cheetah

pug,
Your exact quote quite clearly insinuated that you felt there was never time when anyone felt communism was a good idea, whether you deny SAYING it or not. I think anyone with a basic command of the English language would have gotten that feeling from your words.

And, about people making unsubstantiated claims (by which I assume you meant me, since that post was directed at me), i feel that my post quite accurately used words like "seems...to me" and showed interest in proving through a study what I believed from personal experience to be true. How is that making a claim that is unsubstantiated?

pug846

Cheetah said:

I think you are reading a wee bit too much into what I said – I wasn’t trying to say anything profound. It was obviously (?) a rhetorical question. Clearly there have been times in the course of the world that people have felt that Communism was a good idea. (Many still do). I was poking fun at the thought that someone might have actually thought Communism was a “good idea,” when it clearly, on paper and in practice, isn’t.

I wasn’t referring specifically to you. The very idea of being able to test the idea of whether or not religion has done more good or evil is silly. How could you even begin to go about quantifying “good” and “evil?” So, we can all hold opinions on the subject, those opinions will all be unsubstantiated.

Sorry for the confusion.

Orpheous99

Originally posted by pug846:

Do you honestly think most people in the world are any different? Does the average European know any more about Afghanistan than the average American? I think it is a sad fact that most Americans don’t know more about the rest of the world – but I don’t think Americans are all that unique in that respect.

Actually it is pretty much an American thing in the industrialized world. Americans do very poorly on geography. The average Canadian knows far more about the USA than the average American does about Canada.


The most efficient system, IMO, is much closer to “ideal” Capitalism than “ideal” Communism. Capitalism very much takes into account human nature and human desires.

Actually an ideal system would be the blending of the best features of the two into one.

But, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. ...I believe people were making unsubstantiated claims about how much evil or good religion does ( ).

They weren't unsubstantiated. One only has to look at history to see the evil done in one god's name or another.

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Orpheous99 ]</p>

tronvillain

Orpheous99:
While you may be right about Americans and knowledge about the world, I don't think this is the best example to illustrate it. The average citizen of Colorado probably knows far more about the USA than the average American does about Colorado. While that's not exactly analagous to Canada and the US, in that Canada is not actually part of the US, it's pretty close.

Orpheous99

Actually your example proves my point. The geographical education in the USA is haphazard as it is. Where educational budgets more often than not get cut in favor of short-term tax breaks at the expence of the children's future.