--- In CrystalCorner@yahoogroups.com, Kira Kindala <kira_kindala@...>
wrote:
>
> On Nov 1, 2008, at 3:21 PM, theem_from wrote:
>
> > I'll take imaginary people over a lot of the real people I know
anyday
> > haha.
>
> It sounds to me like you haven't been fortunate enough to meet good
> people, for the most part. Perhaps your view of your species is a
bit
> skewed by the people you know personally?
>

I was simply going for a joke here.. Oh well interpret that however
you like I guess.


> Personally, I'm not sure I'd want to be immortal even if it was an
> option for me.

I agree immortality seems like it would get boring after a while.

> of what lies beyond this life? Gelfling believe in an afterlife,
> though that's as far as our beliefs go. When I die, I do not know
> where I will go or what life will be like and, religious Humans in
our
> audience forgive me, I believe it is the height of arrogance for
any
> living being to believe they know what lies beyond that ultimate
end.

Atheists also seem to mirror that religious like certainty.. We
don't know enough about this world how do we expect to know so much
about the next one.

> Many of your religious beliefs also seem to have this belief built
into
> them than Humans are superior to the animal kingdom and that the
> animals are there for the benefit of Humans.

Yes it is beleived by many religious people that animals do not have
souls.

> > Human beings function best individually. One on one I see all the
> > potential my species has. However put more of us together and you
get
> > the worst of us to the point where it just looks like there is no
> > hope.
>
> That does not match my observations, particularly during the 9/11
> crisis. I'll talk more about that in a moment.

Yes but these people did not act as a part of the groups that they
originally identified with or belonged to.. Groups which initially
separated them. They just acted as people helping one another.
People who ordinarily devided themselves up by race, religion,
political affiliation, etc. didn't see the divisions that were
normally there they just saw people who needed help. There was no
lumping of people into these rediculous groups.

> I think the problem here is that Humans have a tendency to judge
people
> on the basis of limited information. For example, one of John's
former
> life partners (the one Human I said I got to know and was
disappointed
> in) used to have an unfortunate tendency to judge people on the
basis
> of one thing about them. Christians, for example. This woman did
have
> some legitimately bad encounters with misguided Christians, no
> disputing that. However, this has brought her to the belief that
all
> Christians are bad. The moment she finds out someone is a devout
> Christian, denomination notwithstanding, she tends to dismiss them
and
> assume that they will be like all the misguided Christians who
> continually told her she was going to Hell and she automatically
ends
> up hating them just on that basis

It's important I beleive to love people as individuals.. However I
loathe and despise any group or organization that they identify with
no matter what it is. Because I've noticed that while the
individuals themselves may be wonderful people when you sit down and
have a one on one conversation with them. I've also noticed that
when you look at these movements as a whole they do terrible things.
Even groups that base themselves on good ideas.. On ideas that I
actually agree with they always end up doing really horrible things.

Like for example what we were talking about earlier how we treat
animals in our society. I mean yes I agree with that entirely I am
completely against people being cruel to animals I would never hurt
an animal. But then you read about how PETA doesn't think that blind
people should have seeing eye dogs and you think 'what is wrong with
you people?!'.

Christians base their religion on some really wonderful principals
too.. Love thy neighbor and every life is precious and made in the
image of god. These are things I agree with, but then you turn on
the television and watch some televangelist condemning Jews and you
stop and think 'What happened to love thy neighbor?'.

It seems that when human beings organize ourselves like that and get
behind these causes we seem to pervert the initial intentions behind
them.

> There was a time when my race used to view themselves as superior
to
> the Gelfinina because of one additional difference. Gelfinaya mind
> powers tend to be far superior to those of Gelfinina.

I've never understood national or ethnic pride to tell you the
truth.. 'Proud to be American', 'Proud to be Canadian', 'Black
Pride', 'Hispanic Pride', 'Proud to be Irish", etc. Because it seems
to me that pride should be reserved for something that you actually
accomplished like a soldier getting a medal or a sports team winning
a trophy or a student getting a scholarship because you actually
earned that.

However your ethnicity and nationality has absolutely nothing to do
with skill it's simply luck of the draw. I mean it's not that
there's anything wrong with being American, Canadian, black or any of
those things. However it just seems weird to me to say 'proud to
be...' because you never hear anyone say I'm proud to be 5'11 or I'm
proud to have brown eyes.

> Doria, in fact, is my spouse along with Jen (Gelfling law allows
one to
> have more than one spouse, and gender and race is irrelevant).

Wow.. That is interesting. Uh, I don't even know what to say about
that.

> In the case of Humans, your technology evolved
> more quickly than your social development. Gelfling were the
opposite.
> Our social development evolved more quickly than our technology.

As much as I do enjoy our modern conveniences.. Obviously since I'm
using the internet. I do have to have more respect for social
development than technological. I mean we have all this technology
which is nice but we seem to lack the knowledge to use it wisely.

> In other words, if you were to suddenly give our species nuclear
weapons,
> we would probably tend to use them much more responsibly than
Humans
> despite the fact that our technology is at least 750 years less
> advanced than yours

Exactly, that's why I think evolving ones society before technology
is probably the better path. Unfortunately we went the other way on
that one.