That’s a good one!
For the vast majority people in human history, indeed most of the people alive today, this statement is absolutely true.
You will get what you deserve (or: you don’t deserve what you don’t have).
See: religion, the invisible hand of the free market and the law of attraction.
Also: democracy equals free market capitalism equals freedom.
Women who don’t give birth are unnatural, deranged, etc. Also women who enjoy sex.
“Teh gay” can be cured.
Whatever the heck this thread is about, it is not a Great Debate.
I’m tempted to send it to MPSIMS, but I guess we’ll try IMHO, first.
ETA: If there is a particular belief that anyone wishes to debate, regarding how widespread it was or how it was created or propagated, you are welcome to start a new thread on that specific topic in GD.
Similarly, if someone can propose an actual argument regarding how various beliefs are created or propagated, it will be accepted in GD, but a list of erroneous ideas (or ideas you believe erroneous 
) is not GD material.
Here’s the actual quote from the book:
So, there was no, “paper is unchristian” motivation there, not by Frederick II, at least.
This.
Friable, not frisable :mad:!
Sorry, petty revenge for you getting to the quote first. As soon as I read Sage Rat’s post I pulled down my copy and was all ready to refute it, then I read down and saw you had beaten me to it. Curses!!!
Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of cat, one molecule of dog.
It’s a silly form of reductionism to state that just because everything is made of atoms, that atoms are the only things that exist. The structures made of those atoms exist too. among those structures is the human cortex, a structure that houses a mind that can be just and merciful.
You have to admit that Justice and Mercy are a little less concrete than cats and dogs. At the metaphor level I take the quote at, dogs and cats would be sieved out.
OP you’re an idiot.
Not to brag or anything, but I bested Captain Amazing by almost a year on this one.
When you look at the effect on humanity, ‘Iraq has WMD’ has to be way up on the list.
No insults are permitted in this forum. Do not do this again.
Ellen Cherry
IMHO Moderator
The two biggest and most persistent lies perpetrated on humanity, IMHO are:
- That it’s even remotely possible for us all to “just get along”
- God-based religion
What? really?
Well, this is less true in the USa than msot other places but I think if you take a survey of the top 1% of Americans, you will find that there is a heavy skew towards those whose parents were in the top 10% of Americans.
Wait? What? So they’re ALL faking it? I KNEW IT!!!
I want to know more about how this genetic memory works. Obviously the native Americans knew about the New World, and there’s pretty good evidence that the Vikings had been there in about 1000BC, but I’m curious as to why you would think other people ‘instinctively’ knew about it. Why would the royalty of Spain have gone to great expense to send Columbus on a trip to find a route to the orient if, on any level, they suspected that something was in the way? I mean, I know the New World turned out to be profitable to the Europeans, but you can hardly argue that they knew they were headed there, can you?
If by “we” you mean “the old world”, then yes, because the aboriginal peoples on either side of the bering strait knew about and were related to each other. Just they didn’t think of Alaska (or Russia) as a “new” continent and no one bothered to ask them about it.
Only by typing a post riddled with typos, though. Riddled!