Human nature. A deadly game in anyone's understanding, and since mankind has separated its self from reality, ( the natural world ) we have become many gods ourselves. Now, the time is half-past the 21 century and our baby-boots has only just come off, and now with our pointless squabble of who will rule what, we have miss the point of the meaning of life, or the detail of. All living things on this planet are in balance but us, so keep forgetting the point and see what happens. Dont say, I didn't know, cause you dam well did. Humans are now the top predators on this planet and we are eating it alive! The time clock, is not in our favour, so keep our pissing contest going and see what happens.
We can change anything we wont and I am sick and tired of our bullsh@t. The world as one or die, its your choice. The human brain is, greedy, ugly, and full of self interest, and until you all work this all out, all I can do is, watch in disgust.

The animal in us by the way, no religion or scientific other, is going make any difference's to the out-comes in reality in what we are facing today. You all think you are so clever, but you cant save yourselves. lol so now who,s the fool?

Smaller and smarter!

Your move.

Csteele, as much as I enjoy your posts, I have no trouble believing in romantic love (having experienced it on several occasions) while simultaneously disbelieving in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Poetry is an artefact of language, and not 'spirituality'. The great challenge of any language is perfect understanding. There is no way I can be sure that you see the colour 'blue' in exactly the same way that I do. Great poetry is evocative. While we may not understand or agree on the exact meaning of the words (Shakespeare -and the Bible- is still being 'interpreted', or reinterpreted) hopefully we will share the same or similar feelings.
Peter Hume, my point about obscene wealth was rather more than rhetoric. One of the defining characteristics of Capital, is it's ability to increase it's own value merely by existing.
Two examples. Warren Buffet buys shares in the hope they will increase in value. Immediately, a thousand investors think, “If Buffet is buying, it must be good!” The share price goes up without anything concrete about the company in question having changed.
Example 2. As pointed out in a recent article on OLO, housing prices in Oz jumped as a result of Women's Lib. First 2 incomes made houses more affordable, then more competitive, and finally 2 incomes became essential, without any change in the product in question.
What is 'obscene' wealth'? To a parent forced to watch a child die of malnutrition, someone on the dole in Oz would be obscenely wealthy. Today, despite more than billion people going hungry every day, farmers are turning away from growing food because there isn't enough money in it ('market pressure').
Instead they grow crops for fuel.
Why do we need the fuel? Well obviously, we need it to keep our industry alive. We need it so we can work, to can make money...
to buy essentials...
like...
food...
“I think the interesting thing that religion shows, is that mankind are capable of believing the most patent bullsh/t, so that it seems there is positively an adaptation for it.”
I so totally agree.

Dear Grim,

There are many cultures that view romantic love as a poor even destructive basis for marriage and they could probably cite some very strong evidence to reinforce that view.

Don't they have the right to see our preoccupation with romantic love an aberrant belief system or cultural meme?

Aren't the very arguments you would use to defend your belief in romantic love essentially the same as the ones taken up by those defending religion? And wouldn't they be just as vulnerable to science's reductionism?

Have you experienced the profoundness of a religious revelation? I have and would recommend it as one of life's great experiences. Now admittedly it occurred when I was going out with a stunning 'born again' lass so other things may well have been in play...okay probably were in play... but wow! I have drunk from that cup and can see why it is so attractive. Within a few months my scientific mind had completely eroded any edifice my religious mind was attempting to build but I'm glad to have experienced it.

Surely spirituality drives poetry. Poetry often is the struggle to put into words deep emotional feelings in order to communicate them to ones self and others. Rather than being an artefact of language might not poetry be viewed as a distillation or refinement of it that attempts to move much of language aside to get at the real essence of something? That something must have generally have a spiritual dimension for without it why the need for poetry?

I'm more than happy to accept that poetry, romantic love, religion and the colour blue are all in the eye of the beholder. Hell I even found poetry in of UOG's conversation with Cicero;

old man...why dont they let you sleep..remove your godheaded-ness..away from them..age has wearied..even the intent of your words...now fools..quote them out of context...thinking their majesty...to disproove gods supreem majesty

But I would venture to say life would be half as interesting without religion, indeed this enjoyable conversation couldn't have occurred in its absence.