Amen Satish. Indeed tis funny how U.S. 'entrepreneurial' industrialists tirelessly want to globalize the world economy b/c in fact capitalism always needs ever more consumers, and ever more cheap labor, all for the sake of profit of course.

We want everybody to buy our products or work for cheap, but we sure do not want to answer to any worldwide justice system . . .

Capitalism, exploiting our sisters and brothers, for the sake of profit, b/c of course this sort of economic interaction just so naturally suits our 'inherent' selfishness, will indeed be the death of us all, or probably at least the death of a lot of poor people who have no other hope than to kill for the rich man; ahh, we must get the word out to the poor masses of the world . . .

If I only could get the word out to 500 million South Americans, and 1 billion Chinese, and 900 million Indians; we could strip bare the luxury of the richest 10 thousand people of this planet, and we could all live in a harmony of equality and cooperation!

In Plato's Republic the most enlightened people, the guardians, lived in a humble state of unwanting and did not use their 'superior' intellect to prey upon their fellow man . . .

Indeed.

Peace

In Poland,
Wigilia, is,
sacred,
you always have one chair open, for an uninvited guest, and he/she's welcome, to the table, the family, to share, to consume, to .. You Indian people would call that Karma, I think..
but,

It's a Polish custom,

No matter what..;)

Love, Passion,
marek

What irks me about the whole charaded marketing frenzy; is the low to NONE responsibility of the said manufacturers, to ensure non-dangerous to the environment, and to the consumer.

Matel has a recall for polly pocket toys; and that is scary. Food is being recalled. Parts for just about anything these days, are recalled.

Time to get back to hand-made quality toys for kids in particular; and non plastic packaging; which creates an ignored environmental hazard!!

Stop using so much pretty paper; use recycle cloth bags, and cloths; ribbon! Just about any town has a dollarama type store; and the box's/bags that can be bought; is amazing! I make them part of the gift...

My son has an indigo blue, cloth bag, with presents on it.. since he were about 4-5 years old! Washable, reusable, a keepsake treasure!! One day, his son's toys will be used in it....(gentle smile)

Gift a family with a time capsule! Everyone write down favorite thoughts about life then; each all putting in a treasure keepsake like a picture!! Open in 5 years one Christmas Eve.... wow!

Now, if things like that isn't the true spirit of Christmas, we are All, under a deep spell of market-frenzied greed--- has the Grinch won, in the end of the story? Mounds of garbage, and waste.... whew!

I've had an artificial tree 14 years this year; and no regrets. I love my winter wonderland backdrop; on all four sides of my environment.

We know the value of wood up here, and even up here, some woods are becoming rarer to find; like birchbark. As a kid, we used to write letters/notes on strips of birchbark we'd find on the ground near the tree--nice to go into time capsules...LOL

with loving kindness,
North

That includes cutting back on the kids, too. What underlies everything else is humanity's too-successful reproduction and survival patterns.

I think we brought this up last year.

I think by popular declaration, presents should be for kids only. With a focus on those needing essentials around the globe.

How many billions are wasted on buying an adult a present that they don't want or need?

Adults don't need to be buying adults gifts.

How much energy is wasted, and stress created at Christmas because people feel they need to buy a gift for every friend and family member?

Which amount to a lot of useless stuff?

How much gas do we burn driving store to store in the congested Christmas traffic?

Let us start a movement with this idea...

I have the perfect place.... christmas.pro I have the domain, been wondering what I should put there.

What should happen next Skep is this.

Our troops should immediately be taken off Persian soil. Bring the boys home, let our nation become the great 'Christian' nation we acclaim ourselves to be; and what would a Christian nation do you ask?

For one, a Christian nation would have universal health and dental care. Would Christ ask any less?

A Christian nation would not have dudes worth 60 billion dollars, and other people selling their bodies for drugs. I mean, even if some of our brothers and sisters are 'hopelessly' addicted to drugs and alcohol, then let them have the opportunity of relocating to the entire state of Montana, and let them work out their own problems amongst themselves . . .

But building more prisons or making already poor people pay 5 thousand dollars for drug and alcohol programs serves no good purpose other than to expand government; which only harms the greater good of everybody. Did Christ ask any less? Let my people go!

Tolerate our fellow human beings, and seek naught to institute the purported Noahide law across the land, after all, Noah was a drunk and who knows for certain he heard the Lord right? In actuality, the only two Noahide laws I can discern are: ‘But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it,’ and, ‘Whoever sheds human blood, by human beings shall their blood be shed.’ The rest seems mere speculation, or derivative of the Ten Commandments, and the numerous exceptions to the Ten Commandments are so numerous, we indeed need a more concrete form of law-making other than liability laws, or maybe this is an immoral act or maybe it is not, and us with the Ivy League educations will tell you thusly when we choose to hear you.

Soulless Sanhedrin condemning righteousness even . . .

Indeed, the state of Montana, with a bunch of drunks and druggers, could probably find far more rehabilitative systems of government rather than outlawing the DUI drunks/druggies and heaping more misery upon an already bad situation; they would perhaps strive to find answers and solutions rather than passing more laws and seeking ‘retributive justice.’ Christ asked for no less! In fact, the only retributive aspect of Christ was his intent upon destroying the moneyed system of ‘trade,’ and of course bringing down the man . . .

O yeah!

Anyway, as far as the war in Iraq, they never even struck us first; there was not even an opportunity for us ‘Christians’ to turn the other cheek. And as far as the Taliban in Afghanistan, we could have perhaps turned our cheek and sought the answers for exactly why those dudes had a beef with us to begin with, and then perhaps true problem-solving could have occurred. And then look at Iran right now, we hear all of the intellectual ‘think-tankers’ saying they are as dangerous as the Nazis and who have vowed to ‘wipe Israel off the map.’ Well, since Israel is the one with a massive stockpile of nukes, and they have already done pre-emptive strikes against other nation’s possible nuke making facilities, we then have to examine why Iran would be thusly worried. After all, Israel was arbitrarily created by the western nations in ’48, so . . .

I perhaps can see that the Arabs and Persians see Israel as nothing more than a giant U.S. funded military base . . .

We could perhaps truly problem solve if we did not allow such monetary disparity to exist in the world as it does now, and with the mightiest nations resorting to violence first, to protect our economic interests of course, before even thinking of uplifting all of humanity, we truly do have justified dire speculations unto the fate of humankind . . .

But hey, I bless Israel, let us see all of the Chosen go back and rebuild the Temple; but I think perhaps they kind of like it here in the United States . . .

Until then, war and social injustice shall only increase!

Ok, just starting to get warmed up here . . .

Peace

Shoot, sorry it has taken me so long Skep, I have been waiting for this Dawkins download from Ton ref. 89 from the "God Delusion Part 3" thread, and after an hour and a half I am only 25% the way done: damn modem, tis like I am in the dark ages man!!!!!

Oh well, I suppose it is more than not having a puter at all or a bullet in my head (not yet anyway, but working on it: har har har har, just joking of course . . .).

I kind of melded so many different issues into my number 6 response, b/c I feel like I am working against time anymore, sorry brother.

I need a 'safe house' for like three months to push out a billion sit-ups, breathe deeply, and stay off the booze (smoking a joint now and then would not be bad either), but I do not think that is going to happen in this life . . .

Anyway . . .

Peace brother!

Christmas is indeed stressful. Especially for seniors and those on fixed incomes. One small crisis or unexpected expense, and there goes christmas giving that year for them.

7 out of 10 toys a child gets, is broken the first week!

Christmas season has the highest suicide, stress-related deaths and attempts. It is not just the financial stress; it is also the lost sense of hope; one feels something good should "finally happen" in their lives, at christmas; because it is the season of perpetual hope.

The propoganda about Santa, has taken marketing and money-precidence away from Jesus birth. Which, in my view; would peeve Jesus off quite a bit?

Sorry you are on dial-up, Empyrius. That's my definition of real suffering...;)

As for how to change humanity....

I look at it this way. Whenever, in natural hisory, a species has overpopulated itself and usurps the resources it needs for continued survival, a lot of them die off, and they may even become extinct.

Now, humans are what's known in the animal kingdom as an Apex predator, meaning that we are at the top of the food chain. Not only that, but being omnivorous, we impact the environment in many more ways than simply being apex predators. Plus we modify our environment through tool use.

Anyway, imagine there were six billion grizzly bears (another example of an apex predator) on Earth that were all trying to feed themselves and do all the things they are instinctually driven to do, like hunt, mate, raise youngsters, work out their social hierarchies and so on.

The point is that six billion of any top-of-the-food-chain species is going to have a profound impact on the planet.

So far, we are the only species that has been able, through our tool use and brain power, to keep staving off the inevitable decimation of our species. So now the problem just keeps growing. Before another 200 years it'll be 10 billion.

But already the majority of our species lives without adequate food or in a constant state of poor health.

We are the very first species that even has the potential to figure out how to balance out our numbers, and live in a balance with our ecosystem.

But maybe because of those pesky genes Deepak loves to hate, we just can't overcome our domination/competitive survival instincts.

We seem to still insist on fighting for our lives, even though no other species threatens our survival anymore.

We still believe that we must compete with our fellow man for resources, even in the face of clear and overwhelming evidence that peaceful sharing and diplomatic compromise work better, both short-term and long-term.

We are the first species to be able to figure out how atoms exchange energy, how molecules recombine, and now how the genetic code itself recombines.

We are the first species that has the potential to take control of our own evolution.

We can modify our genes, our bodies, our minds, and our environment on purpose.

It's dangerous business to undertake those responsibilities.

It is, make no mistake about it, playing God with our own existence, the very thing that sends fear through the hearts of the deeply religious.

It could kill us to play God with our minds, bodies, and our environment.

However, it could kill us to avoid the level responsibility that we have evolved to.

We know the genetic code. We know how to split atoms. We cannot undo that knowledge. We ate those apples of knowledge and now we have to deal with the consequences.

The same knowledge that can kill us can also save us.

Will we be able to figure that out BEFORE we evolve ourselves to the level of being where that is obvious?

Stay tuned...

Craig and Yogi, how can anyone disagree with the “big picture” of your postings?

Maybe God is watching us thinking, “maybe it was not such a good idea to let apes run the place for so long?”

As far as the Dawkins stuff, you might be better off going to http://www.youtube.com/ type Richard Dawkins (or anything of interest) into the search window and take your pick!