Brian, why stop in the 1940’s, why not go all the way back to the future?

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."

Socrates

“Good and evil are so, purely on the whim of a deity.” Is good and evil an expression of mass opinion? Or do the erudite have greatest say? Or the powerful? Does good and evil merely reflect the thoughts of the time? Who decides in the wonderment of an existential world? Does consensus guarantee ‘truth’?

So the marvel of an apparently infinite universe overcomes the sense of being forlorn!

Clownfish, good and evil being an artefact rather makes them nothing but a whim. Greek God’s can certainly be regarded as acting on whim, as with many others. On what basis do you hold Yahweh acts on a whim?

Is there something ironic about a person lamenting the loss of the simplicity of 1944 from a you beaut computer over the world wide web??

Clownfish: Amen!
runner: I totally agree (!)...as technology improves we approach an "android economy" where human labour is not worth much. Instead of reducing labour we are using make-work and many "adult daycare" industries to keep the "pay by the hour" economy ticking. Of course there are two economies with two sets of rules: One for the workers and one for the obscenely over-paid. ("If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys" applies to the wealthy, "Payrises causes inflation" for workers...etc) This is not good for our spirit, nor our economy.
Cronus: Which version of God's word do we believe? It seems to totally depend on your tribe! At least Atheists tend to converge on a set of important ethics and agree to disagree on the rest. Most of what Jesus said is ignored by Christians so where's the value in God's authority if it can be arbitrarily interpreted? The shenanigans of almost all churches in history doesn't inspire confidence either!

All good questions, Cronus.

>>Is good and evil an expression of mass opinion? Or do the erudite have greatest say? Or the powerful? Does good and evil merely reflect the thoughts of the time?<<

"Good and evil", as you call them, are concepts that have been adapted over the centuries by the various civilizations, to mesh with the expectations of the society within which they exist.

A quick glance through the various scriptures that rule the different religions of the world will illustrate the many behavioural adaptations, on topics as varied as murdering firstborn sons and cutting one's hair, that they have had to make over the years.

Why do you think there are schisms currently in the Anglican church over gays and female priests? It's nothing more than the visible facets of a seismic shift that the church needs to take into account in the face of increasing social tolerance. In a hundred years time, it will be as uncontroversial as the decision to stop witch-burning.

We aliens are in control. Don't try to adjust your way of life or your TV. Just drink more beer.

We've been multi-dimensionally here for over 50 years actually. Just lik,e Eka-Platinum.

Who d'ya think taught your Governments to hand all their problem portfolios to "Commercial in Confidence(trick)" golden teflon coated CEO's. The only portfolio YOUR Governments keep now is Immigration. No more cranky electors! Just wonderful bum kissing migrants who someone else has to live next door to. Goverments get the pleasure, YOU get the pain.

That "all care taken no responsibility accepted" regime change, our idea, means they can FARM you morons like cattle and there's nothin' you can do about it. The buck now stops at CommInCon -Commercial In Confidence.

Aliens taking over? Ha!

We already have!

The only worry is a few fockers who keep talking about the second law of THERMODYNAMICS and some of its saving applications for you idiots. Geothermal power, Wetland hydrological cycle regulation. packet switching space networking and Quantum Mech properties in Laser printers for ultra efficient Energy extraction from fuels are NOT to be mentioned.

We cannot permit you fools to breed endlessly for no greater purpose than just getting your rocks off. We can not permit this cancer throughout our Galaxy.

PS We like fresh meat.