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One woman's opinion of what steps we need to take to avoid a Ukraine-like situation in the future

rational experiences

Veteran Member
O the earth O.
0 zero Ain peace...
Not P Ain.

O world peace.

Ain a Hebrew used word. Stated the conditions of world peace.

Baha'i. AI..
Talked about the inequalities of suffering by artificial causes.

Peace symbol O is a Y.

When north agrees with the south..
Where I live.

As in the north of earth was the greatest practice of old sciences.

Therefore the bringing of peace is to no longer agree with human slavery.

Utmost importance.

The social justice system reunification.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
We need to figure out how to stop the people that want to control the world from ever gaining that ability, through government, military, religion or technology; … the very people that want it most, and will work relentlessly to get it. The people that want most to ‘be in charge’ of us are the very people we need to make sure never are.
Yes, I agree with that. We need to vote for those who won't do that. Another idea is to take money out of elections. Also if a dictator arises in a country the rest of the world must protect that country from that dictator.
For some reason we humans still have not gotten this into our heads, and we keep allowing the worst among us to gain control. Just because they want it the most and will do whatever it takes to get it. And then they always abuse it and cause great suffering for everyone else.
That's because there are political parties that encourage that sort of thing. Eliminate political parties and nominations. No campaigns where corrupt interests donate money.
Also, democracy is just mob rule. It can’t be the method we use for making important decisions. Those need to be based on unassailable principals that are spelled out clearly and strictly enforced.
Democracy as now conceived is mob rule. Who will spell out the unassailable principles?
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Democracy as now conceived is mob rule. Who will spell out the unassailable principles?
That's the problem. The moment anyone tries, their bias toward themselves and their cronies creeps in, and they begin to rig the rules. In the US, the founding documents are far too vague and incomplete to be effective in the way the founders envisioned. But the moment we try to update and clarify them, we'll only make them worse, because everyone involved will be fighting to gain their own advantage. We need a way of determining the principals for governance apart from anyone in power, or wanting to be in power. Apart from all 'special interests' (commerce, religion, military, politics, etc.) and designed for the benefit of everyone, and society as a whole, equally. And once these 'prime directives' have been determined and clearly stated, they need to be accepted without debate or amending, and everyone held to them.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
That's the problem. The moment anyone tries, their bias toward themselves and their cronies creeps in, and they begin to rig the rules. In the US, the founding documents are far too vague and incomplete to be effective in the way the founders envisioned. But the moment we try to update and clarify them, we'll only make them worse, because everyone involved will be fighting to gain their own advantage. We need a way of determining the principals for governance apart from anyone in power, or wanting to be in power. Apart from all 'special interests' (commerce, religion, military, politics, etc.) and designed for the benefit of everyone, and society as a whole, equally. And once these 'prime directives' have been determined and clearly stated, they need to be accepted without debate or amending, and everyone held to them.
I'm a member of a religion that is not about power. We conduct elections as I laid out earlier, with no nominations, no campaigning, no elections influenced by donors. It is hard to be "self-seeking" in such a system. We are instructed to vote for those which best exemplify character, mature experience, and a well-trained mind. Best of all, the discussions are conducted by "consultation" ideally. Nine people are supposed to throw out their idea and be detached from their idea. This is the ideal.

We don't propose that our religion should have power, we are only here to advise. Do you think we could supply these "prime directives"?

I don't want to overstep here. Please excuse me if I have.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I'm a member of a religion that is not about power. We conduct elections as I laid out earlier, with no nominations, no campaigning, no elections influenced by donors. It is hard to be "self-seeking" in such a system. We are instructed to vote for those which best exemplify character, mature experience, and a well-trained mind. Best of all, the discussions are conducted by "consultation" ideally. Nine people are supposed to throw out their idea and be detached from their idea. This is the ideal.

We don't propose that our religion should have power, we are only here to advise. Do you think we could supply these "prime directives"?

I don't want to overstep here. Please excuse me if I have.
It works better with smaller groups. AA meetings are run similarly. No one asks or campaigns to be in charge of the meeting. And it's made clear to them that they are appointed to serve, not to dictate. And when decisions have to made, the whole group decides. Also, there are a set of guidelines to be used so dictation is unnecessary. But most of all, everyone there has the same primary goal, and all decisions are made based on that goal.

But that only really works with smaller groups. Whole nations have too many people with too many different goals even for majority rule not to deny some while enabling others. However, the principals of service over dictation, and principals over personalities and agendas is sound. And I think is where we need to begin. Unfortunately, I don;' know how we would even begin. Because the moment changed are considered, the self-seekers will stop at nothing to try and manipulate the process in their favor.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
Whole nations have too many people with too many different goals even for majority rule not to deny some while enabling others. However, the principals of service over dictation, and principals over personalities and agendas is sound. And I think is where we need to begin. Unfortunately, I don;' know how we would even begin. Because the moment changed are considered, the self-seekers will stop at nothing to try and manipulate the process in their favor.
Yes, the self-seekers is always a problem. You raise good questions. But remember back when I said: Eliminate political parties and nominations. No campaigns where corrupt interests donate money.
Then the self-seekers have much fewer opportunities to "manipulate the process". In other they will less opportunity to gain power. This is modeling elections on Baha'i ones in as sense, except that it can't be dictated to everyone that you should elect on character, experience, and a good mind, or whatever. In a Baha'i setting you can do that, because that's part of our religion. That situation doesn't exist in the rest of a nation.

This is my humble contribution.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Yes, the self-seekers is always a problem. You raise good questions. But remember back when I said: Eliminate political parties and nominations. No campaigns where corrupt interests donate money.
Then the self-seekers have much fewer opportunities to "manipulate the process". In other they will less opportunity to gain power. This is modeling elections on Baha'i ones in as sense, except that it can't be dictated to everyone that you should elect on character, experience, and a good mind, or whatever. In a Baha'i setting you can do that, because that's part of our religion. That situation doesn't exist in the rest of a nation.

This is my humble contribution.
But as a 'democracy of self-seekers' we have allowed this corruption. We WANT it. Because we all want to rig the system according to our own desires. And those with wealth and it's power have a far greater ability to do what than those without it. The point being that we are all self-seeking. Which is why democracy always becomes the oppression of the minority by the majority.

We need the 'rules' to counteract our own self-seeking. But the moment we try to write those rules, our self-seeking creeps in and corrupts the rules. So how do we get those rules written, and then accepted as law, without the corruption of our own self-seeking perverting them? I think this is the real problem that has to be solved. And then those rules will have to be protected from the endless self-seeking that will constantly be trying to corrupt them in future, by the very people that will want to corrupt them. How do we do that?
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
But as a 'democracy of self-seekers' we have allowed this corruption. We WANT it. Because we all want to rig the system according to our own desires. And those with wealth and it's power have a far greater ability to do what than those without it. The point being that we are all self-seeking. Which is why democracy always becomes the oppression of the minority by the majority.
I have different perspective that we are not all seek-seeking. I don't myself want to rig the system to my own desires. This seems to be going nowhere. We have a different perception of human nature. This is frustrating for you, I can see. Let's end this, okay?
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I have different perspective that we are not all seek-seeking. I don't myself want to rig the system to my own desires. This seems to be going nowhere. We have a different perception of human nature. This is frustrating for you, I can see. Let's end this, okay?
Most people don't want more than they need, or more than anyone else, but everyone is self-seeking to a degree. And when they see others trying to rig the system (and succeeding), they become afraid that they will be exploited, or left out. (And rightly so, because they will be.) So then they feel they have to try and rig the system in their own favor just to protect themselves. An environment of fear and competition ensues where there could have been peace and cooperation for the benefit of all. Because, unfortunately, greed and ignorance are made contagious through fear.

So how do we stop this contagion? We have to unite against the greed within us, and the greedy among us, to stop them from exploiting our systems of government and economics to gain ownership and control of everything and everyone else. We have to teach our children that the desire to do this is wrong. That cooperation and sharing are the way to ensure everyone's best future. But we aren't doing that. Because we can't teach them what we can't see, ourselves. Instead, we teach them to be better at the competition, because the winners 'deserve to win', and the losers 'deserve to lose'.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
Most people don't want more than they need, or more than anyone else, but everyone is self-seeking to a degree. And when they see others trying to rig the system (and succeeding), they become afraid that they will be exploited, or left out. (And rightly so, because they will be.) So then they feel they have to try and rig the system in their own favor just to protect themselves. An environment of fear and competition ensues where there could have been peace and cooperation for the benefit of all. Because, unfortunately, greed and ignorance are made contagious through fear.

So how do we stop this contagion? We have to unite against the greed within us, and the greedy among us, to stop them from exploiting our systems of government and economics to gain ownership and control of everything and everyone else. We have to teach our children that the desire to do this is wrong. That cooperation and sharing are the way to ensure everyone's best future. But we aren't doing that. Because we can't teach them what we can't see, ourselves. Instead, we teach them to be better at the competition, because the winners 'deserve to win', and the losers 'deserve to lose'.
Okay, I agree that everybody has a degree of selfishness, though for some there is not much selfishness there. No one is pure light or pure darkness. However, I don't know what you mean by rigging the system in their own favor to protect themselves. Those who feel they would be exploited or left out would want to level the field again if they are not very self-seeking.

We can teach our children from generation to generation to see better than we do, and be better than us, at least a little bit.

But you may be right in our current world we won't be doing this. However, the environment of competition will lead to disastrous results for the world I believe, and we can learn from this and build anew.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Okay, I agree that everybody has a degree of selfishness, though for some there is not much selfishness there. No one is pure light or pure darkness. However, I don't know what you mean by rigging the system in their own favor to protect themselves. Those who feel they would be exploited or left out would want to level the field again if they are not very self-seeking.

We can teach our children from generation to generation to see better than we do, and be better than us, at least a little bit.

But you may be right in our current world we won't be doing this. However, the environment of competition will lead to disastrous results for the world I believe, and we can learn from this and build anew.
Except that it has been leading us into disastrous results for all of human history. And we still have not learned to deal with this problem. Why not? When will we? Will we ever? I don't know. What I do know is that this is the problem. And we have to somehow stop allowing the worst among us to gain control of everyone else.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
It will be more disastrous in the future, because of things like global warming, and the greater destructiveness of our weapons. It was warned before that as we encroach more on the wilderness, viruses from animals will jump to humans more, and it will be global because of how people travel now globally, especially by planes. Covid-19 happened that way. It may happen again. Oh, yeah, we are also in danger of outrunning the resources on our planet. You are free to disagree that it won't get worse, but I believe so.
 
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