World Peace?

[trekkor]

What does this mean to you and what are the obstacles to true peace for all mankind?

Do you believe it will be a reality? Is it possible? When?

Thanks



KT

[trekkor]

That's true. How though?


KT

[Aurel]

Peace will happen when fear will disappear. Fear is typically what causes people and nations to beleive that what they have will be taken away by an ennemy if they do not constantly fight for it. This is based on the premise that space, food, energy are in limited supply, and thereby must be fought for in order to ensure the survival of their group, usually considered superior therefore more deserving of survival.

Now, let us examine what is wrong in this reasoning, and how peace would be possible.

First of all, it is the identification of people with groups, be they ethnic, religious or patriotic, which causes the separation from the rest of human beings. Then, fear is created by the leaders of groups, as a means of leading their group to confrontation with enemy groups, resulting in more power and wealth for the leader.

Secondly, the fear of loss of food, shelter and energy are deeply rooted forces which generate agressive behaviour towards presuposed ennemies. It is based on the idea that goods are in limited supply, which is contrary to most religious books that teach us to have faith in God, who will provide all that we need.

Peace is achieveble when fear will be eradicated. This will be done when we come to the realization that everything will be all right if we trust and have faith in all the help that is available from the heavens to make us achieve miracles that will render pointless any form of conflict. Believe in the impossible, and the impossible will happen.

Aurel

[trekkor]

Thanks for your post.


KT

[cool_chick]

World peace is unachievable. It's against the nature of the human species.

[daepp]

This was built for Frank Miller of Riverside, CA, who fervently believed in World peace before the first world war. I guess you could say he was a bit naive, but then again, naivete still runs strong today!

[Nostril Cheese]

abolish religion. Peace will follow

[daepp]

How will you abolish religion - though peaceful means?

[trekkor]

Originally posted by Nostril Cheese
abolish religion. Peace will follow

Yes, but how would you do this? Who will step up?

What about organized crime and the like?


Religion plays a huge role in global unrest, that is true.
But world peace is more than this.


KT

[Nostril Cheese]

Originally posted by daepp
How will you abolish religion - though peaceful means?

You will all cower under my iron fist. Now bring me nacho cheese labia!

[pwd72s]

Many could help achieve world peace by putting away their cell phones, paying attention to their driving, and using their damned turn signals!

[livi]

Homo sapience will require a gigantic catastrophe in order to unit. Along the lines of a new ice era or giant meteor crash, when all our petty conflicts will be totally insignificant. No less, no earlier.

Naturally, for those who survive, the world peace will only last so long..

[YTNUKLR]

"World peace" means to me the state of being in which people don't fight; everyone is allowed to live their lives without fear of being killed or deprived of essential resources.

Obstacles:
1.) "Power is of an encroaching nature."--James Madison, Federalist Papers. "Power" in one of its definitions means the will/ability to subjugate others or consolidate groups.
2.) Resources are scarce. There is no such thing as unlimited oil, food, water, shelter, etc.

Both of these concepts go hand in hand with competition. People compete for power and resources, in varying capacities. Competition, though it arguably can lead to peace (perhaps citing capitalist America as a 'peaceful nation' because it fosters an environment in which people are very concerned about their financial security compared to, say, Iraq) is inherently fostered by inequality (economically or otherwise).

Competition is the fundamental law that governs outcomes. In evolution, better adapted organisms competed with and bettered more poorly adapted organisms. In business, better businesses out-compete worse businesses. Better products beat worse products in a consumer marketplace. In a macro sense, "better" people out-compete "worse" people: people that are thin and flexible beat lazy fat people at gymnastics and people that are artistic are better at painting pictures than people with no artistic ability. Savants are better at memorizing things than non-savants. Etc.

I personally do not think "world peace" is a reality, ever. Every human is unique. Every unique human is competing with every other unique human in some capacity, in order to stay on this planet and further proliferate their particular mutations of DNA. Every unique DNA makeup only fosters more DNA mutations, thus, more unique people. Perhaps, at some point, humans will be surpassed by another, more evolved species and the cycle of competition for power/resources will continue. Keep in mind that humans began evolving ~5 million years ago, while the universe has (we think) been around for 14,000 million (14 Billion) years. Humans have evolved from ape-like animals to Homo sapiens in .036% the amount of time that time has even existed!

Then again, there might be an argument that sometime in the non-foreseeable future, consciousness will evolve in ways commensurate to our ability to conceive of the unknown, ie., the idea of world peace. What I'm trying to say is, perhaps sometime in the future people will rationally be able to restrain themselves from exercising competitive instincts to deprive others of resources, power, etc. Until that day comes, I will make sure I have plenty of food, water and a nice shelter, I am on my cell phone as much as possible, never use my turn signal and crusade around the world forcing people to agree with my religion and beliefs on pain of death (by torture)!

World peace is for sissies.

[nostatic]

how about a world-class piece?

[Zef]

It's in the human being to fight/dominate....!

[Tervuren]

World peace will only occur when one leader achieves complete total control.

[red-beard]

Whirrled Peas is possible

[Flatbutt1]

Originally posted by Tervuren
World peace will only occur when one leader achieves complete total control.

Doesn't this precede the Apocalypse?

[trekkor]

How about just local peace, then? Apply the questions locally.

What does this mean to you and what are the obstacles to true peace for all mankind?

Do you believe it will be a reality? Is it possible? When?

I'd like to hear your outlook. It's important to me.


KT

[hytem]

If you go back a thousand years, religion had a much bigger political say in the power structures than it does today. That tells you something, perhaps.

Mankind has to move much more to humanism, which places a higher value on humanity than religion does, for it to survive. Right now, the nuclear deterrent is staving off disaster.

Religion is a two-edged sword. Good and bad. The good part is humanism. The bad part is the spiritual, which leads to all the dissension over stuff that is not provable, one way or the other. People do evil things in the name of God or Allah, and they know they're right.