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Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a
nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a
"Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed
considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense
initiatives more successful? Can such an application of
science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable,
necessary or impossible?
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(7016 previous messages)
rshow55
- 07:28am Dec 25, 2002 EST (#
7017 of 7019)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click
"rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for
on this thread.
http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/DetailNGR.htm
sets out Detail, and the Golden Rule , which was a
Guardian Talk thread, and includes some of this in (#3).
I feel sure that I am a "child of nature" -- much less sure
that I'm a "child of God." My faith in God is not at all
strong. I'm a doubter. I don't think my maternal grandfather,
who was a competent clergyman, would have been surprised or
uncomfortable with that. A lot of people are doubters.
Including, I suspect, essentially all the artists who wrote
and approved Peace on Earth http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/25/opinion/25WED1.html
- a masterpiece of humane and religious feeling - entirely
respectful of religion, and all open-minded religious
traditions.
My maternal grandfather, Robert H.. Herring, was a Baptist
preacher in the rural South - born at the beginning of
Reconstruction. He was no saint - and as a young man
participated in some ballot stuffing that reinforced rigid
segregation - a position that he lived and died supporting.
There was much more to him than that. R.H. Herring died, after
a long life, in 1955, when I was only seven.. He had read
Darwin's Origin of the Species carefully, and his copy
had many careful notes about it. He wasn't disturbed by Darwin
- feeling, as many clergymen did then, and do now, that
Genesis was a simple story for a simple people. He would have
been entranced and uplifted by Of Altruism, Heroism and
Evolution's Gifts in the Face of Terror by Natalie Angier
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/health/psychology/18ALTR.html
and would have read The Origin of Religions, From a
Distinctly Darwinian View By NATALIE ANGIER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/24/science/social/24CONV.html
with respect and pleasure - and without feeling dislodged in
his faith. Here, as in many other places, some arguments from
design and the argument from evolution can each fit what is
known. "Butch" would have felt that you either had faith or
you didn't - but that doubt was to be expected, and that no
one could ever prove the existence of God. Grandaddy died when
I was only seven, but he let me know he liked math - and after
my paternal grandfather taught me some algebra, using a
see-saw to review all the principles there are in basic
algebra, grandaddy Herring told me that there were things
called infinite series - and that they were magical -
something that made an impression on me. I have some of his
math texts (though not his copy of Darwin - my big sister, the
college president, got that.)
I have been professionally concerned, for a long time, with
human interactions. And the stability of human relations. I
feel sure that these are key things to check, every which way,
when stability matters enough to think hard about:
Berle's Laws of Power Maslow's Heirarchy of
Needs and The Golden Rule
"Solutions" not consistent with these constraining patterns
may work for a short time, or with great strains on parts of
the human system involved -- but they are unstable.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs by William G. Huitt http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/maslow.html
. . . especially the image - which sketches out human needs in
a heirarchically organized system..
Berle and Maslow: MD667-8 rshow55
3/18/02 11:13am
I don't know anything about heaven - not even enough to
hope for it coherently. But the main message Jesus brought for
peace on earth , for secular redemption was the
golden rule.
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