Ideas worth considering - Is humility and curiosity better than love?

 

Robert E. Lee and Me is one of the most important books I have read in the last few years in helping me understand the history of the United States and what continues to ail us.

 

This quote is the basis for my conclusion that stupidity reigns in human beings. We want to believe what we want to believe regardless of the evidence. This observation is what is polarizing us as a nation. We are living in a post truth narcissistic nihilistic culture where as Kellyanne Conway said, when challenged by the GOP lies, that the GOP is not lying but believing in and espousing "alternative facts."

 

The belief in the viability of "alternative facts" is the death knell of democracy. As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said one time, "We can have different opinions, but we can't have different facts." I don't think the position of alternative facts is worth going to war over but reality has consequences and doesn't care anything about a person's beliefs.

 

What the world needs now is not love, sweet love, but humility and curiosity. Give me humility and curiosity any day and the love will follow but without humility and curiosity it is difficult to muster up the emotion of love.

Ideas worth considering - Do you care about the Neanderthals?

 How have you benefited from learning about the Neanderthals?

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The subject line is being changed from "Blast From The Past" to "Ideas worth remembering."

Some of us read a lot of books. What are we after, quantity or quality? Reading can be entertaining and certainly takes up a lot of spare time. However, what did we learn from our reading that helps us grow as individuals and helps us better understand the world we are living in? Is what we read useful in any way?

I liked reading Kindred because I didn't know anything about the Neanderthals except that they existed at one time and were probably a link in the chain of evolution of homo sapiens. It was interesting to learn that some of us still have some Neanderthal DNA in us and we are a product biologically, socially, technologically of what they were composed of, experienced, and learned.

What do you remember and has stuck with you after reading and discussion Kindred?

Ideas Worth Considering - Is human nature good or bad?

 Is human nature good or bad?

What's your view of basic human nature? Is it good or bad?

Raised as a Roman Catholic I was taught it was bad. Human beings are born with Original Sin and we are sinners who need the death of Jesus to redeem us and set us right with God.

So we spend our lives trying to be good and to be worthy because we have been conditioned to believe that we are basically bad. It has taken me decades to shed this conditioning and now I believe the opposite, that we are blessed by life bestowed by our Transcendent Source who loves us unconditionally.​ As humans we make plenty of mistakes and I have learned that's how we learn and grow and mature.

It has taken me a lifetime to come to the belief that people are basically good. Having been taught the opposite by clerics who want to make me dependent on their religious powers to save my ass is the biggest scam ever perpetrated on humanity.

Bregman has done us a huge favor bringing to consciousness the most fundamental existential question of all. Is human nature good or bad? Your answer is .....?