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I want my husband, our children, my nieces & nephews, & their future kids to thrive after I'm gone. But I also want America to thrive. And I want all of humanity to thrive after I'm gone, as well.

So do I. Thats why you and I are on the same side in this battle.

our understanding of historical events gets more accurate as time goes on, as secrets are revealed & known facts are looked at again with hindsight.

I agree. While Truth is an objective thing, our knowledge of it is incomplete, and we advance toward it by fits and starts, sometimes forgetting some truths and having to relearn them at great cost, but in general we advance toward truth generation by generation.

But you also have the opposite dynamic, you have the Romans overturned by the Goths, burning books for firewood. You have Latin Americans having won their liberty at long last returning to a kind of left-fascism by which they re-interpret the world. Each stage of misery is then used to justify the next stage of misery.

The advance toward truth is never a straight line, and sometimes there are tragic detours. That is part of what makes history so fascinating.

That's why I think that - eventually - China will abandon Communism altogether and become more open & free.

Long term I agree. Short- to mid-term is a bit spooky, but long term looks good. The question is how long, and what happens on the way. I would make a great prognosticator, wouldn't I?

I think that eventually, Africa will come around.

If we can replace leftist solutions with rule of law, I agree.

But this all depends on what we do with our lives. Every action we take implicitly declares a moral code to the rest of the world. So by our actions we're either declaring a world of a virtuous cycle of rationality, prosperity, safety, & progress, or we're tearing it down in favor of a code that leads to some variation of all-against-all.

Very well stated. I couldn't have said it better. Its worth repeating.

You don't need a concept of a supernatural Authority Figure to come up with a moral code that promotes enlightened behavior. The real world provides one just fine.

You are assuming that a supernatural Authority Figure is a kind of useful fiction. He either is or is not. His nature, if he is, is unaffected by our belief or lack of it. Objective truth is or is not, without regard to our opinion of it. You are, of course, whether I believe in you or not.

But even if you don't believe in me, you have come to the same belief in the ultimate rationality of liberty, and the ultimate rationality of a fruitful and active life, and the ultimate rationality of service to something beyond yourself. If there were a God, he would agree with us, of course, because if there were a God, this rationality would be a reflection of the nature that established our nature. The Creator of the real world that is your model would have been the source of the rationality that you draw from observing it.

So while we may seem to disagree, the disagreement is less than it appears.

The greatest revolution which paved the way for the American revolution was the belief that God wanted men to be free. That has never been part of every religion. It isn't now, but it was this shift in religious thinking that made America possible.

You may count yourself as an atheist, but your atheism isn't the key part of your nature. Nazis and Marxists are atheists, but you have nothing in common with them. What is key is that you have looked at the same world they looked at, and rather than arrive at an analysis that is hateful to humans, that uses reason to bind men, you believed that reason required that men should love, be fruitful, and free.

I agree with you, reason requires it. And, according to me, God also agrees with you. We are on this earth to love, to be fruitful, and free. Reason requires it, and God intends it. You are in agreement with God, and his will, as we understand it, even if you don't believe in him.

Dang, I do not know when to quite writing. Quitting...... now.

You may count yourself as an atheist, but your atheism isn't the key part of your nature. Nazis and Marxists are atheists, but you have nothing in common with them. What is key is that you have looked at the same world they looked at, and rather than arrive at an analysis that is hateful to humans, that uses reason to bind men, you believed that reason required that men should love, be fruitful, and free.
I agree with you, reason requires it. And, according to me, God also agrees with you. We are on this earth to love, to be fruitful, and free. Reason requires it, and God intends it. You are in agreement with God, and his will, as we understand it, even if you don't believe in him.

Thank you, marron, you made my day! (Now if I could only make those darn creationists understand that we evo-freepers aren't deep-cover Communist agents out to pervert the minds of impressionable high-school students with our godless evilution... Argh!)