HI Pericles. Yes my topic might have triggered some varied thoughts I'm sure.

I'm not a 'utopian' in the earthly sense, I don't believe even a Christian community will continue to thrive and succeed UNLESS...it maintains the freshness and simplicity of faith that even the Church of Ephesus appeared to have lost by the time Revelation was written.

//I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.// (Rev 2)

Utopia comes and goes according to the level of spiritual energy (golly..I'm sounding frighteningly new agey eh :) present... the Biblical kind I mean.. the presense and fullness of the Holy Spirit in peoples hearts. I've lived it..experienced it... it's wonderful.

The problem with the Harmony Community was committed the cardinal sin...he PREDICTED when Christ would return...but that's never a good sign and .... people became dissillusioned with him for that reason.

The secular (socialist) version self destructed for different reasons.

The purpose of the topic is to explore the idea of earthly socialist utopia's as a "never to be fulfilled" dream of philosphically disabled elites. I only came across that 'Harmony' thingy a day or so ago...

OUG PUH-LEASE spare us your voluminous rants.. try to summarize into a few well constructed sentences... please...and not toooooo many per thread.

Poirot dear... the fact that Fox had something other than CNN breaking news is a tad subjective even for you :) They have covered it... repeatedly... I hereby consign you to a full weeks viewing of the Glenn Beck show :) 6.00pm and I think you'll find it quite uplifting this week specially.

mikk,
Could you please quote the dynamic sources of widespread cultural change in the 18th - 19th century in the Western world.

Philo wrote:

<< UOG,

Are you incapable of posting concise ideas rather than irrelavent, disjointed phrases from someone else which most do not have the time or inclination to read?

In a few brief ideas; What is Utopla for you? Is it achieveable? >>

This is a fair enough expression of frustration about OUG’s written expression. And it is good that Philo is trying to engage OUG rather than just be critical.

Pericles wrote:

<< OUG has been posting in this style forever. It's a form of stream-of-consciousness free verse, with a dash of quite sophisticated wordplay thrown in.

Not everyone has to write the way you do, you know. What a boring, pedestrian and... grey world that would be, eh? >>

A fair enough defence of OUG, but otherwise a bit unnecessarily nasty.

OUG wrote:

<< im allready there [in Utopia]..i have my bodily...material needs coverd adiquatly for my needs..[my income/means...match my needs and wants..just fine] >>

That’s wonderful OUG! Half your luck!

Huggins wrote:

<< Also I went to Utopia a while back…>>

Where is this Utopia Huggins?

My Utopia is right here in north Queensland, or in southwestern Australia where I spent the first half of my life, or some other beautiful place in this wonderful country.

But it’s not here at the moment. It’ll be here when we get our crazy brains around the absolute need to head smartly towards a paradigm of genuine sustainability, in which the population is moderate, the environment is healthy, the resource base is sufficient to provide all of our needs with plenty of room to spare, the quality of life is high and stress levels are low.

Nothing to do with religion. Everything to do with sensible governance.

But alas, at the moment we don’t have anything like sensible governance… and we are heading straight towards Dystopia.

ALGOREisRICH:>> SOG...you agree ? :) I'm warmed and stunned at the same time.<<

Al I believe in a creator, and even though we have disagreed on either the context or interpretation or practice of the teachings, hopefully we both strive to abide by the Ten Commandments. So I’m pleased you were warmed but I am surprised you were stunned.

mikk:>> ? Do I have to point out the Crusades, inquisition, holy wars etc etc? You religious folk were the reason society decided secularism was the way forward.<<

Mikk there is an old saying "if you want to hit a dog, you can always find a stick".

Re the comment regarding the Christian crusades and inquisition, let us surmise that the Europeans of the time did not have a religion. Do you think that those Europeans would not have been expanding and looking to "loot rape and pillage" the Semitic peoples, we had technology on our side, we were advanced in aggression.

European against European has gone on forever and it goes on today. It is not Christians you should be gunning for, it is the whites of this world. We have ruled it from the time we could travel to conquer the browns, the blacks, and the yellows, and we did.

luck..had nothing to do with it ludwig
anyone...with a basic grasp of histry...can figure things out

enron..[the most clever guys in the room]
most polititions are or were lawyers

see how bankers are in utopia
and capitilists..getting their bailouts

look at polititions...nearly on xmass holidays..TILL febuary
AND..gaining a lifetime pension..for serving only one term...lol

or look at your electicty bill..!

then look at those getting brand-new solars_cells on the roofs of those MORE CLEVER..[while the rest of us..pay for THEIR cash-back...and their back up power...and the grid...and they get free power..and free solarcells..[they certainly are..'in utopia'..lol

[yet they still get offpeak...and cash back..!

or the farmers..getting huge water-grants...
and now a buyback..its not their fault we are so dumb

life is what we make it...yes others might not like it
but hey they can allways get drunk and complain to others more dumb than they are...[its better than doing something to change things]

let others decide,..who gets the next..govt handout..or the next subsidy to build a tollroad..or a bypass..or a tunnel..or a new sportstadium..or grandprix..[at tax payer expence]

those of us who figured it all out..have earned our freelunch
because others thought it too hard to even think
[im being sarcastic]...lots of workers are on holidays till feb

the clever lawyers/teachers...too..not just our polies
heck many are in utopia...just look at the main intrest..on the web

things have never been beter..if your as clever as they are

one just neds to wonder
how do they sleep at night