How many of you think, that humanity didn't keep up with the ages, and so far what we have seen in the past decade, the 21st. century looks almost like the dark ages compared to the 90s and 80s?

I mean, what in the hell are we doing in the 21st century and (almost 2010) engaging in religious wars, bowing to popes and priests popping back up from the middle ages, while the once great dreams of space-age and prosperity and more peace then ever?

Just what happened ?

Don't you feel that way? Don't you feel like we are stuck in an alternative dimension and this is not what you imagined 20 years ago to be? Poverty, depression, endless wars, while the space shuttles from the 80s are falling apart, driving gas guzzling SUVs that waste more fuel than cars of the 80s and we are borrowing money from China?

Come on now....is this what you imagined to be 10 or 20 years ago in 2010?

I mean, for God's sake, China....look what the Chinese are doing lately, they made this under 4 years. Including the entire network of trains and stations:

World’s Fastest High-Speed Train is Now Running in China
http://cleantechnica.com/2009/12/29/worlds-fastest-high-speed-train-is-now-running-in-china/






This image doesn't bother you at all? Don't you feel like "we should have something better than this by now? "

Am I the only one who wants to ask questions from politicans and leaders such as "Where is my future? What have you done with it? Where is my children's future?"

Everybody is just somehow in a deep coma or what?

You answered your question with your very last sentence....


Those who don't feel this love pulling them like a river,
Those who don't drink dawn like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper, those who don't want to change,
let them sleep....


Rumi

The USA is fast falling prey to its own arrogance and utter stupidity. We've brainwashed ourselves to believe that we are the smartest and most powerful nation on the planet and we've become overly arrogant and complacent in that belief.



You're right about the advancements that other countries are making. And China is indeed a country that could easily become the next world superpower. The USA is very likely to fall from power very soon, most likely from loss of financial power. What are we going to do when China calls us on our debt and we can't pay it? They need us now, but it won't be long before they won't need us anymore and then they won't have an incentive to keep us afloat financially.



Dogmatic religions are a very strong cancer of the mind. In some sense they are actually becoming more powerful because of the Internet, but it's not so much the Catholics you need to beware of, it's the fundamental protestants who are doing the really nasty stuff behind the scenes. They have already launched major Internet programs designed to 'covert' the younger generations in Arab countries to "Christianity", and that's going to become a genuinely serious "Holy War" as time marches forward because the Arab countries are already feeling pressured by it.

Yes, unfortunately the dogmatic religions aren't going away anytime soon.



You can blame a lot of that on the scientific community and their very 'pragmatic approach' to things. In fact, it may not even be the whole community, it could be "science fundamentalists" as some people call them.

But here's the scoop:

People have been taught to believe several things from the 'science-minded' community.

1. Science supports an atheistic and non-spiritual view of life:

This may not be true in the most technical sense, but a lot of people have fallen into believing this and even preaching it. So people are basically being told that there is "No Hope" for any "Divine Purpose" and that life is just an accident.

Trust me, that kind of thinking causes a LOT of people to just give up hope altogether for anything meaningful.

The second thing that science (or a misrepresentation of science) has done for us is to convince people that traveling to the stars is just not practical. Based on science it's impossible to ever travel faster than the speed of light (plus it even highly impractical to even dream of traveling close to the speed of light anytime soon). Moreover, even if such a feat could be technologically achieved, the side-effects of traveling at those speeds (mainly time-dilation), tells us that even if we succeed in reaching a speed near the speed of light it would still mean that we could never leave and expect to return back to Earth (at least not in a time period that we would recognize).

Finally, even if we achieved traveling at exactly the speed of light it would still take at least 4 years just to travel to the nearest star which, doesn't even appear to have any planets around it.

In other words, the hope of achieving space travel has basically been shot down for all practical purposes. At best we might be able to meander around our own solar system attempting to terraform a view planets like Mars, Venus and maybe the moon to some degree. But even those projects would be extremely difficult, expensive and not something that could be planned out within the course of a human lifetime.

In other words, any work we do toward space travel would require that we dedicate our lives just to starting the projects for future generations to potentially carry on.

And now we're looking at the possibility that we're destroying the very planet we live on. How can we dream about "terraforming" whole planets when it doesn't appear that we can even keep a really great one in good shape?

In short, I just don't think people have much hope. And when people try to spark people's interest in these kind of these the "Science Fundamentalists" come out of the closets and start screaming, "That's so unrealistic! You're dreaming! Blah, Blah, Blah!"

People just have no "Faith" in anything anymore. It's all been stolen away by the 'pragmatics".

Life is an accident, there is no such thing as spirit, space travel is unrealistic, blah blah blah.

So people go back to worshiping the Pope. At least he's promising that there's something more to life than just the dead-end of a pragmatic non-spiritual science that has life just being a random accident with no divine purpose.

Science may have been its own nemesis in the end.

Terraforming planets? Geez! Can we even save the one we already have?

But I'm in total agreement with you. We seem to be going downhill rather than up. Not enough inspirational leaders. And too many "Holy Wars".

Also, if we can't even keep our economy in check why should we believe we could maintain a biosphere?

All Hope is just being sucked out from under us by greedy, stupid, and corrupt politicians, bankers, CEOs, etc.

No wonder you see all these riots all over the world. I think it isn't about politics, but mostly many people are just sick and tired of the staleness.

...maybe people are sick and tired of being sick and tired

we as a person and as a nation dont understand that we truly do run this country, in our everyday decisions thats we make, corrupt politicans are present because we cannot be our selfs, heck i cant even quote a bible scripture in a thread thats not religious specific, even if its how i feel. Wealthy CEOS, some complain about walmart, "they are runing the economy", we make walmart rich in our everyday spending, the world as a whole is going down hill becasue "WE" as a human race have chosen the "easier" "cheaper" and most logical route, took the short term gain instead of consequences later on, some blame religion, =) as its gotten worse religions has became smaller in peoples life.

If you feel that you have to quote bible scriptures to express how you feel then by all means go ahead...you just there were able to put your feelings into words very well...
not everyone lives by or believes in the bible, that is why there is a place for it.
The topic you just bought up about religions getting smaller would be a very good thread topic in the general religion forum. There are many here who would love to discuss that with you.

Peace brother

thats one way to look at it

Now, imagine you're a woman, and your legs are open, and this Chinese train is
headed for your tunnel at its full 350 Km/hr and then it get there and in... wow, what a rush.

If you're a woman already, you can disregard the first instruction.

I asked my Chinese teacher to read the three characters on the nose of the train,
and she said it means in English, loosely translated, "Suck on THIS, Amy!"

No, not at all. It has poetry and beauty written all over it. It has
a calm peacefulness about it.

I just took a trainride from Toronto the other day to a suburb, and
I was appalled how the place was jazzed up with adverts.

You could not spit and not hit one or another form of advertisement.

There are now 78-inch LCD screens just for screening advertisements.

Look at the Chinese railway station. Not one friggin' ugly stypid advert.

I wish to live in a land where I don't have to suffer stupid ads and
enjoy the benefit of free medical help, whether I need it or not.

I wish to live in a country where there are free elections, freedom of
speech, free cheeseburgers for all and three girlfriends for everyone.

Sweedish blondes, to be exact.