09-05-14 6:16  •  The Bible

Christy: What is the Bible to you? Do you believe it is the infallible, inspired Word of God? If so, why?

If not, do you believe only parts of it? If so, how do you know/decide what you believe?

If you don't believe in any of it, why not?

The bible is a very unfortunate culdesac for human thought to stagnate in for a few thousand years. We now know better.





Bandicoot: You see, I understand that the Bible was never intended to be interpreted literally. The point isn't what the Bible literally says, but what the Bible, after understanding the context and so forth, means.


In the beginning, there was a singularity. It expanded, comprised of matter and energy. The matter was kind of sticky, and the energy was kind of pushy, and so they twisted around and danced together to become everything.

Eventually a race of sentients arose. They saw the matter and energy and slowly learned to use it. In the process, over thousands of years of trial and error, they learned that every sentient being has the capacity for both suffering and greatness. Only by working together to create societies where each sentient is endowed with inherent worth, can these beings rise from suffering and reach greatness in their most exalted states, of discovery, creation, compassion and love.




This post now "means" at least as much if not more than the bible.






09-02-14 8:16  •  Truth and Wisdom

Stateswoman: ...and that's why I refer to myself as a Gnostic Christian. For me, what is most important is truth and widsom.

Great to have you in the discussion!





Stateswoman: For example, I don't see God as an external source, but rather a superior, fully sentient being made up of humanity, which I believe to be not quite sentient.

You mean like Google?



Stateswoman: If google was a sentient being wth a mind of it's own then yes. But not by machine.

If not by electronic network, then how are the connections that comprise this sentience being made? By what means?



Stateswoman: By every component of genetic code within the strands of DNA that we carry

DNA can develop sentient intelligence as necessary but it also survives fine without it. Not seeing how DNA collectively comprises something more sentient than humans.



Stateswoman: Well there's more to it. I believe in a gnosticism in which the soul is the person and the body mere clothing.

It would be more accurate to say that the DNA is the being and the body and personality are survival gear for the being. Knowing that I live as the sentient tool of a non-sentient being doesn't make it any less fun. :-)




Stateswoman:This is where I have to make the leap of faith that there is something ephemeral running the show, not the brain itself.

Well, that gets a lot less interesting, because a leap of faith can be for anything.




Stateswoman: But the leap of faith is my personal choice based on my own life experiences.

Unfortunately, this is not a system for finding out the truth which really works.




Stateswoman: I belive we are individually incomplete, incapable of full sentience.

Please, speak for yourself. The word sentient was created to describe what I am.




Stateswoman: My "Devil" is the sum of a different collective.

Since this is all just "leap of faith" stuff, which could very well be completely wrong, I am not seeing how this qualifies as either truth or wisdom.




Stateswoman: Sorry, I forgot to provide any sources, and I know that's bad form. List of authors: Margaret Starbird, Peter Bolt, et al.

These people are evidence of what, exactly?




Stateswoman: Google them, read their works, learn their story, and decide for yourself whether and/or whart parts of their research you are willing to consider.

I am talking to you. What are you positing, specifically?




Stateswoman: The cathars, a gnostic group in southern France speaks of its teachings coming directly from Mary Magdalene....

If you are saying you just hold with whatever the teaching of the cathars and Mary Magdalene were, that is not a method known for getting truth. People back in those days did not understand truth or anything we don't understand better now. Turning to people who knew so little is sure to drag your understanding backwards by thousands of years.




Stateswoman: I know for a Fact that there is a MUCH bigger picture out there. Yet I cannot prove it.

A "MUCH bigger picture" could be anything. "Out there" where? I'm a bit vague on exactly what you are positing.

However I can tell you that "know" and "fact" do not belong in the same phrase as "cannot prove." Words like "think" and "speculation" are what you call the stuff you just think. Knowledge and facts can be verified. That is what makes them knowledge and facts instead of speculation.

It's important to use precise terms so that actual knowledge and speculation can be distinguished.




Stateswoman: You say my perception of God maybe correct or incorrect. That is true.

Well, the truth is the important part.


Stateswoman: People have to make leaps of faith to survive. And respect their right to make a leap of faith whether or not it is spiritual of scienific.

Whatever floats their boat, sure. But it's a big problem when people pretend that this results in information they KNOW for a FACT. Obviously it doesn't. If they actually knew for a fact, the leap of faith would not be required.


Stateswoman: "Truth"? You mean the elephant that the 5 blind men tried to learn about?

No, I mean the actual truth which can be verified by anyone.

Truth consists of statements which correspond accurately to what they descibe. They are derived from making careful observations which anyone can make first and then creating accurate descriptions which anyone can agree are accurate.


The "blindmen / elephant" analogy is usually floated to suggest that we are each like a blind man who can only feel in part, and only from our private perspective, so we can't know truth, so there can be no truth, so forget that.

However, this is not how we are. We are sighted and sensed in many ways and we are not each confined to our own tiny observation. We can move all around, seeing everything, feeling everything, comparing notes with each other the whole time. Getting descriptions, testing them, rejecting them if they don't hold up, getting better descriptions. Observing effects over time and watching how they all represent patterns of morphology and behavior. Comparing with observations of other animals, seeing how they all fit together.

We are actually like people who have examined elephants in millions of ways and know a huge amount about them, including how they live, how they came to be and who they evolved from. That is not blind, groping for answers we will never have. That is seeking, discovering, understanding. Creating accurate descriptions that really work because anyone can verify and understand, yes, this is an elephant. And this is...what it is.

We are not like the blind men. We can and do find truth, buckets of it, which anyone can verify is actual truth. So, no, not forget that. Truth is central to wisdom. It is essential to survival. Truth that can be verified is the most powerful force in history. We may not have all of it, but what we do have is insanely useful nonetheless. Tossing it out is not an option.


Stateswoman: I just mean that the whole truth cannot be percieved by any one individul or group.

There is no evidence that each individual or each group has a different part of the truth that others can't get. Actual truth can be demonstrated to be truth to anyone, that's the point. It is a fully sharable experience.


Stateswoman: ...but rather to take the "Doctrines" or rather beliefs gleaned by the collective of people participating in such religion...

"Doctrines" are just people talking. What actually is?




Stateswoman: You say it is all just talk, but every scientific advancement started out with just talk... with ideas...

Yes, but long before they were declared to be true, they were declared to be ideas. The ideas were then tested against the actual reality in every possible way, the ideas were then changed to match the reality, and only AFTER the refined ideas were shown over and over to be very, very accurate descriptions of reality were they elevated from "talk and ideas" to truth.


Take some of your talk and compare it to reality. Demonstrate that the reality matches your description of it. Publish it in a scientific journal, and allow every other person who wants to to compare your ideas with reality and see how they hold up.

After everyone concerned has verified that your ideas are indeed actually how things are, then I will agree that you "know for a fact" that your ideas are truth.



In the meantime, you actually said yourself, you do not know if your ideas are correct or not.

So, that is the truth. You don't know if your ideas are correct. They might not be. They could be nothing like how anything actually is. But at least you do have one truth.

That one truth, which is the same for everyone, is the big thing people ignore when they get all caught up in the ideas from the ancients. But that one truth is the important one.


Stateswoman: My direct response is that we as humanity must learn how to live as a planet safely and prosperously as one people and tolerance for each others cultural practices (religions).

I don't disagree, but I think an important part of learning to live together is getting on the same page understanding what reality is, and using the tools of reason to solve problems. This can't happen as long as most of humanity clings to separate legacy religions from thousands of years ago.





Stateswoman: If you truly believe that 2000 plus years ago man lived in a primitive society, then I can certainly see why you would never want to reexamine what came from that time period.

Many people have re-examined it, continually over the centuries. The re-examinations have not changed anything about whether the religions seem to be true. They don't. They appear to be little bits of primitive wisdom in a sea of superstition and misunderstanding and cultural enshrinement, just like many other ancient religions.


Stateswoman: They were very wise. They knew things we don't know. They were a lot more advanced than people give them credit for. Is this the reason that the great library in Egypt and its sister library was destroyed? To keep the knowledge hidden? It held information from all over the world and a zoo that held animals from all over the world.

There is literally nothing they could have discovered about the world and animals that we would not have rediscovered by now. We still have the world and the animals (at least for the moment.) Knowledge about the world and animals does not come from the teachings of wise people. It comes from the world and animals themselves, and today we have much better ways to examine them.

When the libraries were destroyed, we may have lost unique stories and histories, but information about what the universe is and what we are is just as available, in fact even more available now than it was then. There is no reason to turn to the ancients, however wise, to tell us what this is. We can see it ourselves.


Stateswoman: It sounds like you are talking about science. We are already a planet on the verge of self destruction. The scientific and technological advances we have made in the last 125 years do not gaurantee a moral use of them and can offer a greater means of self destruction than we had even 75 years ago.

Well, we know there are no guarantees, don't we?

However the only hope for moral use of our knowledge is use guided by reality, by a realistic look at the physical and moral consequences of our actions. When people are not on board with reality, when they don't understand what is known and how we know, they can't come together in a realistic understanding of what is actually happening. When they don't understand the cause and effect of suffering, they can't unite around effective moral action.

There is no possible guide in the use of the truth other than the truth. We have discovered the means to get the truth and we know it works. Now we have to agree to use it for the moral truth as well.

It seems to be proceeding. The arc is long, but bends toward justice.






09-02-14 8:16  •  Meaning of Life

SandraDee: What is the meaning of life if most of it is spent suffering? I'm so done!

The meaning of life is what life is - patterns that can make copies of themselves, and how they work to accomplish this. The way to see this is to look at life and what it does. After you look at all these different kinds of life, and how they are doing what they do, in their infinite inventiveness and variety, it's easy to see that this pattern replication is the distinctive characteristic of life.

And as a plus, with complex enough brains you get suffering. I am pretty familiar with suffering so I know how you feel. A few years ago I learned several great tricks for dealing with suffering and they greatly reduced the amount of suffering I had to endure, and what type. So please let me know if I can help.


Later...

There are a bunch of documentaries which demonstrate the meaning of life. For an intense examination of how life functions from birth to death, I recommend Trials of Life by David Attenborough. For an eye-opening look at how different life is in a different environment, check out Secrets of the Ocean Realm, narrated by Linda Hunt. And to see a realistic depiction of the evolution of life from the simplest animals to the rise of humans, check out the Walking With series in this order:

Walking with Monsters (Pre-dinosaur)

Walking With Dinosaurs

Walking With Prehistoric Beasts (Post-dino to human)

Walking With Cavemen (rise of primates to modern human)


When you see what life looks like, what it does, and how it got like it is, that is the meaning of life.





09-02-14 2:56  •  Non-working Methods

AngelEyes: Why are people so hostile to Christianity? It's the good news!

Circle: I think what makes people so hostile to Christianity is that it clearly states if you don't believe it, you're screwed.

Sharon: I'm not a Christian and I don't find it offensive. Most religions claim you have to believe them.

Maybe Christianity and Islam are the two religions were unbelievers supposedly face a more serious consequence, but I don't find that offensive. That would mean part of me wonders if they may be right.

So you are unequivocally sure that Christians and Muslims are wrong?



Sharon: Yes, I'm personally very certain of my beliefs.

How were you able to determine that Christianity and Islam are wrong?



Sharon: Years of questioning and introspection convinced me of the truthfulness of my beliefs.

A lot of Christians and Muslims do years of questioning and introspection, which convinces them of the truthfulness of their beliefs. How come this system worked to get you the right answer, but when they do it they come out wrong?



Sharon: Contradicting beliefs, for ME are not true.

Well are you sure their beliefs about the afterlife are wrong or not? I thought you said you were unequivocally sure that their description is not how it really is, now you say they are just wrong "for ME"?



Sharon: If Muslims and Christians get different answers, good for them. I respect that. I don't care what anyone else's process leads them to conclude.

The point is you are using a process to determine truth which you know does not work. At least for them it doesn't work, right? So why do you think it works for you? How come you can determine truth by this method but they can't? What does this discrepancy mean?



AngelEyes: We live in a free country, free to worship or not worship God, just as you have free will not to believe I have free will to believe as I chose. What do you care?

The truth matters.




09-01-14 1:26  •  Just Get Used To It

PennyAnte: Women, if you feel like you do everything in the house and hubby does less than a quarter share, get used to it, kids, babies, getting up in the middle of the night, changing dirty diapers, dr appts, homework, science projects, phone calls, party planning, present buying, changing wet sheets, cleaning the refridgerator, working on photo albums, packing for vacations, unpacking when you return, just maintaining life in general.......get used to it, or get a wife of your own. Being a wife and mother comes with a huge amount of responsibility, as much as I love them all, it is a tough life.

End rant.


Hubby's rant:

If you feel like you work and slave for a paycheck and you never get to see a dime, get used to it. Working a fulltime job and having what amounts to no pay because your family uses every last penny is just part of the whole father and husband gig, Being a husband and father is a huge responsibility, if you dont like it get a husband of your own. As much as you love them all, it is a tough life.

End rant.

It doesn't seem that tough to me. I have a vacuum cleaner, a dishwasher, a microwave, a washer/dryer, and a grocery store, so household chores are so much easier for me than they were for all the generations of women who came before electricity.

Women have always had to work their fingers to the bone just to stay alive. They had to walk miles for water. They had to butcher animal carcasses for meat. They had to pull food out of the ground and cook it over open flames. A woman had to raise children with no antibiotics or medicine in a world where one in two kids didn't make it - if she survived childbirth at all.

The fact that we have the leisure to work on photo albums and pack for vacations just seems like a miracle to me, a miracle of human ingenuity. It's so easy it's amazing.


As for hubby, for most of the last ten thousand years of human civilization, most men have worked their fingers to the bone in the fields, toiling long hours every day without vacations or workman's comp or retirement, and almost every part of their labor went to the land owning class.

The fact that a man can choose a work week limited to 40 hours, and can take time off for doctors and vacations, and can be compensated if injured on the job, and is accruing a social retirement to keep him from poverty in old age, is a miracle of modern morality and the rise of labor rights. (Even if, sadly, most of the return on his labor still goes to the land owning class.)

We are fortunate to live at a time - and place - when we don't have it so tough.


On the other hand, in the future, if we can cope with warming and population and ownership, and continue to advance in science, humans might have the knowledge to create a life of leisure and personal fulfillment which would make our current existence seem like fruitless toil. So, while I can get used to my current, pleasant life, there is something to work for in the future too.




08-30-14 1:26  •  Religion Misused Cont.

This discussion originated here - Is Christianity Good? and was continued here - Religion Just "Misused".


UltimateGramma: You say Gods are not observable. I say if that God is observable, then he/she is a false God.

It is academic, since an unapparent god is indistinguishable from a non-existent god. Either way there is nothing from which a description of gods can be ascertained. Yet Christianity (and other religions) provide descriptions of gods anyway. That creates a great amount of difficulty because there is nothing to compare the descriptions to, to see if they are accurate. There is just people saying things and no way to check.



UltimateGramma: You say that God has no power. I think you mean "absolute" Power.

No, I mean any kind of power to do anything. There is nothing happening which appears to be the result of a god doing something.



UltimateGramma:You say God has no rules. I say God (or anybody who holds a Godlike role) has rules God must abide by and be accountable to his own peers.

How can I check to see if this is true?



UltimateGramma: You said humans have error (which is really what sin means as its original definition means "missing the mark.") This error, as I have stated before, is the temptation to satisfy one's own addictions to pleasure, rather than work at moderation.

Missing the mark appears to be caused by ignorance of the mark, insufficient practice and skill, and unreachable marks. Some rough going finding the real mark is is exactly what you would expect from a learning biological brain, and usually enough skill is achieved to reach the mark often enough to survive.

As for the urge to satisfy oneself, this behavior is obviously wildly adaptive in human ancestral surroundings where everything from food to drugs to sex to entertainment could be very scarce. That this behavior is sometimes maladaptive now, in modern surroundings where everything is highly concentrated and massively available, is not a problem of the original model. Attempting to satisfy is not an inherent error...it is correct behavior for different surroundings.





UltimateGramma: This is why I call myself Gnostic ( or Gnostic Christian) in much of my beliefs. The pursuit of wisdom and truth.

Truth is accurate descriptions and wisdom is understanding what is important and what works. All this can be achieved by looking at how things are and how they work, and striving to have accurate descriptions which can be checked for accuracy and improved.


So, to circle back to the OP:

Christianity, for most of how it has been believed and practiced by most people, does not contain verifiably accurate descriptions of gods or the supernatural. The descriptions of gods and the supernatural are the invention of bronze-age herders who did not understand truth. There are ittle bits of wisdom included, such as they were back then, but they are tidbits in a meaningless sea of superstition, myth and tribal folklore.

There is simply no reason to turn to the ancient herders to find out what the universe is and how to act. Relying on people who knew so little is crippling our ability to base decisions on modern understanding of how things actually are.


This is why I think the world would be a better place with less Christianity (and other legacy god religions created by primitive tribesmen.) There is no reason we cannot have religions to succor and guide us, but they could be based on truth which can be verified and the acquired wisdom of modern morality.

Thanks again UltimateGramma!




05-16-14 8:57  •  Science by Faith

Fairy Du Jour: When it comes to accepting ideas on faith, science is no different than religion. The vast majority of people take most science on blind faith.

That doesn't make science a blind faith enterprise like religion. Scientific claims can be checked for accuracy. Religious claims can't.



PinkPair: There is no absolute truth, only perception. It's all relative.

No, some statments are clearly more accurate than others.


PinkPair: Even accuracy is a form of perception.

Accuracy can be checked by anyone.


PinkPair: But, no two people see, hear, taste etc. the the same way.

We all have the same basic apparatus for sense experience. There is no evidence that what we see, hear and taste are radically different from each other, different enough to warrant the claim that "it's all relative." Our perceptions are demonstrably OF something which is not relative, and are generally similar enough to carry out cooperative effort.


PinkPair: Truth is a continual evolution of personal perception.

No, it is an evolution of verifiable perception. It does not change from person to person, it changes for everyone at the same time as our measuring systems become more accurate.



Fairy Du Jour: There are things that you believe because someone told you them. That is the definition of blind faith.

That doesn't make science a blind faith enterprise like religion.


Fairy Du Jour: You keep saying that. My point is that there are millions of things that people take on blind faith, every day, including science, but the only thing that people scream about is religion.

There is no reason to scream about science. Science can be checked. Scientific claims are not taken on blind faith by scientists, and any human can verify the accuracy. Religious claims are taken on blind faith by everyone involved and cannot be checked for accuracy by anyone. Religion is based on blind faith; science isn't. That is why blind faith is a problem in religion which should be critiqued.



Fairy Du Jour: Like evolution, totally taken on faith. Do we have observable, repeatable evidence that sea creatures grew lungs and walked on land?

Amphibians are water creatures who walk on land.



Fairy Du Jour: Amphibians are animals that have the apparatus to do both.

Why? How?


Fairy Du Jour: I have the answers that I believe as to why

What is it?


Fairy Du Jour: Amphibians have both a stage in which they have gills and then through metamorphosis, they change to have lungs. That is "how".

What I mean is, how did this creature come to have this ability?


Fairy Du Jour: I could be wrong, but so could you.

We were discussing why people "scream" about faith belief in religion and not about faith belief in science. It is because in science in anyone can check the claims and they are based on observable data. Your claim that "some people have seen God and angels" cannot be checked and there is no observable data which can be examined to verify the claim. They are not equivalent claims.

Claims which can be verified by anyone are nothing to scream about. Claims which seem to be false, which cannot be verified and produce no evidence are problematic. Raising some noise about that is appropriate.


Fairy Du Jour: Neither of us have witnessed it, and we are taking the word of others who have more knowledge.

Scientific claims, particularly about origins, are based on physical objects which can be examined by anyone. That is why it does not require "faith." Religious claims are made by people with no more knowledge on the subject than you.

The point is, science and religion are not both equally fru-fru blind faith enterprises, where it's all just speculation and nobody really knows anything. Science is a process for arriving at accurate understanding and it produces real, new possibilities which could not exist without it. That is how you know it is working.


Fairy Du Jour: Personally, I believe that God organized the universe through eternal truths.

I understand that you personally believe this, but it does nothing to answer the question of why amphibians have apparatus to do both, or how they came to be like this.

Science answers both questions, with extremely accurate explanations based on everything observable.


Your unsupported belief that this was organized by gods could be wrong. You believe it, so what? There is no evidence of it. It doesn't explain anything. It doesn't seem true based on what can be observed.

The explanation that land species evolved from water species tells both why and how amphibians exist. They exist because creatures which lived in water started to develop the means to survive part-time on land, but continued to lay eggs in water like they did before. Some amphibians developed ways to stop laying eggs in water and became the proto-reptile/mammal. There is fossil evidence that creatures like this existed.


That is why religion is a blind faith enterprise and science isn't. Religious claims can be anything. Scientific claims have to be accurate and explanatory.


Fairy Du Jour: Science is faith. You take it on faith. Unless you dig up the bone, determine its DNA yourself, carbon date it yourself, you are taking something on faith.

So what? How is me thinking something at home "science"? Non-scientists arriving at conclusions by proxy is not science getting conclusions by proxy.

The people who are making actual scientific claims - scientists - ARE digging up bones, dating them, etc. themselves. Our non-scientific acceptance of their claims doesn't make science a blind faith enterprise. The actual science taking place, the acts of doing research and making claims, are done by people who are not taking it on faith. They have to prove it every step of the way and keep proving it forever.


Fairy Du Jour: Heck, even those things have to take the faith of it carbon decays at a predictable and quantifiable rate.

No, you can check to see if it does.


Fairy Du Jour: You can keep saying it isn't faith, because you don't like it portrayed that way, but it is the same thing.

No, I am saying that you taking a scientific conclusion on faith does not equal science being based on faith. The conclusions of science are not the same thing as the claims of religion.


Fairy Du Jour: Let's break it down to something simple. We both believe that water is made of two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule. Why do we believe it?

You may believe it, but that doesn't make the science faith-based.

I, on the other hand, do not "believe" it. I don't need to. I have actually witnessed experiments where water was treated with electricity and separated out hydrogen and oxygen gas. The process produced twice the amount of hydrogen gas as oxygen, just what you would expect from H2O.

So, rather than believing it, I would say that I have assessed the claim that water is made of two hydrogen and one oxygen and found it to be demonstrably accurate.

But even if I wasn't that careful, even if I just took it on faith that water was H2O, that wouldn't make the science faith-based. That is why there is no reason to "scream" about science being faith-based. Lay understanding of science may be faith-based but science isn't.


Religious beliefs on the other hand are entirely faith-based. There no actual experts, with no actual evidence and no demonstrations. The claims cannot be assessed for accuracy. The entire enterprise consists of what lay people think of in their heads. That is what makes it a faith-based enterprise, completely unlike science.


Fairy Du Jour: The reason that people believe that hydrogen atoms have one electron or that the earth rotates around the sun in just over 365 days is not because they believe in the science behind it, but because that is what they were taught and they never questioned it. That is blind faith.

Maybe they should step it up a bit, but that doesn't make science blind faith. And it should go with out saying that if people ought to be asking for verification before they accept a scientific conclusion, they should be demanding at least that much verification before accepting a faith claim.


Fairy Du Jour: Why isn't this kind of blind faith viewed with the same derision as a religious person's faith?

I can think of several reasons.

For one, the conclusions of science do things. They make electricity and devices. They change the quality of our lives, make technology and cures. So there is every reason to think that the close examination of reality yields up understanding of reality. It works.

For two, the conclusions of science do not require blind faith. People are not expected to accept them without verification. People are invited to challenge them or find new ways to interpret them if it yields better understanding. That is what science is all about.

For three, the conclusions of science are not supernatural claims based on ancient hearsay and mythology. So there is no "leap" of faith required to believe the apparently impossible.


As for me, I don't think people should hold any ideologies without evidence, whether they are religious, economic or political. So I would certainly welcome a more rigorous approach to understanding reality by verification instead of dogma. However that approach puts traditional religions at a real disadvantage.




05-15-14 1:25  •  Capitalism and Socialism

As you may know, I have been studying economic systems and social systems for many years. I have been trying to determine the most practical system with the most equity and health, both for the individual and for the group. I have used the mathematical reasoning of John Nash, who won the Nobel prize for figuring this out, as a guide for what to look for in a working system.

I have studied communism, planned economies, and resource-based economies, as well as a number of completely hypothetical plans, and I have come to see that capitalism is by far the most natural system, and therefore the easiest to sustain. Self-seeking is unbeatable as a means to generate commerce.

Similarly, in my studies of social systems, I have seen that the most successful models are those that are considered "Socialism" - particularly national health care systems like the one in Canada, or national education systems like the one Finland has. These kinds of systems result in better health and better education for the citizens than private models.

But how can this be? How can capitalism AND socialism both work, when everyone knows they are opposites?


The answer is, they aren't opposites, because they are not managing the same thing. Capitalism is a system for managing how you work your economy. Socialism is a system for managing how you run your society. While similar and intertwined, they are not identical.

The best system would be to have a Capitalist economy AND a Socialist government, both. They are not mutually exclusive. Many countries have a balance of this, including ours.

In fact, upon studying the matter, I do not see any way that either could possibly exist without the other. They belong together.

Canada has a capitalist economy and socialized healthcare. Many European countries have a similar balance and they are also showing better health and education levels for their people. Even here in the U.S. we have many "socialist" programs and this is sure a better place than it would be without them.


The bottom line is that "socialism" is no threat to capitalism. They work in concert.

Take a look at the countries who have more socialized systems. The people there like it, and it works. If they can do it we certainly can.




Read more in the Archives.