Monopoly and the Turd Sandwich!

Let me start by thanking you for this debate. 1. Now let's get started. First off you start talking about religion and regard it as a myth and treat it as the equivalent to children's stories. I am agnostic and there is no religion I inherently believe in. What you should understand about religion though is it has impacted billions of people's lives and given them an amazing sense of community and has allowed them to live life believing that in the end they will spend the rest of eternity in endless bliss. Whether their belief of afterlife is true or not it allows them to live a higher quality life as they don't have to live in such an intense fear of death. Religion has had many positive impacts in people's lives as well. Religion also has the potential to create a better society. I will use Buddhism as an example. Buddhism teaches people to not hate, but to love life and live their lives trying to find their true happiness. Buddhism also teaches people to not sink to the level of greed and lust and simply be happy with what they have. Not all religion is such a bad thing. Also studies have shown that religious people who attend community events for their religion are, generally, more happy. ( http://www.minnpost.com... ) The best explanation for this is the amazing sense of community many of them will get. So if we can manage religion and keep it to having a positive effect on society it really isn't a bad thing at all. Think about it like salami on a sandwich. Some people love it. others are kind of just ok with it there but don't really like it or dislike it. Others hate it with a passion. If you like it, eat it but keep it to yourself. If you're in the middle leave it on or take it off it doesn't matter. If you hate it, just don't eat it. Now onto the next topic. The economy 2. Let's start off with a little history lesson of where the economy came from. It all started where people living the nomadic lifestyle discovered if they put a plant in the ground and nurture it, it grows and you can eat it. This allowed people to create massive amounts of food and allow others to specialize in jobs and this started what is called the division of labor. This allowed us to create the medicine and technology we have today. Then this led to trading. Trading allowed exchange of goods, so people could life easier lives thanks to technology. Then after time we drifted from this model, around our time during the global economy. You're right the economy is run by corporations driven by greed, while they control the population by giving them a comfortable life meanwhile blinding them to the impacts their lifestyle has on the less fortunate. You're right the powerful take what they want from the weak and get angry when they try to make a living with what they have instead of either curling up and dying, or becoming just like the people who took what they had. So what can we do? Become aware. Take power. You can make a movement to make it to the top and stop the corruption. The corporations won't care how much you complain about their greed and their actions. They care if you stop buying their products. They see you as dollar bills, not people. Boycott the harmful corporations and make your way to the top to replace the greed with generosity. It may be a long shot, but it's worth trying. And now for the difficult part. 3. My interpretation is your asking why we only focus what we want and what we lust after instead of caring about what we truly need. This is not a behavior I will excuse or justify, instead I will do my best to put a stop to it. You're right the justice system will punish those regardless of who it may affect, but let me ask you this. What would you rather have us do? Let criminals walk the streets to be repeat offenders. Then as you put it the rich and powerful go to jail, and get off with only a slightly more lightweight wallet, but I already stated what we can do to change the greed inherent in our system. Then we work and we work just to get a slight amount of what we earned for who we work for. As you put it, just enough to feed our families which traps us into a system of waged slavery. This is horrible, but it can change and it's up to us to do that. We can make it to the top and replace the corporations to change the system and create a better system. For my final interpretation of your words this is about waged slavery how we just run in circles to only get the same thing every day, day after day. The same turd sandwich. So I have some solutions for you. You can 1. Make your way up to change the system and maybe if you're lucky you'll get more than just a turd sandwich. 2. You can learn to like the turd sandwich and learn to enjoy running through your hamster wheel, maybe it's not so bad after all? 3. Or you can do you're little part in the position you are in now. You can give the voice to those who have no voice. You can start working to change the system from the bottom up. 4. Or you can just do nothing about it and complain about how it is. Your choice, I'd prefer one of the first 3. Maybe the world we live in isn't so perfect. It's got a lot of problems, but instead of doing nothing about it we either make the most out of it, or we get up and do something about it to make a better world.