England-France May Try to Draw the U.S.A. into World War Three

 It's been reported that England and France intend to send 100,000 troops into Ukraine to fight Russia. I doubt if they would try that on their own without a belief that the U.S.A. will step in to back them up. That may be the last plan of co-conspirators with Joe Biden to escalate before Donald Trump takes office in January of 2025. 

Born in the U S A

One of the ostensible reasons for a few Western countries sending troops is that Ukraine is losing the war and North Korea has already sent 10,000 troops to participate in the Kursk-Sujha battle. Others have reported that the North Korean troops are actually in Siberia and not participating directly in the conflict with Ukraine. Perfidy seems to be usual for the Ukraine War. One wonders if President Biden is being blackmailed by the government of Ukraine into providing absolute support for the war right up and into the threshold of World War Three.

There has for a long time been a movement to get rid of the peace following the end of the cold war and restore normal hostile relations. Albert Einstein might have said that overall peace is more profitable than war. Of course he didn't say that yet in social media these days it is popular to put a favorite saying of ones over his photo and attribute the quote to him. Peace is far more profitable than war except for select businesses like arms production and sales.

N.A.T.O.'s down side is showing itself in the present Ukraine conflict. It has been trying to expand eastward to threaten Russia after the Cold War ended and President Clinton induced the last Soviet President to give all off the Ukraine to the west as a free state severing the historical relationship with Russia that any reasonably well informed scholar of history would know would lead to war between East and West. 

N.A.T.O. obligates member states to fight together f any are attacked. Turkey is supporting war upon Syria presently with rebel attacks on Aleppo, so if Syria counterattacks Turkey N.A.T.O. need go to war? Turkey was the aggressor in this instance, and if they were to attack Israel and Israel counter-attacked the U.S.A. would attack Israel too?

Ukraine isn't a member of N.A.T.O. and would have entirely lost the war without N.A.T.O. member military support already. Settling the war swiftly with peace and a division of Ukraine along value lines along the Dnepr region would be profitable for all. Yet if England and France continue to escalate the scale of the conflict and sent ground forces to Ukraine it is possible that North Korea and even China may be asked to send troops to fight in Europe as well. The United States should remain neutral and continue to try to put an end to the conflict asap. There should be no need to participate in any N.A.T.O. action that is a consequence of any member states being counter-attacked following there provocation by participating in a foreign war against the counter-attacking nation.

I wonder if any of the brilliantly stupid western leaders have contemplated either the harm World War Three could cause even if the United States doesn't participate, or the economic damage to the west that even a few missile attack on European port cities could cause? China would become the main economic engine of the world while Europe becomes embroiled a deep cold slump. Even U.S. LNG supplies would stop if the ports of Europe are obliterated. The United States without Chinese imports would experience a rapid inflationary mileau and would need to transition once more into a manufacturing economy for domestic consumption.

There probably is no way to win a Third World War that would be a benefit for western economies. Escalating the war won't do it. One should at least have a rational victory plan before upgrading war when reason indicates the prospects are generally bad.

It is challenging for independent and neutral observers to support unjust wars, or at least it should be. Russia has a relationship with Ukraine extending back a 1000 years and directly owned Ukraine for most of the past 250 years. Foreign invaders from the west- especially Germany and Poland have long sought to take Ukraine for themselves. The Soviet Union revolutionary government took Ukraine from Russia and briefly sold it to Germany in exchange for peace (The Treaty of Brest Litovsk was in effect a coerced land sale). Like the promised Kurdish homeland promised at the end of the First World War the loss of Russian Ukraine fomented interminable conflicts. Turkey’s invasion of Syria is a way to attack Kurdish rebels seeking to establish an independent Kurdistan. It is challenging to fail to understand the desire of oppressed peoples for freedom, independence and recovery of lost land, even if they are not traditional allies of a nation.

The Oxford dictionary entry for ideaology- "a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy."

"the ideology of democracy" So an ideaology packages select ideas for the convenience of users. One needs to keep in mind that an ideaology should be less than a weltanshauung. It is convenient in a complex world to organize concepts and ideas into an ideology on occasion. For instance if one is trying to learn about what is wrong with plutocracy or how corporatism and corporatocracy differ from state socialism or communism one may want to have a political ideology that compares and contrasts those systems in their political philosophy tool kit. One can understand ideologies as packages without supporting them oneself. The world would be more anarchic without them in my opinion. When leadership escalates into world war three over Ukraine instead of sharing it between east and west one may wonder about what hidden ideology may exist among western leadership. I find it difficult to imagine that ordinary Brits or French are eager to go to war themselves in Ukraine if 100,000 troops are sent as is being discussed. Possibly the plan made by England, France etc al...

West Euro Plan for Ukraine

If something like an unsigned armistice in place delops allowing all sides to re-equip to join in battle again in a year or two the conflict may be far more violent and expensive than the present limited war. The worst thing about a protracted and expanded conflict for Biden’s War is that millions or billions of poor people could perish as collateral damage from various economic, civil disorder and military overflow of the conflict.

The Fact of Hell

The Revelation describes hell..."It is “a lake that burns with fire and sulfur” (Rev. 21.8)."

Physicists have theorized that below absolute zero lies infinite high temperature. If an unsaved spirit- the natural man is not saved and continues after death; when the universe ends and reaches uniform absolute zero in utter darkness it shall transition to infinite hell. Even singularities are likely to have infinite  heat for lost spirits to anguish in gnashing teeth...Singularities haven't got space-time so the agony would go on forever. Jesus save people from that and takes them to the heavenly realm of God who is spirit.

I asked AI's opinion on the state below absolute zero. It replied; "According to physics, a temperature "below absolute zero" is not actually colder, but rather is considered "infinitely hot" because it represents a special quantum state where the energy distribution is inverted, meaning it is hotter than any positive temperature, even infinity on the conventional scale; essentially, nothing can be colder than absolute zero on the Kelvin scale."

Truth Theories

There are several truth theories. The Disquotation theory of truth is a useful one. Identity theory and correspondence theory are notable. Verification theory is an obvious one. Axiology is the field of value theory. If one has a bad truth theory their values may be off the mark as well. That could be meaningful for understanding. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

For the verification theory of truth to be effective, one need have something to verify. Speculation on any concern or whatever one isn’t certain about is natural enough. The first philosophers didn’t know everything about everything that might matter. I believe that remains the situation today, thousands of years later.

Etymology of Concept

 The etymology of concept is from conceive. It is to put an idea into a mind. Sentient species might create similar ideas without the idea existing someplace other than as an idea.  Math is an idea

The Lakers need better, more reliable 3 point shooting yet that’s just an idea. Others may have that idea too without it existing someplace independently as in Plato’s realm of forms.

Placing the Crucible in a Science Fiction Story

 Should one start a science fiction story with a battle? I read an action novel that started with a brilliant, intensely detailed battle. The hostage rescue team was blindsided in an alley with a hidden .50 caliber machine gun placed by a criminal seeking revenge it turned out, dropping clues for the FBI to recover leading them to the kill zone. The slaughter was described minutely with the agents crawling in hot gravel looking for non-existent cover.

The trouble with that kind of beginning is that the rest of the book couldn’t reach the intensity of the start. The remainder of the story was afterwords.

Detective stories often start with a crime followed with a story to identify the perp. Where to place the crucible in science fiction  I would guess depends on the preferred structure of the plot.

Rectilinear Structures are Heavily Favored

 Building non rectilinear structures escalates the cost orders of magnitude. Until recently the math would have been a lot more difficult. Curves are hard for carpenters to calculate. Square footage of various comic sections, how and where to cut, and what to cut with for variegated surface, calculations for interior insulation that’s a reciprocal of diurnal solar exposure, etc are tougher. Building artificial mountain ranges for people to inhabit with habitat for wildlife outside might be easier.

For individuals building complex curvy structures might be more the kind of thing rich people could do. Gunnite spray concrete of course allows complex home structures to go up readily for specialized contractors. Incidentally people with bad knees don’t like stairs.

U.S.A. Doesn't Need to Support N.A.T.O. Members that Attack Russia

The N.A.T.O. treaty the US is signed into should not obligate the. U.S.A. to join into wars and military conflicts started by N.A.T.O. members like England and France that purportedly plan to send troops to Ukraine to kill Russians and possibly pre-emptive strikes inside Russia itself. If Russia counter-attacks France and Britain the US could choose to remain neutral.

Ukraine presently

N.A.T.O. cannot be used to let runt members start conflicts knowing the U.S.A. need intervene on their behalf. Consider the stupidity of the treat in an example

Turkey attacks Israel in support of HAMAS. Israel counter strikes Turkey. Turkey demands N.A.T.O. including the U.S.A. attack Israel.

Russia has a right to defend itself against attack. N.A.T.O. is a defensive agreement, not one of partnership to aggression. If England and France choose to more directly involved themselves in the Ukraine war that’s all on them as independent nations.

Pragmatism and the Ukraine

Pragmatism is selecting something that works and/or is necessary. People can make bad choices though.

Some don’t know what pragmatism is. An example- Act and rule based utilitarianism may be a good theory yet in practice it has a lot of difficulties. The greatest good for the greatest number might require force to implement.

Pragmatism might triage social problems and fix as many as possible with available resources. An ideal approach might ban fossil fuel engines tomorrow, a pragmatic approach might stress support for EVs to eliminate exhaust gases because politically.one would encounter too much protest to eliminating fossil fuel.

It is a complete fiction that pragmatism disregards reality or truth. Lol. The Ukraine conflict may cause a nuclear war. Britain, France and Joe Biden would spend years and trillions of dollars to fund the war and rebuild. Escalating to nuclear war isn’t pragmatic.

A pragmatist would stop the war, share Ukraine with Russia and let the planet get back to working together and move towards environmental economics and justice for all.

The most famous example of pragmatism to solve a problem was that of Alexander the great cutting through the Gordian knot with a sword.

Atheists May Hate Godel's Incompleteness Theorems

I believe the simple explanation for Godel's incompleteness theorems is that there cannot be a set of all sets including itself, with the exception perhaps of God. Einstein and Godel had offices at Princeton. I believe Einstein said he didn't understand Godel's work.

There is an explanation of the first incompleteness theorem.

"The first incompleteness theorem shows that the Gödel sentence GF of an appropriate formal theory F is unprovable in F. Because, when interpreted as a statement about arithmetic, this unprovability is exactly what the sentence (indirectly) asserts, the Gödel sentence is, in fact, true (Smoryński 1977"

There are practical consequences for the demonstration of the incompleteness  or limitations of formal systems. Philosophers at least, as well as computer scientists and mathematicians got more to think about. 

The Godel criterion seems reflected in reality at the quantum level in some respects. Even a fundamental particle or wave *in the beginning, requires a precursor outside or before the system starts. Incompleteness exists apparently in the infinities that arise as math physics regress toward the singularity so the model is incomplete.

Alternative Courses to Nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilian targets. Truman had different courses to take yet he was a Democrat. Perhaps he could have nuked just one city instead of both. He might have bombed Yokohama harbor for shock and awe and gave the big bad wolf's ultimatum afterward. If he wanted Chinese communist empathy he could have dropped the nuke on Emperor Hirohito. 

Because WW2 was the last battle of World War 1 the U S could have stayed out of 1 and let Germany win. The Nazis would never have happened and German aristocrats would have faded out like the British royals. I don't think Germany would have greased the rails for red commie killers to take over Russia.and Rasputin could have led the Romanovs to the Stairway to Heaven.

Alternative fiction courses of history are completely malleable to an author's construction. One should never have taken the branches to war to start with if that's what one wanted to edit post hoc. The Second World War didn't improve world affairs generally except for select expedited liberation movements overall.

The President's Irrational Ukraine Policy

Nuclear weapons are an existential threat. Presidents are not welcome to egress toward the direction of nuclear war. It's just bad policy that could kill 200 million Americans. President Biden's Ukraine policy is worst case in economic development as well as security. He is not welcome to gamble American lives quite stupidly. He might get with war at best 50% of the economic benefit possible with peace and build long term global insecurity. He isn't competent. I haven't served in the military since the year the cold war ended. I cannot imagine rational people severing Crimea from Russia...that was an importunate misunderstanding of history that changed the world.

College Education: Training to Keep People Stupid So They Can't Figure out How to Revolt?

College education provides tools for thinking. Some of the practical get valuable training that pays well after graduation or even before. Anything medical, engineering or science pays well...it isn't philosophy. One may learn vast quantities of stuff that doesn't count for practical training at all. It's worth learning yet not any kind of training that has compensatory prospects.

An individual can build his own educational sandwich selecting what he wants in the USA as if he were ordering at Subways. Before during and after college there are ten billion books to read for-onself if intellectually famished. There are lots of free courses with educational value on-line at Coursea.org and elsewhere... democracies love to have educated people. The trouble is the financial opportunity cost is high for taking the time without pay to pursue that instead of getting skills training and a job that pays a livable wage.

Ca the US Medical System be Improved?

It tends toward being too expensive. Billing is also normally f'd up by agencies external to the medical side. The entire world is not provided basic health care as might be possible if advantaged thoughtful leaders found a way. Walk in treatment for poor homeless Americans without enough sedentary time in state rootedness to qualify for Medicaid should be a minor existing exclusion easy to fix.  Biden-Harris had no interest in that

College education provides tools for thinking. Some of the practical get valuable training that pays well after graduation or even before. Anything medical, engineering or science pays well...it isn't philosophy. One may learn vast quantities of stuff that doesn't count for practical training at all. It's worth learning yet not any kind of training that has compensatory prospects.

Reply to an Anti-Christian Blaming Christians for the World's Troubled History

I enjoyed reading general history for a few decades along with philosophy. The ancient world was certainly tough, so much so that many moderns can’t understand it. Life was short; no treatment for cancer, appendicitis etc. At Gettysburg examination of skulls showed that 90 percent of the soldiers had abscessed teeth. A Philistine site excavation showed that a huge percent of people had died of head wounds and it wasn’t a battlefield.

Mercy killings for disease and bad law enforcement was a way of life. One needs to be specific about particular historical events and issues if one wants to have good understanding. Modern history videos make learning easier. Charles Martel at Tours Zheng H, Shaka Zulu, Marius and Pizzaro are a few salient leaders to consider.

When I scored 99 percent ranks on CLEP college history exams I had prepped reading for years and travelling to Europe to look around. Many people don’t understand history more than superficially. Most of those warriors would have died of natural cause by the age of 40. As late as the First World War 16,000 soldiers died from infected blisters and blood poisoning. I had a red streak going up my leg from an infected blister at air assault school I got that fixed in Seattle with antibiotics before visiting Berlin in winter of 1987. The international monetary fund net there later before the fall of the wall. It was always about money, land and power.

Writing about history can require volumes. I wrote a few million words on contemporary events and often, in the first twenty books, wrote about ancient history to 1648. I wouldn’t agree with your ideas regarding European or American history, yet am aware that millions have died in cultural encounters- in the past usual amongst illiterate people. They were often fighting for land and political power rather than theological differences even though leaders had expressed allegiance to this faith or that.

The present war in Ukraine is a case in point; there are sectarian differences between the belligerents yet the war is over land and political power. Educated Western leaders should have known better yet acted dumb and dumber since the Clinton administration. Conflicts can be massive and out of scale to initial causes.

When Turks wanted to capture Constantinople they catapulted plague infested rats over the walls to kill the people inside the city. They probably hadn’t intended to kill 2/3rds of the population of Europe. When Spanish and Portuguese explorers first visited South America they might not have known that European viruses would erase a civilization up the Amazon within 20 years. Exploration of the new world was prompted by curiosity, as search for knowledge, new routes, land and power yet not primarily by religion. Spain sought gold and found it. 1492 was the year Spain expelled the last Muslim invaders from Iberia and sent Columbus over the ocean.

Humans have original sin and their political works often have reflected that in conflicts. Some would like to deny the existence of God in an effort; a futile one, to acquire themselves. Only through the blood of The Lord can a human be saved from that guilt

And lblame for the Inquisition...

The State executed or imprisoned captives for The Inquisition in accordance with local laws. The Catholic Church examined them to determine if they were Catholics or had foreign allegiance as some kind of heretic. US social median comprised predominantly of Democrats, atheists and wokistry purged conservatives and Christians from social media as best they could as heretics to Democrat Party political goals with less violent means since the Obama administration.The Inquisition was probably a motivation for the separation of church and state centuries later in the US Constitution by Protestant founders.

People need to learn from history and improve upon it. Protestants were also purged in the era. You might read Foxxe’s Book of Martyrs to learn of The St Bartholomew’s Day massacre and other events. The Habsburgs were trying to retain control of Europe and the Church was resisting reform from Protestants even as Mongol and Muslim invasions were being repulsed from attacks on Europe and Christiandom.

Illiterate peasants and opportunistic leaders often couldn’t discern the differences between theological points in Latin edition books they had never read and the sword points of foreign invaders; that is the peasants being killed by invaders with different religious beliefs were killed by swords rather than ideas. Spanish conquistadors had 500 years of war in their own country for practice getting rid of Muslim invaders as the inquisition commenced. Intolerance of foreign allegiance was realistic politics of that time.

 People have original sin and only slowly discern the way of Jesus as far as numbers go... if they are blessed. Humanity is somewhat crude regarding environmental economics and Christian ethics including many of those affiliated with religion. Society in history is a work in progress.

The Origin of Religions

There is a difference between religion, God and mankind’s relationship with Him. Having lost their relationship with the one true God, mankind tended toward paganism as a kind of physics to explain existential phenomena like thunder (thor), war (mars), and misc things. Romans had a god to explain anything. So did other societies.

I believe that the term religion shares an etymology with allegiance at some point. Minions easily become allegiant to an idea or organizing principle with power. Politics can become a religion- maybe woke qualifies as a temporary disposable religion of shared rem.

Philistines had myriad false gods though animism was prior to bigger false gods. Shinto had spirit gates- tori where spirits could land, Romans had Janus the door goddess.

At Mecca there were many pagan faiths and Muhammad’s father was the Keeper of the Kabba. When he lost his job and was purged his son syncretized Judaism and Christianity into a religion and conquered Mecca purging his late Dad’s enemies and paganism for necessarily intolerant monotheism with himself as speaker of the monotheistic diety. Christ is the only way to God, for he is God.

Voltaire believed in God yet thought he has a non-interventionist policy for the fallen . Voltaire thought people should fix things themselves. Perhaps that includes a balanced government budget. He said; ""If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him" ('Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer')."

I researched this years ago before A.I. I asked ChatGPT to simplify the issue. it wrote; "Yes, the words allegiance and religion do share a distant etymological connection, though they refer to different concepts today.

Allegiance:

The word allegiance comes from the Old French ligeance (which means "loyalty" or "fidelity"), derived from the medieval Latin ligantia, meaning "the state of being bound." The Latin root is ligare, meaning "to bind" or "to tie." The term originally referred to the bond or duty of a vassal to a lord in feudal times.

Religion:

The word religion comes from the Latin religio, which has an uncertain exact meaning but is often associated with the concept of "reverence" or "obligation to the divine." It's generally thought to derive from the verb religare, meaning "to bind" or "to tie," which is also the root of allegiance. The idea is that religion involves a bond or tie to a higher power, much like allegiance involves a bond to a sovereign or ruler."

 Individuals and societies adapt to environmental challenges, sometimes rightly and other times not. If they were all in one homogenous empirical experience of living in my opinion the results for afterlife fate would still differ from one soul to the next. For example, if the entire population lived in a repressive totalitarian social environment for a century and atheism was the official doctrine some would be saved even if most went to hell. People are saved through grace- God selects the elect.

Strength of a State

One might want to define strength for this context and decide if it is in comparison to other states. Law is just one element of a state.  Type and effectiveness of government, economic system, environmental management, education, military, non-governmental organization quality and quantity and relationships with other states are a few of the many elements determining the strength of a state.

 Law is not a two-dimensional governor and ruler. Law is an arbiter and enforcer of social boundaries necessary to let individuals be self-determining. It can also be used to stop individual self-determination as in totalitarian states.

Logic is a discipline and tool for reasoning. Classical and symbolic logic are useful. Star Trek's Spock logic brought a lot of people to a warped notion of what it is. Emotion is non-rational though not necessarily bad. Children excel at emotion before reason. I think what is useful for mitigating the environment crisis is education and intelligence in the masses to get understanding for political support.

The mass extinction of the Anthropocene era eliminates most life eventually. It is an event of global habitat decline for life including humans. Chemicals and micro plastics in water, global heating, oceanic acidification... there are so many growing environmental challenges most leadership disregards that some people like Jacque Cousteau and James Lovelock said some years ago that humanity has just about 200 years left before civilization collapses and after that perhaps all human life.

Economic competition demands evaluation of others. Comparing abilities of others is as basic as private property in a capitalist economic system. Christian ethics are less judgemental, yet even sports requires evaluating competition. In a job app for example, people present the best appearance they can. Then a personnel manager compares resumes and hires the most suitable person. A more inclusive economic system could be made with less rigorous comparisons perhaps if broader social goals were common and any body could fill the role.

A Few Points on Cosmology

God is eternal and Earth is temporal. Two-dimensional waves embedded in the Higgs field get an apparent 3rd dimension. Matter is made of fermions and force carrying particles like photons are bosons. Space-time itself may be the source of gravity. Temporality and thermodynamics… Nothing that is matter is eternal. All of the dispersion of the original unified field in it’s sundry forms changes. Information may be eternal though, in some way…Shannon entropy or otherwise with God.

 God is eternal and Earth is temporal. Two-dimensional waves embedded in the Higgs field get an apparent 3rd dimension. Matter is made of fermions and force carrying particles like photons are bosons. Space-time itself may be the source of gravity. Temporality and thermodynamics… Nothing that is matter is eternal. All of the dispersion of the original unified field in it’s sundry forms changes. Information may be eternal though, in some way…Shannon entropy or otherwise with God.

Why suffering exists? The coefficient of adversity is natural being alive. It varies in quality and quantity. Adam and Eve had zero adversity before the devil led them woke.

I lean toward Augustine's belief that human nature is totally depraved.God is perfect. Fallen mankind in a thermodynamic world/universe has an opportunity to be saved and that's what matters. If man lived forever without Christ they would create hell for others. Death limits the ability of mankind to do evil into others. There are acts of kindness sometimes. Those are phenomenal.  The Universe physically presents a coefficient of adversity. People working together sometimes can overcome challenges so perhaps humanity learns something about caring for other before they go to hell or heaven as the case may be.

 Bishop Berkeley's Idealism does not postulate that individuals create their own reality, just that the experience of reality could be like an illusion, or a holographic appearance created by God. For Berkeley, the individual views the world as did Sartre in Being and Nothingness.

The Energy of Space-time?

People are part of space-time. They do not possess it. Humans are privileged or, alternatively penalized to experience time.

Energy may be a measure, yet it can refer to mass changing form;  E = m c2 as in radiation from uranium for example. Semantics for non- scientific lexicons can make practical discussions difficult. People sometimes call electrons flowing in a wire ‘energy’.

Fields exist, and the Higgs field exist with two dimension particle-waves slowing and entangled in it seeming to have a third dimension, so energy measurements are contingent selections of the relationships of apparent yet not actual energy?

I don’t know if the total quantity of energy in the Higgs Field ever changes due to the conservation of energy. Gravity may be a space-time curvature attribute or a residual of the unified field, while the strong force, electroweak and Higgs field are in some way joint progenitors of the quark era? One might wonder if quarks are energy, or strings and if there isn’t some kind of solipsistic barrier physically at some level of reduction to fundamental substance-matter-energy.

Mass is the amount of matter of an object. Energy is the amount of work it can do. Quarks are classified as fermions with half not zero spin. In some ways they seem like circular descriptions for noumena at the core of matter. It's hard to regard a field of massless particless as matter- like photons carrying force in an eng field  

Quarks are fermions. Mass, like energy, is also a measurement. Photons have zero mass and are classed as bosons because they carry force. Apparently matter is the only 'substance'. Gluons and quarks are classed as fermions because they build matter. Fields existed prior to gluons and quarks. Those fermions put on mass in the Higgs field. I believe the interaction of two-dimensional particle-waves in the Higgs field including photons with their 'timelessness' is interesting to consider.

I believe some would like to regard space-time to be the source of everything in-itself that in various phases emits or allows divisions of packets of virtual energy to become temporally existent independently leading to universes with ‘mass’. I cannot say where all that space-time in-itself evolved to…probably nowhere I think of a soul as information. God backs up that data perhaps…ssds haven’t enough storage capacity

About Christ in Collossians 1- "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. 19  For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell."

God always existed, yet the universe has time and had a beginning.

Shanghai had Troubles Prior to the Revolution

Etymologically instinct means an impulse toward something. People tend toward acceptance  of select word paradigms as nouns and facts in-themselves a bit too readily. Such descriptions are nominal.

Learned behaviors are sometimes described as instinct or second nature. An SAS operator may shoot a thousand head shots a day on the range (maybe) at proper targets until the right response to stimuli is instinctive, yet self-defense is itself somewhat ‘instinctive’ in a more natural example of the common understanding.

On compassion vs degradation in social history. Is there a cause for optimism philosophically?

Hobbes’ main idea in The Leviathan was the absolute power of the king. He was the brain and the people the body of the state. Life was nasty, brutish and short in his day. Camus’ The Plague has a lot of nastiness in it. The Stranger has the protagonist vomiting on a beach. Camus died in a car accident at a fairly young age. Frankl’s logo therapy was a response to the complete degradation and loss of humanity experienced by inmates of Nazi concentration camps. The only mass philosophy that easily comes to mind that killed millions is communism. Capitalism is more an economic system than philosophy, though basic greed and the will for political power plus minions are the main causes of war.

People can invent their own opponents in politics these days, ignore existential challenges and destroy social well being in the blundered quest for power. Philosophical works sometimes should be understood in their historical context. Would one for instance use The Prince as a role model for poly sci students today?

Communism worked as a revolutionary philosophy because millions of poor people were oppressed by royalty with most of the wealth. China today is better off than they would be if the Imperials had persisted.

If Democrat Presidents hadn’t taken all of Ukraine from Russia and expanded NATO Eastward Russia would be an ally and China more democratic in the political philosophy sense. The poor suffer more than the rich and around the world haven’t got free universal health care  That’s a political rather than a philosophical problem

Instincts and Nominalism

Etymologically instinct means an impulse toward something. People tend toward acceptance  of select word paradigms as nouns and facts in-themselves a bit too readily. Such descriptions are nominal.

Learned behaviors are sometimes described as instinct or second nature. An SAS operator may shoot a thousand head shots a day on the range (maybe) at proper targets until the right response to stimuli is instinctive, yet self-defense is itself somewhat ‘instinctive’ in a more natural example of the common understanding.

On compassion vs degradation in social history. Is there a cause for optimism philosophically?

Hobbes’ main idea in The Leviathan was the absolute power of the king. He was the brain and the people the body of the state. Life was nasty, brutish and short in his day. Camus’ The Plague has a lot of nastiness in it. The Stranger has the protagonist vomiting on a beach. Camus died in a car accident at a fairly young age. Frankl’s logo therapy was a response to the complete degradation and loss of humanity experienced by inmates of Nazi concentration camps. The only mass philosophy that easily comes to mind that killed millions is communism. Capitalism is more an economic system than philosophy, though basic greed and the will for political power plus minions are the main causes of war.

People can invent their own opponents in politics these days, ignore existential challenges and destroy social well being in the blundered quest for power. Philosophical works sometimes should be understood in their historical context. Would one for instance use The Prince as a role model for poly sci students today?

Communism worked as a revolutionary philosophy because millions of poor people were oppressed by royalty with most of the wealth. China today is better off than they would be if the Imperials had persisted.

If Democrat Presidents hadn’t taken all of Ukraine from Russia and expanded NATO Eastward Russia would be an ally and China more democratic in the political philosophy sense. The poor suffer more than the rich and around the world haven’t got free universal health care  That’s a political rather than a philosophical problem

I suppose NDE means near death experiences. I wondered if sometimes God edits reality a little to keep some people alive where they would have died, and they aren't much aware of the edit though they may be thankful for remaining alive.

Don't know about theoretical sentient beings. They may have different views on death.

Conditioning like learning languages is a social context...filtering that out would leave one imbecilic I would think. Behavior is partly learned from experience and that too conditions. Filter out that placing your hand on a hot stove burns.