(November 30, 2014 at 8:20 pm)Lek Wrote: The problem is we can't keep from doing bad things to other people.
I don't agree in the slightest. We would never have civilized if we had no capacity to control our base instincts. I think we are not only capable of refraining from doing intentional ill to others, but we're slowly coming to understand that we shouldn't need some external incentive to be that way.
And, we didn't learn this from some holy book. In large part, we learned it because our more ignorant forebears so thoroughly shamed themselves with some of the things they did that many of the rest of us would never propose another Holocaust or the re-legalization of human slavery.
But, of course, we still have a lot of enlightening yet to do. There will be a future generation of humans that look back on the evils of unrestrained capitalism in much the same way we look back on the evils of chattel slavery, and wonder what kind of cavemen could possibly think that skin color is an important characteristic in a person.