Quote Originally Posted by thir View Post
You seem to believe that all religions entail prayers of some sort, and that, if you pray, you are in danger of doing nothing.
Not at all! I was using prayer as an example. In fact, I do understand that prayer can have beneficial effects, similar to meditation. And, while there are those who do believe that praying is more important than actual actions, most people will generally try to do something first, then pray. Those deeply ingrained in religious thought then tend to credit the prayers, rather than the hard work, for any accomplishments.
I think you are wrong.
Is that even possible?
If you believe in gods, you might just as well believe that gods help those who help themselves.
Which would negate the reason for prayer, would it not? Or for worship.
The worship I talk about is more a love of nature and a realization that we live of her and need to not destroy her.
We can find many beautiful things in nature, for sure. Mostly because we are evolutionarily inclined to find such things beautiful. Just as the dung beetle finds the droppings of other creatures to be beautiful. But such things are cultural more often than not. A desert-dwelling nomad may find the golden sand dunes to be extraordinarily beautiful, but might be dismayed by the ugly barrenness of the frozen north. The Eskimo, on the other hand, would have the opposite experience. In either case, it's the people who have adapted to nature, and not the other way around. Nature is not a 'she' or a 'he' or even an 'it'. It's merely a concept we have devised for explaining the natural world.
Why do you think there was 'barely enough'? There was plenty!
There was plenty for the limited number of small bands of people. As tribes grew larger, resources became more scarce. Which forced the tribes to move more often, creating conflicts with other tribes.
And not that many conflicts either..that came later, with much more people.
There have been conflicts for as long as there have been creatures. Conflict is also a part of nature. We humans have simply elevated it to an art form.
The really bad thing was to go to farming. Far too many people, many of whom had a rotten and short life, and far too many people, resulting in far too many conflicts.
Farming actually improved the lives of people, stabilizing the food supply, allowing for larger families, and groups of families, which meant greater protection against predators, the animal kind at least. And even against the human kind. Conflict has always been, and likely will always be, with us. It's a part of our 'nature'.
That is not intelligence, that is greed and stupidity.
Also a part of our nature, sadly.
Because we are taking more than earth can regrow and using up resources that cannot be replaced.
We are on a wrong track.
Then perhaps we should reduce the population of the world? Limit ourselves to only a few million people rather than several billion? Who is going to decide who will go? Are you willing to volunteer?

Or should we perhaps use our minds to make things better for everyone, while educating everyone about resource use? Just remember, going back to nature means going back to lives that were short, insecure and brutal.