Man one step closer to God?

[kthx]

So you going to argue with Wikipedia when you have been using it to prove your Atheistic views the entire thread?

[Kolar]

Actually the Athenians took advantage of the Delian League to empower themselves as a naval super-power in the region. This put Sparta and the other city-states at a disadvantage after the invasion by Persia was repelled. Athens went on the offensive against Sparta and its allies at the onset of the war seeking to not directly engage the superior land forces. Ultimately they were defeated due to an outbreak of the plague within the city. While Athens did produce many of the worlds greatest ancient philosophers, artist and writers, it also produced many of the greatest statesmen and generals. Sparta didn't attack Athens because they feared their advancement or were envious, they most likely sought dominance over them for resources, politics and to secure Greece against its enemies wanting to be the primary greek military power in the region.

Edit: Philip II developed the military formation known as the phalanx which is credited with him being able to take leadership of Greece crushing his opposition. An innovation which took thought and practice to become a superior weapon of war. It seems to me that cultures that emphsis innovation, education and technology over brute force, superior in numbers philosophies seem to lead to dominance and greater expansion in the ancient world, not the other way around.

[kthx]

How is it not relevant, I don't think we are talking about only this era.

And it is pretty ridiculous to claim that humans will be able to perform deity like miracles at any time during our existence.


"The Simpsons" Marge Simpson "We can do anything now that science has invented Magic".

[Noah]

I don't see the relevance.

Back in those days it was perfectly ok to just go and invade other countries, but today it isn't. There isn't anyone who would attack anyone else in the western world because they want their advancements. Science is free to do whatever without having to fear military reactions these days, unless it's science directed towards war and destruction.

It's just a question of time before humanity can do everything any deity could do.

[kthx]

Athens was a center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Akademia and Aristotle's Lyceum,[1][2] Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Pericles, Sophocles, and its many other prominent philosophers, writers and politicians of the ancient world. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western Civilization, and the birthplace of democracy,[3] largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then known European continent.[4]

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ɨˈɡɛməni/ (Brit.))[1] (Greek: ἡγεμονία hēgemonía) is a concept that has been used to describe and explain the dominance of one social group over another, such that the ruling group or hegemon acquires some degree of consent from the subordinate, as opposed to dominance purely by force.[2] It is used broadly to mean any kind of dominance, and narrowly to refer to specifically cultural and non-military dominance, as opposed to the related notions of empire and suzerainty.

In international relations, a hegemon may be defined as a power that can dictate the policies of all other powers in its vicinity, or one that is able to defeat any other power or combination of powers that it might be at war with. An example of a hegemonic state in history is the united Germany that existed from 1871 to 1945,[3] or historically the Spanish and British Empires.

---------------

Resentment by other cities at the hegemony of Athens led to the Peloponnesian War in 431, which pitted Athens and her increasingly rebellious sea empire against a coalition of land-based states led by Sparta. The conflict marked the end of Athenian command of the sea. The war between Athens and the city-state Sparta ended with an Athenian defeat.

The democracy was briefly overthrown by a coup in 411 due to its poor handling of the war, but quickly restored. The war ended with the complete defeat of Athens in 404. Since the defeat was largely blamed on democratic politicians such as Cleon and Cleophon, there was a brief reaction against democracy, aided by the Spartan army (the rule of the Thirty Tyrants). In 403, democracy was restored by Thrasybulus and an amnesty declared.

------------------

By mid century, however, the northern kingdom of Macedon was becoming dominant in Athenian affairs, despite the warnings of the last great statesman of independent Athens, Demosthenes. In 338 BC the armies of Philip II defeated the other Greek cities at the Battle of Chaeronea, effectively ending Athenian independence. Further, the conquests of his son, Alexander the Great, widened Greek horizons and made the traditional Greek city state obsolete. Athens remained a wealthy city with a brilliant cultural life, but ceased to be an independent power. In the 2nd century, after 200 years of Macedonian supremacy, Greece was absorbed into the Roman Republic. (right)

--------------------

So, as you can see, the country that was more interested in cultural things, other than military things, was eventually dominated by more war-like civilizations in part due to jealously of what they had accomplished.

[Kolar]

Are you really going to try to argue with me that certain countries fared much better in battle when they thought less about culture, and more about warfare? I know you want to try to prove me wrong but this is an ignorant assumption, of course a warlike civilization is going to dominate a civilization who has so much time to think about what at the time could be said to be useless information.

Could you give some examples?

[Noah]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54tjbgJmLFg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqF19Phn0Og



Yeah obviously he has all of the good traits of Hitler and none of the bad ones. Because he doesn't use certain words to sway the minds of ignorant people.

Swaying the people with certain words in order to get into a certain position of power is pretty much something every politician has to do. Nobody will ever be elected for pure politics alone, they will also need a certain amount of charisma and propaganda. There's nothing saying that you either have to have good politics or good pr, it is possible to have both.

I bet I can also find videos of batshit insane people that isn't really relevant to anything. There's always a crazy minority group of people that supports any cause.

Oh, HTF, this is going to be my only response to you:

[kthx]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54tjbgJmLFg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqF19Phn0Og



Yeah obviously he has all of the good traits of Hitler and none of the bad ones. Because he doesn't use certain words to sway the minds of ignorant people.

[HateTheFake]

I just have to correct you on one point Wark. You tend to build up arguments that is based on your many faulty assumptions.

There was no such thing as "Germany thought they were superior". Germany's brilliance in war can mostly be credited to some extremely competent generals. The generals actually advised against going into Russia Hitler ignored his generals and went into Russia because he himself had lost his sense. If the generals of Germany didn't have Hitler to answer to, then Germany could have won the war. This isn't very relevant to the original argument in this thread, I just wanted to prove you wrong on the many faulty points you build up your arguments on.

Also it's a compliment to Obama that you think he is more like Hitler than McCain. Hitler is perhaps the politician that has done the most for Germany when you look at the internal politics. The political system that Germany is based on today is the same system Hitler built up, just without the nazi facism.

germany did feel they were superior, anyone else remember the holocaust?

[Noah]

I just have to correct you on one point Wark. You tend to build up arguments that is based on your many faulty assumptions.

There was no such thing as "Germany thought they were superior". Germany's brilliance in war can mostly be credited to some extremely competent generals. The generals actually advised against going into Russia Hitler ignored his generals and went into Russia because he himself had lost his sense. If the generals of Germany didn't have Hitler to answer to, then Germany could have won the war. This isn't very relevant to the original argument in this thread, I just wanted to prove you wrong on the many faulty points you build up your arguments on.

Also it's a compliment to Obama that you think he is more like Hitler than McCain. Hitler is perhaps the politician that has done the most for Germany when you look at the internal politics. The political system that Germany is based on today is the same system Hitler built up, just without the nazi facism.

[kthx]

If you're so interested in history, war and politics maybe you should start
studying it rather than creating false assumptions based on little information.
There were hundreds of factors behind the Nazi idea in Germany, not just an
assumption of technological superiority. The germans had had a long history
of wars and german empire ideas even before WW1, after WW1 the economy
was going down hill and people were unemployed, starving and poor, so there
was a need for a change. Germany is the largest country in Europe looking at
the amount of citizens, so they had good labour resources. Germans were
protestants, which meant that they believed in hard work. Mass hysteria
combined with fears of future and neigbours created by the people in power
lead to one of the greatest tragedies in human history. It wasn't liberalist
ideas that created fear and hate towards the "others", it was conservatism,
belief in good old traditions that the great empire of Germany had had, that
it should once again try to take it's place in the world order.

Are you saying that Athen people were weak because of their new ways
of thinking? It may all be just fancy thought games and higher thinking to
you now, but with out the Ancient Greek we could be a thousand years late
in technological advancement. They really were the first people to start
asking the right questions and writing them down. What made this possible
can be argued but one of the major factors were that they had established a
polis, a city-state, where you had citizenship which allowed you to have
ownership and take part in politics among other things. Only free men were
allowed to be citizens, women were not considered equal to men and thus
not fit for politics, slaves weren't considered to be human at all. As for the
Spartans, they were just another polis, like Athens and Thebes that won and
lost wars in the pursuit of leadership of Greece, which finally ended with
Macedonia taking advantage of the war weakened polies (Sparta was not
even a polis anymore at the time) and beat the two ruling polies Athens and
Thebes.

OK, I have kinda tried to stay out of this argument instead of explaining the obvious links between the Greeks and Romans but now that you decide to jump in. First off I never said that Germany went to war for one reason only, and said that it was because they were technologically advanced, I said that it was one of the reasons they made stupid mistakes that eventually cost them the war, like trying to take on Russia during winter. I think it would be ignorant to say that Germany's own ideas of superiority with technology didn't play a pretty obvious role in the battles they fought during the war. Besides that I never mentioned anything to do with Germany and Liberalism, I brought that up with the Sparta/Athens debate. Because since you are so well versed obviously you would know that there are many more similarities between Obama and Hitler than lets say.. McCain and Hitler. Especially if you look at the campaign, but I don't think you really want to go there being the liberal that you are.

Are you really going to try to argue with me that certain countries fared much better in battle when they thought less about culture, and more about warfare? I know you want to try to prove me wrong but this is an ignorant assumption, of course a warlike civilization is going to dominate a civilization who has so much time to think about what at the time could be said to be useless information.

[Kolar]

Why havent we done it? People that are smarter than you havent yet

And while we're on that subject, it's the year 2009; Where's my flying car?

[Izor]

Changing RNA into DNA is REALLY FREAKING EASY

Why havent we done it? People that are smarter than you havent yet

[Fluffz]

Yes, I know that much of what I'm debating here seems to suggest that the only remaining sensible ideology is nihilism.
I'm debating that the only remaining sensible ideology is nihilism
I'm debating nihilism
nihilism

what

[Ara]

I see what you are saying, but what about countries like Germany who obviously made decisions on who they were able to defeat in battle based on the technology they had created. the Vbombs, the Uboats, the Panzer tanks, the new fighting techniques (blitzkrieg etc). I personally feel that with all of the advanced technology Germany had at the time that it bolstered up their ego a bit when it came to deciding who they could beat. I know Germany didn't purposefully try to draw America into the war, but surely they knew that there was a possibility of the Zimmerman Note being intercepted and knew the risks. They obviously thought they could handle it.

Now as far other ways that scientifically advanced cultures have destroyed themselves is by becoming too secure in their technology over more real world things. Athens became a theological state more than a state of war, and because of this they had children growing up wanting to be poets, senators, artists, sculptors and engineers over growing up wanting to be soldiers and blacksmiths. I would argue that liberalism is doing the same thing in America as we speak, we are all so foolish that we think countries like China and Russia will never attack us, so we go on our way wanting to be rock stars, and sports stars, we want to be politicians, but we have a lack of people who are actually willing to fight even today in America. So based on that I would conclude that not even America will last forever, because eventually we will be attacked by a Spartan culture who has constantly been preparing and readying for war, while our attention is divided to other occupations and paths in life.

--

Yeah and I know that isn't exactly what you meant either, and you are right no country has destroyed itself using the technology that it invented for itself, but it has been a factor in the destruction of several civilizations.

If you're so interested in history, war and politics maybe you should start
studying it rather than creating false assumptions based on little information.
There were hundreds of factors behind the Nazi idea in Germany, not just an
assumption of technological superiority. The germans had had a long history
of wars and german empire ideas even before WW1, after WW1 the economy
was going down hill and people were unemployed, starving and poor, so there
was a need for a change. Germany is the largest country in Europe looking at
the amount of citizens, so they had good labour resources. Germans were
protestants, which meant that they believed in hard work. Mass hysteria
combined with fears of future and neigbours created by the people in power
lead to one of the greatest tragedies in human history. It wasn't liberalist
ideas that created fear and hate towards the "others", it was conservatism,
belief in good old traditions that the great empire of Germany had had, that
it should once again try to take it's place in the world order.

Are you saying that Athen people were weak because of their new ways
of thinking? It may all be just fancy thought games and higher thinking to
you now, but with out the Ancient Greek we could be a thousand years late
in technological advancement. They really were the first people to start
asking the right questions and writing them down. What made this possible
can be argued but one of the major factors were that they had established a
polis, a city-state, where you had citizenship which allowed you to have
ownership and take part in politics among other things. Only free men were
allowed to be citizens, women were not considered equal to men and thus
not fit for politics, slaves weren't considered to be human at all. As for the
Spartans, they were just another polis, like Athens and Thebes that won and
lost wars in the pursuit of leadership of Greece, which finally ended with
Macedonia taking advantage of the war weakened polies (Sparta was not
even a polis anymore at the time) and beat the two ruling polies Athens and
Thebes.

Back on topic ignoring some semantics about rome and greece, humanity will never achieve the level of 'God'. I mean cloning yeah, but actually creating life and engineering DNA? No one truly understands DNA or how its written. Furthermore, if some God didnt exist how was something as complex as DNA ever created? Some things are just meant for us to never fully comprehend

You sound like a conservative islamist to me.