I think that you are far too generous. I think that is not simple ignorance, but deliberately chosen ignorance.

@wordywalt I agree.

@wordywalt Some do chose to be ignorant and some haven't the mental capacity to ask questions. Very often critical thinking has to be encouraged and taught. Like so many other animals human too often react from instinct not intelligence or knowledge.

Growing up, the issue of humans as animals caught my attention. People claimed that humans were NOT animals and were fundamentally different from animals. In the course of my childhood which exposed me to animals, I did not see the difference and, instead, saw the many similarities. I concluded that those (Christians) were lying to me, though perhaps for a variety of reasons. As much as people sought to see god in all things, I saw those people as dishonest with me and with themselves. In return for their imaginary salvation, they plunged a dagger into their own souls and were in a slow process of bleeding out. Such spiritual suicide generated people that had abdicated their humanity and were less for it. Sucked to be them.

@racocn8 As a high school biology teacher I considered it my duty to teach my students that darwinian evolution is not "just" a theory; it is a FACT pertaining to ALL life on Earth. I got a lot of pushback from both parents and students. They didn't want to hear it. "I'm not an animal," was a common assertion I heard in the classroom. "No? Then what are you? A plant? A fungus? A bacterium? A protist? Those are your only choices."

I always preceded my teaching of evolution with a unit on the nature of science itself, its history, process, accumulated knowledge, and nomenclature. One of the most important lessons had to do with the definition of a scientific theory: a well-tested and unifying explanation for a set of facts which, at first glance, may appear to be unrelated. A scientific theory answers a set of "why" questions: why are humans so prone to back problems? (Because our spines originally evolved for quadrupedal locomotion; upright posture is an adaptation that was not anticipated.) Why is there a blind spot right in the middle of our field of vision? (Becase our eyes evolved through a series of adaptations built one on top of the next, always incorporating old elements that may have once been advantageous but are not helpful in later iterations.) [Any Creator worth his/her salt would/could/should easily avoid this kind of problem when creating a body from scratch]. Why do we find in the fossil record a definite sequence in the shapes and brain capacities of human ancestors over millions of years (and NO hominid bones of any kind older than about 9 million years, while the oldest animal bones date back to almost 500 million years before the present)? And why does the timing of the accumulated mutations in our DNA line up perfectly with the timing of the changes we see in the fossil record? Why do our mitochondria have two membranes, and their own DNA, separate from the nuclear DNA? And why is that mitochondrial DNA so similar to bacterial DNA? And why do mitochondria replicate as if they were once separate organisms, Why? Why? Why?

Darwinian evolution explains all of it.

When my daughter went to school, I would test the teachers. Sadly, a few of them remained true believers and could not be trusted to teach biology and evolution. Such stubborn and willful ignorance shocks the conscience. Christianity has a death-grip on its followers and its going to take more than Dover to unwrap those fingers.

@racocn8 In my second year of teaching (first year at the school where I taught the longest), I shared a room with a veteran biology teacher who one day admitted to me that she did not really understand how biological evolution works. (She was/is a Mormon, btw.) So I gave her a primer on the spot. It did not take long; part of the beauty of Darwin's theory is that it is so simple. She seemed to get it, but remained skeptical nevertheless.

A couple years later we had a new colleague: a young woman straight out of San Diego State University, in her first full-time teaching position. One day in casual conversation she made a comment to the effect that Darwinian evolution is merely conjecture, and not widely accepted by biologists. I immediately corrected her: evolution is NOT conjecture, it is a FACT supported by mountains of evidence, and it is the Grand Unifying Theory of the science of biology. Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. She expressed some doubt about what I was saying, but agreed to look into it. A few days later, she stopped me in the hallway. "You were right!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide as saucers. "It all makes sense now! Thank you!" It was one of the best moments of my career.

I later found out that there was a professor of biology at SDSU who was an Evangelical Christian, and that he was actually teaching biology majors that biblical creationism was just as plausible as Darwinism. This blatant malpractice really ticked me off. I used to fantasize about going over to the university and giving him a piece of my mind. Thankfully, he has long since retired.

It validates their own desire to be "bad" and normalizes it.

@Gwen_Wanderer They don't want to he bad; they want to be badass. And righteously so. Like the archangel with the flaming sword.

@Flyingsaucesir bingo.

Evil is the absence of a conscious. Morals are based on the majority, the greater good. Morality is constantly evolving from generation to generation.

@Betty I simply don't agree. By your logic, if a majority puts their needs and well being over others they are the moral ones rather than oppressors.

@Tejas In generations past it was morally acceptable to own, discipline, and kill slaves, child labour and abuse against women. That is just a couple of examples. The moral rules of today did not exist back then. Morality has evolved to accommodate the majority.

Oppressors are usually in a position of power and are a minority.

@Betty You've hit on a very, very complicated issue. Have you ever heard of the 'Trolley Problem?" I have a book on this subject and it can get really complicated. We have a local issue here concerning deer. These islands are mainly agricultural (and tourists). Ours is the flattest of all the islands (it is not flat, though) and has a history of being the breadbasket for this part of the state. So large predators are not allowed as it might harm the animals raised here. Therefore, the local deer population has exploded. People, like myself have fenced off large portions of out property to keep the deer from eating our plants. Therefore a lot of deer starve. Some actually feed the deer but, to me, that actually makes the problem worse. A fed deer is a deer that has off spring who, eventually, will also starve. Nature is red in claw and tooth to help maintain a balance but we humans come along and mess everything up. Occasionally, nature intervenes and sends a plague to the animals that have over-bred (A couple of years ago a lot of our overabundant rabbits died from some illness). They are now making a comeback until the next pandemic. I hope I'm not sounding like a mans plainer but I find this subject extremely interesting.

@Betty I understand to them it was just how things are. But objectively some things cannot be moral like slavery murder rape etc.

@pedigojr Yes, it is interesting and very complicated.

@pedigojr, @Tejas And yet, it was. Just go back fifty, sixty years ago. A rape victim could not count on the law or society to protect her. She was considered morally corrupt.
There is a song that best describes how murder was socially acceptable and considered morally right at the time.

@Betty it was never actually moral. Just accepted

@Tejas We may have different interpretations of morality. Let's agree to disagree.

@Tejas I agree and just posted about evil being subjective.

@Betty I don't think it is lack of conscience, but rather having a selective conscience and/or living in a society which overrides the conscience.

For example, you mention slavery--people rationalized the "morality" of slavery by buying into societal notions that it was ethical to own slaves for a variety of reasons. People bought into this because owning slaves made their lives easier and contributed to the wellbeing of society as a whole, i.e. slaves working to maintain the economy of the American South.

People were--and are--taught that people not like them are inferior for various reasons, too. My grandkids have no concept that Blacks could be inferior to them; they have no concept of this because no one has ever told that Blacks are inferior. They have never been exposed to racist people. If such beliefs are embedded in the brain from childhood, it is not a lack of conscience, but overriding the conscience. It is hard to override the override when one lives in a society which reinforces the belief that minorities are inferior. The same applies to the longhead belief that women were also inferior to men.

@Gwen_Wanderer You have made my case for me. People buy into it because of the benefits. It became morally acceptable.
Morality is a human construct and it defined by the communities it serves. It varies within the different cultures but it is always accepted by the majority within those communities. A man can have multiple affairs without severe repercussions while a woman would be branded as an adultress or slut and then shunned.

@Betty selective conscience!

@Gwen_Wanderer It has always been.

@Tejas True morality is never subjective. It is based on facts and even if those facts are uncomfortable (especially to humans) it remains true. True morality concerns maintaining the diversity of life on this planet.

Your concept of evil is deeply flawed ad ar too limitted. Similarly your opinion of all politicians and politics as evil and corrupt is simply a copout.

@wordywalt

Name me two other groups in the world that are greater scammer than Goverments and centro banks? You won't be able to. My greatest pet pev is about 80% of people don't like their work for most waking hours of their life. Government public servant have the least satisfied job in the nation because 80% of the people don't like them .
Can't think of a greater waste of time in life as not loving your work. Taxes have increased double and triple and all they do is boss you around every day. They are not the boss of me, and at the least, our employees.

@wordywalt I agree.

@Gwen_Wanderer

Wordywalt can not name 2 other groups who are more corrupted scammers than centro banks and Goverment.
No gold standard, no more petrol dollars, everything based on nothing and greed.

It's not all politicaican are evil , just the ones that get selected by their puppeteer, The true leader are the 80% of the collective consciousness of the people when great abuse happens, throughout human history.

It's not the system (the government), nor the people writ large that is/are evil. It's that a few wealthy elites (the Koch brothers, Harlan Crowe, et al) have hijacked the plane, and are holding the rest of us hostage. We need to take back the plane without crashing it.

@Flyingsaucesir The system was corrupted long ago. The corruption was hidden and kept at a minimum, and there were repercussions for the scandal.
Historically, civilizations have risen and fallen because of corruption. Ours will fall as well in time. We are seeing the beginnings and cause of it.

@Betty The demise of American democracy is not a fait accompli. We can still land the plane. To give up now would be foolish. (Remember, we have only had a real democracy since 1964.)

@Flyingsaucesir With technology advancing so quickly we are now on a rollercoaster. It may be sooner than you can realize.

@Betty AI may bring more good than bad. Remember all the worry and hand-wringing over Y2K? It turned out to be much a-do about nothing. If you have to worry about something, worry about climate change. That's the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

@Flyingsaucesir We have a drama teacher as a prime minister and you have had and may yet have a potential dictator as president. That is not to mention the influence of evangelicals that have infiltrated the two houses.

@Betty Yes but none of this is new. We have overcome big problems before. Trump could return to power, but then he could also lose big and fade into obscurity. Time will tell.

@Flyingsaucesir You are still left with the problems that created the opportunity for people like Trump and his ilk to succeed in the first place. If those are not remedied then, it will be repeated until the whole thing implodes.

@Betty The reactionary religionists have always been here; we (progressives) have just been lulled into a false sense of security in recent decades. While we were sleeping, the Christian nationalists were creeping. Now we're waking up, not giving up.

@Flyingsaucesir Trump gave them a voice, validation, and the power to use it. They are growing and if nothing is done to suppress that power then, it will continue to grow until it is out of possible control.

@Betty I just don't see the women of this country voting themselves into handmaids. Do you?

@Flyingsaucesir I hope not.

@Betty Or the men voting away contraception? Nah!

@Flyingsaucesir Speaking of AI, although it does bring some good, the potential of "Deep Fake" makes it easy to manipulate the truth. There are ways to source out deep fake but I fear most people won't make the effort.

@Betty We are facing a steep learning curve.

@Flyingsaucesir

I won't worry about the temperature changing this 1 degree by 2050. I'm concern they will spend 100 trillion dollars on it.

@Castlepaloma That comment just shows how penny wise and pound foolish you are. And horrbly ill informed too, apparently. However much it costs to stop burning fossil fuels (and a kilowatt of green energy is already cheaper than one made with coal, oil, or natural gas), it will cost 100 times as much to keep on with business as usual. Heat is a bigger, more effective killer than flood, fire, hurricane, and tornado combined. Check out the road Medina. It's littered with dead bodies as we speak. And summer is only just getting started. 🥵

Again, you lie. I am a total atheist, and an intelligent, well esducated person who thinks forhimself. Any statement to the contrary is a deliberate falsehood.. Sadly you seem prone to deliberate prevarication.

@wordywalt i do not see you decrying the genocide of Palestinians by israeli Jews aided and abetted by the USA. If it was Russia doing it you would undoubtedly be calling for boots & tanks on the ground to stop it unless you already had a proxy military failing to do it as is the case in Ukraine.

@FrayedBear As usua;, you lie. I diapprove of both the Hamas massa cre ad capture of innocent hostages. I also totally disapprove of the brtality of Netanyahu's response. Both are insanely crel and senseless.

@wordywalt & btw in order to be an atheist you have to be cognisant of religious indoctrination in order to refute it. That act results in you being infected by their propaganda.

@wordywalt I ask if you would disapprove of Hamas action if it was Russia that had been perpetrating genocide, atrocities & apartheid against the Palestinians? Or would you be eulogising about the Hamas freedom fighters striking a blow against "evil communist bastard barbarians"? . . .Evil by the way is a very judao-xtian concept

@FrayedBear A stupiud queswtuiion in your game plahying of twisted argmentation.

@FrayedBear Again, you are a dmned liar.

@wordywalt Maybe you should just answer his question that would probably be much better than calling it a stupid question.

@Jolanta thx.
I couldn't resist the ironic emoji.

@Jolanta in all fairness to Walt he has now stated that he abhors the psychopathic Israeli Jewish first minister's barbarity.

And who are those so called thinking people? I think it is not so, not much thinking there just arguing and complaining instead of trying to do something about it.

@Jolanta Perhaps you are correct. All I know is that I am afraid of what could happen in November in the US.

@KateOahu Not only you. The whole world is at tender hooks.