Inability to live in peace.

bulldogg

bulldogg

Milforum's Bouncer
There is a core problem that runs through nearly every thread and nearly every topic that is posted on this forum- our inability as a species to live in peace with each other.

Why is it that the supposed pinnacle of the animal world, man, with all his great achievements and higher thinking capability is unable to simply get along with his fellow man?

What is intrinsicly wrong with us that makes this task impossible?
 
The fact that even when you are happy with your life... someone is hungry, waiting, to grab it for himself.

The minute you stop defending is the minute someone else is taking.
 
simple: competition. or the need to better ourselves and our way of life, which is also why communism will not work in reality. in order to better ourselves, we must exploit the weaknesses of others.
 
Law of the jungle: Only the strong survive, and everyone has this seemingly overwhelming need to prove themselves the stronger.
 
ASTRALdragon said:
simple: competition. or the need to better ourselves and our way of life, which is also why communism will not work in reality. in order to better ourselves, we must exploit the weaknesses of others.
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Why must we exploit the weaknesses of other? We do it for personal gain and power.... You rarely see lions or other top-of-the-food-chain-mammals play the kind of power games we do.
Since we do have the cranial capability to think (at least I think some do) we should be able to change this attitude. Unfortunatly we won't see that happen in our life time. But I am convinced that if wealth was distributed equally and men somehow didn't want more then he needed.... that will be the day you see an end to war.
 
Basically it is man competitive nature, as the grass always appears greener on the said of the hill even if that hill belongs to some else. Then there is Religion and Politics and if one does not start trouble then the other will, such is life.
 
So basicly we lack the ability to be at peace within ourselves, is that it? We are unable to ever be content??
 
bulldogg said:
So basicly we lack the ability to be at peace within ourselves, is that it? We are unable to ever be content??
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You are NOT too far off the mark. Because we live in a fast paced environment where the mark of success is often measured by the amount of posessions you can accrue, there is a drive to succeed which can ONLY be assuaged by doing better than your next door neighbor.

These feelings are grossly amplified when the person or people who are the have-nots are whipped into a frenzy by persons who have ulterior motives for fomenting unrest.

A SIMPLISTIC VIEW WOULD SUGGEST THAT IF EVERYONE WAS EQUAL IN POSSESIONS ETC - THERE WOULD BE PEACE.

Sad to say, the simple view is too simple to result in peace. More wars and bad feelings exist simply because of people's religious beliefs.

To put it bluntly - people's belief in a "god" which can not be seen and whose existance can't be proven, clashes with someone elses belief in some "prophet" who may or may not have ever existed. End result - terrorism, war, deaths by the thousands, and for what???

YOU TELL ME FOR I HAVE YET TO FIGURE THAT ONE OUT FOR MYSELF.
 
The "why" is to do "god/yahweh/allah's will". Adherence to the faith for all major religions of the west has an element of conversion. Failure to try to help others convert would be disobediance to the faith. In recent centuries chrsitians and jews have forsaken this element but it is still there hence the difference between mainstream and fundamentalist views. Islam has yet to watered down.

But what I am more interested in is the core, the base reason for this inability to be still and at peace. Buddhism revolves around this concept. I am starting to believe that this religion is the one that goes to the heart of what is wrong with us as a species and leads people to actually be better than they are.
 
Bulldogg, I happen to think that religion is always an aggitator rather than a root cause. Even when you look at nuts who blow up abortion clinics for Jesus... the root cause is quite different than the stated reason.

Similarly with suicide bombers. They all say they're doing it for allah. But low and behold very very few volunteer without big cash payments to their families. And those that do like Muhammed Atta usually are guys with dashed dreams who basically flip and decide to find a dragon to slay instead of bettering their own lives.
 
Agreed, their is usually a root cause and religions in the west tend to agitate a pre-existing deficit. The exceptions are the religions in the east like Buddhism which seem to be far more advanced in understanding what is wrong with us as a species and their aim is to overcome this inability to be at peace within ourselves.

I guess I am arguing that the core problem with our inability to just get along is that we, all humans, inherently lack the ability to be happy in and of ourselves with things the way they are. To just "be".
 
Or maybe it is the fact that Buddhism and Confucianism are religions/spiritualities that are set up in such a way that they aren't as easy to be corrupted as Judaism/christianity/islam/et al.?

But we are getting off topic. I would argue strongly that religion is rarely the cause of war, but rather the justification. Just study the crusades for a great historical case study on that; and the current islama-facist movement as a modern head of that hydra.

What I think is that the root cause is that someone has something and someone else wants it. In America we have a good degree of wealth and success, the islama-facists don't, they live in squalor. Therefore some of them conclude that America should be attacked because they live in squalor. But the fact they have nothing and someone else has something is the root cause and it all goes mushroom cloud from that initial point.

Of course war is too complicated for one simple solution, but if we are going to point to one over-riding circumstance I believe that is the most "normal" one.
 
Ted said:
Why must we exploit the weaknesses of other? We do it for personal gain and power.... You rarely see lions or other top-of-the-food-chain-mammals play the kind of power games we do.
Since we do have the cranial capability to think (at least I think some do) we should be able to change this attitude. Unfortunatly we won't see that happen in our life time. But I am convinced that if wealth was distributed equally and men somehow didn't want more then he needed.... that will be the day you see an end to war.
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We exploit others because we can. One of the many factors that separate us from animals is our ability to reason and to think out of desire and not instinct alone. Why do we want these big materialistc things? Well, that's where you get into socilogy and how society tells us what is cool and the media and whatnot. You get the point.
 
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