John in CR said:While the relatively small amount of bad stuff gets all the press, there's an awful lot of good in religion, much of which is far more broadly needed. I'm not big on organized religion either, but what you post is pure prejudice, so don't fault people for what they believe as long as it doesn't affect you. There's a lot unknown about the universe, so maybe there are other planes of existence where things are better.
I struggle to think of a single reason why religion as a whole entity is a good thing and it isn't for want of trying or from hearing the arguments for it. Of course there are good religious people that do good work. However, they would be good people who do good work regardless of whether or not they have a religious platform.
Now you must not misunderstand me either I am not an atheist. I'm agnostic and fully acknowledge that their could be a mechanism/creative force responsible for the existence of everything in the Universe. I, like everyone else, do not know if there is an afterlife - it would be nice if there was. I just assume that this is it and we are lucky enough to have one-shot as human beings.
However, it is extremely unlikely, well-beyond the bounds of practical reality, that there is an all-powerful, omnipresent being who coincidentally happens to resemble our image, who arbitrarily goes around killing people on a whim, whose megalomanical personality demands that people spend time worshipping him. Or his son variant who believed women are dogs, who advocated that people disown their family, that people should mutilate their limbs, who preached that people should 'turn the cheek' yet hypocritically lost the rag and went mental in a church. There is not a single religion that does not have some sort of deep-rooted hatred for women.
People do not need religion. People do not need religion to believe in a non-theistic god and people do not need religion to have spirituality. Spirituality is not the same as religion.
John in CR said:THE PROBLEM WITH THE SYSTEM
Economic conservatism has been bound to social conservatism and vise versa, social liberalism has been owned by those who promote economic/political liberalism. Political/economic liberalism leads to the less for the poor and middle class, and those who think economic conservatism isn't better is simply wrong. The common enemy of all is BIG, which goes for big government and big business. They get together and make their own rules or allow exceptions to long standing good rules. That is what has lead to the extreme concentrations of wealth and power that are the detriment to all. Have you noticed the increase in the price of food in the last 10 years? Production is more efficient than ever, and there's no shortage so the upward price isn't driven by demand, and inflation has been non-existent, so it's just been a market manipulation. Look at the '08 crash where the general public lost trillions, but the market was quickly back past where it was before,....a huge concentration a wealth in one fell swoop, all at the hands of BIG.
In the meantime, they just play us against each other like we're each other's enemy. eg So what if I believe life begins at conception. Those of us who do don't generally force our views on others. There are extremists on both sides of all the issues, but they're a tiny minority, yet the manipulators use them to pit regular people against each other. Tea partiers aren't much different from the Occupy people (at least before it was take over by those with the agenda). Their common enemy is BIG, yet the manipulators put them on opposite sides. Apparently things have to get a lot worse before they unite and force real change.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that tax and spend doesn't work, and is accelerating into a train wreck. The only reason it's survived this long (yes out of control spending by both sides), is that oil is denominated in dollars, and because the US has been the largest economy by far the, dollar is the currency of world business.
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As for the comments on economics, I don't have proof one way or another what system is best suited. There is not one single person who fully understands how economics work and if they say so they are liars. In the future, when we have supercomputers capable of multi-yottaflop performance or have invented quantum computing then it might be possible to develop proper working models rather than the myth-making that is currently going on with economic theorists.
What I do know is this we tried the laissez-faire deregulated model - it lead us to where we are now - on the brink of a global depression. It doesn't work and it doesn't work in nearly exactly the same way that communism doesn't work. All people are not equal, all people are not good and when given the opportunity corruption/incompetence will manifest itself destabilising the entire operation.
The notion that it is only poorly defined big businesses that are responsible for our problems is a fallacy. It doesn't matter if it is caused by one big organisation or a multitude of smaller organisations unchecked corruption/incompetence will manifest itself in both types of structures. You only have to look at Greece to see that this is true.
You need watchdogs, you need regulation and you need a system that regulates the regulators.
I'm not sure that food prices have risen that dramatically, certainly not in Ireland at any rate. Your point about corruption in the food sector would be solved by proper regulation, if that corruption exists. I would look at the fact that the price of petrol has risen dramatically in the last decade and note the correlation in the cost of food production first before accepting that something fishy is going on.
If it is the increase in oil costs that is causing the increase in food prices the only way to solve that is to reduce the demand for oil consumption.
Edited: For typos, grammatical errors, added section on computer modelling and corrected missing words.