can't rely on people. That's why I rely on God. With God we can have hope, joy, and peace, even in the midst of all the troubles of this world.

People who are in tune with God, be they religious or non-religious, can make a difference in this world. They can be bright points of light in an otherwise darkened world. But the world will keep on being the world and will only get worse over time. Then some day this world will not even support life and much later the universe itself will die. So ultimately there is no hope for this world. The only hope is to escape it.

 

[Penumbra]

In truth, there are no good people. Just people who are capable of doing good, or people who may act better than others.

You're just defining that as such.

I learned a long time ago I can't rely on people. That's why I rely on God. With God we can have hope, joy, and peace, even in the midst of all the troubles of this world.

People who are in tune with God, be they religious or non-religious, can make a difference in this world. They can be bright points of light in an otherwise darkened world. But the world will keep on being the world and will only get worse over time. Then some day this world will not even support life and much later the universe itself will die. So ultimately there is no hope for this world. The only hope is to escape it.

Good luck with that.

 

[George-ananda]

America seems in fine shape to me and 98% of the people are basically good.

People certainly are always doomsayers even back and before the time of Christ. And the world has never been better than it is now.

We live in the same world but I don't think I got the same genes for pessimism and paranoia as others.

 

[Awkward Fingers]

America seems in fine shape to me and 98% of the people are basically good.

People certainly are always doomsayers even back and before the time of Christ. And the world has never been better than it is now.

We live in the same world but I don't think I got the same genes for pessimism and paranoia as others.

I agree, the problem is, its 1-2% that make all the decisions...

 

[George-ananda]

I agree, the problem is, its 1-2% that make all the decisions...

That attitude is what I was arguing against in my post. I actually do not think we have bad government. I think what happens is close to half want change in one direction and close to half want things to change in the other direction (Democrat/Republican divide) so we have stalemate on a lot which may actually be a good thing. Because people don't get there way they think congress sucks.

 

[technomage]

Don't worry, TDoP. If we've lasted that long, we'll very likely go extinct in some 10 million years when T Pyxidis will probably go supernova.

 

[Mycroft]

If there is I can't see it anymore. Sure there are the few of us good people, but lately I've noticed people being so selfish they can't even help out or personal profit. They try to rip you off, manipulate you, take advantage of you. Even the closest friends you have usually do not have your back or view you in a negative way. People just use each other everywhere you look.

The main religions are teaching division, self hate, conformity, submission. Authority exerts a massive amount control - even modern adaptions of Milgram's experiments prove just as strong. People ate divided by labels like "democrat" and "republican" rather by ideas. What are politics or religion achieving? More negative than positive, that's for sure. On the other hand, secularism exists to almost the point of dogmatic fanaticism in many cases. We still have people who honestly believe the earth is flat, 6,000 years old, and is orbited by the sun. Not a small amount either!

Education just keeps declining year after year. People won't even spend an extra cent per dollar to give education a much needed boost.

Stupidity is encouraged and almost worshipped. Ignorance is bliss. Social norms are so ingrained we often don't realize they exist.

The list goes on forever it seems, and this is coming off as more of a rant. What hope do we have? What's your religion doing to help this. Not it's ideas or preachings, what is it actually accomishing?

It isn't entirely unintentional. Rulers love an ill-educated populace incapable of critical thinking. They have enjoyed this for some time now, but wish to push it further. We live in a world where people know more about their favourite celebrities than what they learned at school, a populace where people become more impassioned over a football game than they do the injustices and atrocities made in the world daily. People who care more about Family Guy than politics. People who will vote for the black guy without even bothering to look at his policies or even be able to ever know what these policies mean anyway.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.

 

[dust1n]

Hmm... I'd go with this.

"Denoting by N the total number of humans who were ever or will ever be born, the Copernican principle suggests that humans are equally likely (along with the other N − 1 humans) to find themselves at any position n of the total population N, so humans assume that our fractional position f = n/N is uniformly distributed on the interval [0, 1] prior to learning our absolute position.

f is uniformly distributed on (0, 1] even after learning of the absolute position n. That is, for example, there is 95% chance that f is in the interval (0.05, 1], that is f > 0.05. In other words we could assume that we could be 95% certain that we would be within the last 95% of all the humans ever to be born. If we know our absolute position n, this implies[dubious &#8211; discuss] an upper bound for N obtained by rearranging n/N > 0.05 to give N < 20n.

If Leslie's Figure[4] is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion. Assuming that the world population stabilizes at 10 billion and a life expectancy of 80 years, it can be estimated that the remaining 1,140 billion humans will be born in 9,120 years. Depending on the projection of world population in the forthcoming centuries, estimates may vary, but the main point of the argument is that it is unlikely that more than 1.2 trillion humans will ever live."

Doomsday argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[technomage]

Hmm... I'd go with this.

"Denoting by N the total number of humans who were ever or will ever be born, the Copernican principle suggests that humans are equally likely (along with the other N &#8722; 1 humans) to find themselves at any position n of the total population N, so humans assume that our fractional position f = n/N is uniformly distributed on the interval [0, 1] prior to learning our absolute position.

f is uniformly distributed on (0, 1] even after learning of the absolute position n. That is, for example, there is 95% chance that f is in the interval (0.05, 1], that is f > 0.05. In other words we could assume that we could be 95% certain that we would be within the last 95% of all the humans ever to be born. If we know our absolute position n, this implies[dubious – discuss] an upper bound for N obtained by rearranging n/N > 0.05 to give N < 20n.

If Leslie's Figure[4] is used, then 60 billion humans have been born so far, so it can be estimated that there is a 95% chance that the total number of humans N will be less than 20 × 60 billion = 1.2 trillion. Assuming that the world population stabilizes at 10 billion and a life expectancy of 80 years, it can be estimated that the remaining 1,140 billion humans will be born in 9,120 years. Depending on the projection of world population in the forthcoming centuries, estimates may vary, but the main point of the argument is that it is unlikely that more than 1.2 trillion humans will ever live."

Doomsday argument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bah. Too much math. I say we just push the button and blow it all to hell.

 

[nazz]

You're just defining that as such.

I suppose.

Good luck with that.

Thanks

 

[Assad91]

If there is I can't see it anymore. Sure there are the few of us good people, but lately I've noticed people being so selfish they can't even help out or personal profit. They try to rip you off, manipulate you, take advantage of you. Even the closest friends you have usually do not have your back or view you in a negative way. People just use each other everywhere you look.

The main religions are teaching division, self hate, conformity, submission. Authority exerts a massive amount control - even modern adaptions of Milgram's experiments prove just as strong. People ate divided by labels like "democrat" and "republican" rather by ideas. What are politics or religion achieving? More negative than positive, that's for sure. On the other hand, secularism exists to almost the point of dogmatic fanaticism in many cases. We still have people who honestly believe the earth is flat, 6,000 years old, and is orbited by the sun. Not a small amount either!

Education just keeps declining year after year. People won't even spend an extra cent per dollar to give education a much needed boost.

Stupidity is encouraged and almost worshipped. Ignorance is bliss. Social norms are so ingrained we often don't realize they exist.

The list goes on forever it seems, and this is coming off as more of a rant. What hope do we have? What's your religion doing to help this. Not it's ideas or preachings, what is it actually accomishing?

I feel you man. But I fail to see how it's religions fault.