Worrying Times

[DesDownunder]

It's difficult not to be a little pessimistic at times.

Who could possibly ever have imagined that a couple of prehistoric apes arguing over a water hole in the desert

would eventually evolve into a religious war threatening the very existence of their descendants?

[Nigel Gordon]

It's difficult not to be a little pessimistic at times.

Who could possibly ever have imagined that a couple of prehistoric apes arguing over a water hole in the desert

would eventually evolve into a religious war threatening the very existence of their descendants?

Arthur C. Clarke. Can't remember which book it is in (I last read it about forty years ago) but I recall it is about whales, but he does mention that the Christians, Jews and Muslims had basically destroyed themselves and the dominate religion in the world was Buddhism.

[DesDownunder]

Arthur C. Clarke lived in Sri Lanka, I believe, and his writing is quite influenced with Eastern philosophy.

The problem with the three Abrahamic religions is that they, particularly two of them, threaten to destroy the rest us along with each other.

Historically, we do not seem able to set aside our differences and just co-exist, let alone do so peacefully.

I'm quite taken with this quote:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things

and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." ~Steven Weinberg.

[Cole Parker]

No one yet has invented a weapon and then never used it.

C

[JamesSavik]

No one yet has invented a weapon and then never used it.

C

That's not true. There are numerous weapons that have built and tested that have never been used in anger.

For instance: neutron bombs, Cobalt bombs, EMP devices, drug resistant weaponized bacteria and viruses and so on.

Now there are even more exotic weapons like AI based computer viruses.

Thanks to billions of dollars of Cold War era research, when we decide to flush the world, we have just the stuff to do it with.

[Cole Parker]

You forgot one word, James... that haven't been used in anger—yet!

C