I hope it doesn’t make me morally corrupt to admit that McBean is one groovy dude in that Dr. Suess cartoon, a snake oil salesman on bad days and a technological business genius on good days… as for the sneetches, I’m not a fan, mainly because they seem naive, quick to judge, forgetful, and so emotional sometimes logic and improvement upon the future has no tangible meaning, but damn good singers nonetheless. I think it would be unfair to McBean to compare him to Hitler using stars on the Jews, and I don’t remember anything about the Christian inquisition thing you mentioned so I’d be fascinated upon any elaboration.
I’m sorry for assuming that because you briefly considered the possibility of denouncing the truth value of the Eden myth on the premise of theistic evolution that you were taking scripture out of context and taking things literally.
I see us gaining a moral sense as good but not elevating to the point of Gods, only a tool that weighs but never perfectly measures. Like aiming between the extremes of definition, to get to the middle of something is to attain the moral high ground (or the best definition to compensate for the tension between those extreme view points in order to prevent violence, disease, chaos, etc.). The point is that there is never one thing, but God is all, one, and not a thing. His creations were flawed and anything that existed before humans corrupted humans (sex drive, disease, not knowing our own strength, seasonal changes, etc). God created the former angels that rebelled against him and were cast out, therefore those that were cast out knew that God’s creations had flaws. Humans have inherent flaws that can be manipulated for other’s will powers like the sneetches fell for.
I never said we haven’t improved, I know we have. In short, I was trying to say that the problem of scarcity of information and knowledge over time confuses our language and morality. I was saying that when you state that we have to do evil to others to survive that it must be inevitable due to our inherent flaws. Someone like McBean goes around and inflates the price of his machine, eventually there will be a straw that breaks the camel’s back so to speak, and some sneetches dumb or smart or rich or poor will harm those who have already done harm to a great extent for selfish and greedy needs whether or not that person or people did it purposely.
Also, whereabouts are the stats you mentioned in that video? Seems interesting, I’ll definitely consider watching that series very soon, as I used to be a big fan of Dawkins.
We can reduce harm and try to keep it at a minimum, but just because we tolerate doesn’t mean we won’t go extinct. And just because we don’t tolerate doesn’t mean we will go extinct.
If a group of asteroids randomly emerges from the oort cloud at unprecedented, nearly undetectable speeds, what do you think we will all do?
If a disease randomly manifests and has no cure, killing unprecedented numbers at unpredictable speeds, how would we react?
I believe these things have happened in the past and cover up a lot of information about who we are as a species, a group of superior earthlings who go around believing different things for their own perceived good in order to survive, rearing formidable children, and dying quickly in comparison to the age of things we rarely take time to consider.
You assumed earlier that if evil is natural then the evil is dominant. Why can we not unknowingly be doing good for most because most choose to do good for themselves, noticing mistakes and evil to correct as we grow?