Karma

[JT!]

I don't actually agree with that first sentiment. Deep down i consider myself a good person on a moral level, but i truly don't believe i would (or do) good things purely for the pay back. I know you might say it's a deep rooted subconscious reaction, but i feel the instinct to help quite often and never does a thought for how it'll benefit me cross my mind. I think it's a little too broad to say all of humanity only do good for there own gain, but i certainly understand the thought behind it.

You say you don't agree but by what you wrote it seems like you do. No one wants to boil it down to basic evolutionary instinct because it takes the romance and heroism out of everything.

It's similar how penguins huddle together for warmth, the penguins on the outside of the circle exposed to the wind are only there because they know after that it'll be their turn in the middle. Not because they're just being nice for the penguins in the middle. I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine kind of thing. Human nature is the same basic principle just much more complex because of our intelligence.

[JD™]

See I believe we're far enough down our evolutionary chain that what you're saying is starting to be out of date. The guy who spends his entire life on WoW because it makes him 'happy', never develops social skills and is basically see through is probably not doing so due to evolutionary survival instincts. I get what you're saying, but I just don't think it's so black and white unless you're in some form of survival situation (I don't mean in the woods with nothing, I mean survival in a loose sense). Yea you could say that this WoW playing recluse shouldn't be passing on his genes, so it's a good job he's not got the social skills to get laid, but what's to say he wouldn't have been awesome in an evolutionary sense had he been taken away from the computer and put into a survival situation for a bit?

Commence nature vs nurture debate.

[JT!]

That may have been the case in years gone by when life was tough but how would you explain someone who base jumps or proximity flies? They are simply trying to get closer to death for the adrenaline rush it gives. I don't see that aiding their ability to reproduce, escape a lion or live longer.

Adrenaline rushes feels good. Alcohol also makes you feel good.

Feeling good is a stress reliever.

Less stress means better life in many aspects.

Although these people that take these risks might be getting too much of a good feeling out of it and they're contending for the 'Darwin Award', killing themselves in the strive for adrenaline may kill them which is a good thing as it stops the genetics from being passed on.

Another good way to put it. If your only doing something out of a gain for yourself, it defeats the object.. So very well put

If you're a person who does nice things, good for you. But a society can't function without people doing good things for others, if a society can't function, you're on your own and you're less likely to survive. You know this subconsciously and that's why you do it.

It's nothing to be ashamed of, it's how we got to where we are today.

[JT!]

See I believe we're far enough down our evolutionary chain that what you're saying is starting to be out of date. The guy who spends his entire life on WoW because it makes him 'happy', never develops social skills and is basically see through is probably not doing so due to evolutionary survival instincts. I get what you're saying, but I just don't think it's so black and white unless you're in some form of survival situation (I don't mean in the woods with nothing, I mean survival in a loose sense). Yea you could say that this WoW playing recluse shouldn't be passing on his genes, so it's a good job he's not got the social skills to get laid, but what's to say he wouldn't have been awesome in an evolutionary sense had he been taken away from the computer and put into a survival situation for a bit?

Commence nature vs nurture debate.

I'd agree with most of that. I don't think it's a case of that we're so far down the evolutionary chain, but more to do with the fact that people with bad genes don't die. Lazy people in the wild get eaten. Lazy people in the world today get looked after by the non lazy, and they'll reproduce with other lazy people and have lazy children. I think Hitler had a problem with this.

The guy could have been just fine in the wild, lack of social skills as you say could have stopped him from reproducing, but maybe the reason he's awesome at WoW is because he has good strategical skills which would be very beneficial in the wild.

It's not black and white, I'm just don't know enough on the subject to add colour. An emotion like love would need an entire book to to explain all the reasoning behind why we feel it.

The question I ask to everyone who doesn't agree with me is, if what we do and feel doesn't come from millions of years of evolution, where does it come from?

[JD™]

The question I ask to everyone who doesn't agree with me is, if what we do and feel doesn't come from millions of years of evolution, where does it come from?

Probably a Deity of some sort.

[JT!]

Probably a Deity of some sort.

Precisely, and this is the main reason why people are theists, they don't understand and/or comprehend that we get everything from evolution so they believe our compassion, sympathy, love etc must come from a divine being.

(Not saying you are, I get you were joking, but many people actually believe that).

Edited November 3, 2011 by JT!

[Fish-Finger-er]

God only created science to weed out those who dont really believe in him.

[1a2bcio8]

Where did the potentiality for the formation of life come from then? To say 'chance' or 'random' is incoherent because all that describes is the likelihood of something coming to be or not; it says absolutely nothing about causality and origin.

We don't actually "get" anything from evolution, evolution is our concept which describes a limited amount of assumed causal factors involved in the way aspects of life were shaped over time. Evolution, therefore, is also not a cause and consequently, with regards to science, we have no idea why life can come to be a certain way or at all. We just use forms of reasoning and assumption to conclude that condition's x and y have relationship with result z.

Science doesn't really answer why it just describes, to a degree, how. With evolution it grasps, in a limited way, segments and points that exist across an assumed causal chain within a time period. This then informs a general theory that has predictive power but only with reference to the types of segments and points that are included within the theory. It necessarily ignores many of the segments and points involved in a process. It's useful but inescapably limited. It doesn't include an entire description of the phenomena it's considering because that's just the way it goes with ideas. Ideas cannot completely reflect what they refer to. A picture is worth a thousand words; how many words is the life process worth then?

Trying to reduce one's entire understanding of life to a concept of science completely skims the complexity it contains. The theory of evolution has a truth to it but it's not the whole truth. I do not need to understand my writing this as a function of evolution. There are plenty of other conceptual schemes (including religious ones) besides evolution that can shed light on my motivations and, depending on what result I want, in a much better way.

Edited November 3, 2011 by Ben Rowlands

[Sam Nichols]

Compassion sympathy is embedded in us by years of evolution so we can survive as a society. The only reason we do good things for others is so that they'll potentially do good things for us back when we need it.

*snip*

But yes everything we do is for our own good even if it looks like we have good morals helping others.

In a sense I can see where you're coming from on a more primitive level. But the fact we have evolved so much since then sorta rules a lot of this out. The fact that the majority of what we do now is for pleasure, not for survival. The most obvious example is condoms, these were invented because we want to experience the pleasure of sex but do not want to reproduce. Homosexuals and people who chose to remain celibate for their entire lives are another example of how humans aren't influenced by the basic human instincts. Other people have mentioned extreme sports, if we are to assume every human is still controlled fundamentally by the primitive self preservation instinct, why do we put our lives in danger intentionally?

A lot of these instincts are becoming irrelevant in our modern society because we have free health care, we have benefit systems in place so (most) people don't starve or live in the elements.

To suggest that we still only do one action to receive a reward seems a little ludicrous to me. One of the major things that separates humans from other animals is that we are empathetic and actually want to make other people happy. For no personal gain.

I have a question;

I often empty my pocket change into charity boxes and I give change to homeless people. I also donate to all kinds of random charities (small amounts unfortunately, but I'm a student).

Now, why do I do this? I get nothing out of this whatsoever, I just do it because I want to. Unless perhaps, the only reason I do that is because I knew one day this topic would exist and I could elevate myself above those of you who don't donate to charity?

[JT!]

Where did the potentiality for the formation of life come from then? To say 'chance' or 'random' is incoherent because all that describes is the likelihood of something coming to be or not; it says absolutely nothing about causality and origin.

We don't actually "get" anything from evolution, evolution is our concept which describes a limited amount of assumed causal factors involved in the way aspects of life were shaped over time. Evolution, therefore, is also not a cause and consequently, with regards to science, we have no idea why life can come to be a certain way or at all. We just use forms of reasoning and assumption to conclude that condition's x and y have relationship with result z.

Science doesn't really answer why it just describes, to a degree, how. With evolution it grasps, in a limited way, segments and points that exist across an assumed causal chain within a time period. This then informs a general theory that has predictive power but only with reference to the types of segments and points that are included within the theory. It necessarily ignores many of the segments and points involved in a process. It's useful but inescapably limited. It doesn't include an entire description of the phenomena it's considering because that's just the way it goes with ideas. Ideas cannot completely reflect what they refer to. A picture is worth a thousand words; how many words is the life process worth then?

Trying to reduce one's entire understanding of life to a concept of science completely skims the complexity it contains. The theory of evolution has a truth to it but it's not the whole truth. I do not need to understand my writing this as a function of evolution. There are plenty of other conceptual schemes (including religious ones) besides evolution that can shed light on my motivations and, depending on what result I want, in a much better way.

Ben, you type so much but say so little.

"Potentiality for the formation of life", water, atmosphere, gravity and heat from the sun? I don't really know too much about abiogenesis, and I also believe we as a whole don't know much about it either. However, evolution is a clear cut undeniable system of facts to how we became what we are today from basic life - which is what evolution is defined as, evolution has nothing to do with non-life becoming life.

Why does there have to be a why?

It seems that you're just after some kind of religious/spiritual answer and you'll happily ignore the science and facts and wait for that to come along.

In a sense I can see where you're coming from on a more primitive level. But the fact we have evolved so much since then sorta rules a lot of this out. The fact that the majority of what we do now is for pleasure, not for survival. The most obvious example is condoms, these were invented because we want to experience the pleasure of sex but do not want to reproduce. Homosexuals and people who chose to remain celibate for their entire lives are another example of how humans aren't influenced by the basic human instincts. Other people have mentioned extreme sports, if we are to assume every human is still controlled fundamentally by the primitive self preservation instinct, why do we put our lives in danger intentionally?

A lot of these instincts are becoming irrelevant in our modern society because we have free health care, we have benefit systems in place so (most) people don't starve or live in the elements.

To suggest that we still only do one action to receive a reward seems a little ludicrous to me. One of the major things that separates humans from other animals is that we are empathetic and actually want to make other people happy. For no personal gain.

I have a question;

I often empty my pocket change into charity boxes and I give change to homeless people. I also donate to all kinds of random charities (small amounts unfortunately, but I'm a student).

Now, why do I do this? I get nothing out of this whatsoever, I just do it because I want to. Unless perhaps, the only reason I do that is because I knew one day this topic would exist and I could elevate myself above those of you who don't donate to charity?

I agree with what you're saying about doing things for pleasure and non for survival, we've evolved to the point where we don't need to worry too much about surviving, but we still have plenty of residual elements left over from that.

Condoms do exactly what you say, but the urge to have sex isn't really for the pleasure, it's instinctual. To prove this, think about how you feel about the porn your watching before you ejaculate, and how you feel about it afterwards. As soon as you're done, it's straight to the X at the top right. You're essentially tricking your body that you've just taken a step to have offspring, and therefore you body doesn't need to tell you to do this again for a few hours or a day. If you're considering getting rid of the feeling of 'being horny' as a pleasure than I agree with you.

Homosexuality is a means to stop an animal or human in having a child so that they can help raise their nephew or neither. It's important to note that this makes homosexuality natural, normal and decided from birth for all the anti-homosexual people out there.

I've already been over the extreme sports thing in a earlier post.

It's true we have healthcare and food shelters etc, but put back in where we where 15,000 years ago I'm sure we would revert quickly back to what we were, fighting to the death over a dead deer. Look at the guy who sawed his leg off to survive, look at people physically fighting over females, children fighting over sweets, these instincts are still with us. They just lay dormant.

What you said at the very last point could be true. It could be a means of 'showing off' as much as non of us would like to admit it, or to be admired for the act. It could be because it makes you feel good, you maybe can sympathize with the cause. If you got nothing out of it what so ever, you wouldn't do it. The real question is why do you feel sympathy, why does giving make you feel good, it's because it's wired into us from long before we were even humans.

[1a2bcio8]

I don't think you understood what I said but the ideas and arguments I was putting forward aren't the most accessible if you haven't studied the philosophy underpinning them. And I'm not competent enough to place them in more accessible terms.

I certainly wasn't putting forward spirituality and religion as having the only answer. I was describing and implying different systems of thought each with their own kind of contribution and problems to understanding.

Evolution is a great system of thought but it has its limits. Science is a great practice yielding useful maps of reality and technologies but it also has its limits. Religion, when understood appropriately, is a great system that offers one a more holistic and intuitive view of reality but that also has its limits. None of them should be idolized and the entire view of reality reduced to their viewpoint. Both religion and science become misused when approached in the dogmatic form that has been so typical of Christianity across the ages.

Basically, I like the essence of science and religion. I just don't like the way they are sometimes used.

[JT!]

I don't think you understood what I said but the ideas and arguments I was putting forward aren't the most accessible if you haven't studied the philosophy underpinning them. And I'm not competent enough to place them in more accessible terms.

I certainly wasn't putting forward spirituality and religion as having the only answer. I was describing and implying different systems of thought each with their own kind of contribution and problems to understanding.

Evolution is a great system of thought but it has its limits. Science is a great practice yielding useful maps of reality and technologies but it also has its limits. Religion, when understood appropriately, is a great system that offers one a more holistic and intuitive view of reality but that also has its limits. None of them should be idolized and the entire view of reality reduced to their viewpoint. Both religion and science become misused when approached in the dogmatic form that has been so typical of Christianity across the ages.

Basically, I like the essence of science and religion. I just don't like the way they are sometimes used.

Has religion ever contributed to anything really? Can you give an example of a limitation of evolution? Limits of Science? Example of how religion offers any kind of viewpoint on reality? Why can't we idolize one over the other if one is more beneficial and the other is useless?

[Mark W]

Has religion ever contributed to anything really?

It's technically contributed to pretty much everything? Even as a 'negative' thing it helps people view things from a different way which can help strengthen their own viewpoint or hypothesis about things.

[JT!]

But relative to Science and everything that falls under that huge umbrella makes anything positive to come from religion look like an ant compared to a sky scraper.

[Mark W]

Soooooooort of. That depends very much on where your priorities lie I guess. I'm not really defending religion here as I don't agree with much of it, but to deny that it has uses is a little short-sighted...

Out of interest: you're married, right?

[Matthew62]

But relative to Science and everything that falls under that huge umbrella makes anything positive to come from religion look like an ant compared to a sky scraper.

What year is it?

[JT!]

Out of interest: you're married, right?

Yeah, but that's a secular event these days.

What year is it?

2011

[Matthew62]

Yeah, but that's a secular event these days.

2011

Exactly, 2011 AD. Again (as this thread seems to need a lot of clarification) I'm very far from a supporter of Christianity (see earlier comments) but you can't deny the hugely significant (however wrong) effect religion has played on mankind. It is intrinsically linked in to our every day and everything around us. It's effect is mammoth and its followers are many so you can't brush it off as being nothing. You don't have to respect or accept it but it's fairly ignorant to think of it as insignificant.

By all means argue against it, or why you might believe it to be bullshit (I certainly wouldn't be in any rush to stop you) but you can't dismiss it.

P.S. I bet your wife thinks of you as a right old romantic!

[JT!]

Exactly, 2011 AD. Again (as this thread seems to need a lot of clarification) I'm very far from a supporter of Christianity (see earlier comments) but you can't deny the hugely significant (however wrong) effect religion has played on mankind. It is intrinsically linked in to our every day and everything around us. It's effect is mammoth and its followers are many so you can't brush it off as being nothing. You don't have to respect or accept it but it's fairly ignorant to think of it as insignificant.

By all means argue against it, or why you might believe it to be bullshit (I certainly wouldn't be in any rush to stop you) but you can't dismiss it.

P.S. I bet your wife thinks of you as a right old romantic!

Well, personally I use 2011 CE.

Oh and I drive my wife nuts with all this stuff.

It certainly has played a significant role in humanity. But this all got started when Ben referred to science being as significant as religion when having an outlook on life relative to things like evolution, when evolution has pretty much everything to do with life.

If everyone suddenly became atheist on the planet, it'd be a better world to live in and we'd lose nothing. If we did that with science our technology would flat line and we'd be stuck with what we have now until some super virus or metier took us all out.

[1a2bcio8]

Has religion ever contributed to anything really? Can you give an example of a limitation of evolution? Limits of Science? Example of how religion offers any kind of viewpoint on reality? Why can't we idolize one over the other if one is more beneficial and the other is useless?

Our moral framework, that is being eroded by relativism, has definite grounds in Christianity. As an example, the marketplace used to be regulated by the church so that is was considered unethical to undercut anyone else that shared your trade or service. Messing with your neighbors livelihood was considered a bad thing. Following the separation of state and church this changed. Now I don't think Christianity is the only method for establishing ways of living but that sort of ethical position is much healthier and saner than the current situation where big business is very unchecked and we find ourselves in the cycle of recessions. The secular world doesn't really have much of a moral center that it is very conscious of at present. Christianity has also blatantly produced very kind and compassionate people which we all usually agree is a good thing. The central message of Christ is good. However, as is properly recognized, Christianity also has a very bad history but that's in so much as that message is missed. Ghandi said "I like your Christ but I don't like your Christian" and I think he had a good point.

That leads me to the crux of religion and what you are, like most, probably most unaware of and, in fact, this is part of the reason that religion becomes problematic. The pluralistic view of religion, to which I am subscribed, sees all religion as essentially pointing to the same dimension or realisation of reality (what we'd call mystical experience) although the symbols and myth it produces point to that reality differently in accordance with when and where the respective religion or originator/s exist in space-time. Buddha's realisation occurs in India about 2500 years ago and his system manifests accordingly; Jesus's realisation occurs in the Middle East some 2000 years ago and his system manifests accordingly; and so on and so forth for other realisations elsewhere.

The trouble with mystical experience is that it often constitutes the breaking down of ideas which act as a distortion on the way we see existence. The experience goes well beyond words. Therefore they cannot be appropriately contained within ideas although there is little choice if one wants to communicate their existence. This means that until you have a mystical experience you have no real way of understanding really what it is. This means that the language you do use to communicate a mystical experience is very open to misunderstanding. It's likely to be interpreted as literal when in fact it's metaphorical. God is not actually an entity in the way that evolution is not an entity although, as is such with language, it's not entirely difficult to solidify or materialise something that isn't actually that way. Science is aware of the difficulties inherent with using language whereby one creates an existent out of an abstract idea. Earlier in this thread somebody thought that gravity was a thing when really it's just a description of the way observable matter behaves in relation to one another. It's the same with energy which isn't some separate existent; rather things are just energy-ing, so to speak.

Integral to the mystical experience or realisation is the transformation of ones psychic state. Love, compassion, etc. can be brought about to a complete extent so that their negative opposites such as greed, hate, etc. are nullified (Buddhists call this nirvana). I see this offering as very valuable. It's just a shame that this origin or kernel of religion isn't the focus of many people being 'religious'. But this is a problem of human beings, in general, rather than the fault of religion. The using of a system of thought to inflict harm can be done with almost anything and that has certainly been the case with political ideology.

With regard to the differing view of reality, which I briefly touched upon before, religion in its mystical sense offers an intuitive, holistic and non-dual way of looking at the world. This basically means that of seeing the world without the distortion of ideas and language which we project onto our field of experience. This fact is recognised by philosophers such as Kant and the Phenomenologists although the former denies we can reach the thing in itself, beyond the dualistic view. We usually see the world in terms of this and that but, prior to that, experience is without distinction - infinite. Quantum Physics, as expressed by the respected physicist, David Bohm (see "Wholeness and the Implicate Order"), shows science touching on this basic nature of existence. Although, it's important to note, science will not allow you the experience of it; it will only construct conceptual systems of thought about it which are not it. As said, knowing this reality is intimately linked with a change in psychic state for the better.

I do not talk about these things in a purely theoretical sense or just simply from a position of faith. I have had several of experiences although, I will admit, I have only really scratched the surface but, none the less, there's something very convincing about their value. It is claimed that our current way of seeing and feeling in the world pales in comparison to the potentials of deep spiritual understanding and experience.

By idolizing I mean inflating something's value. I suspect in theory you wouldn't want to do that with science particularly if you are wanting to be in accord with the scientific ideal of a passionless observer - although I guess that ideal is recognised to be somewhat faulty given the advent of quantum theory. I'm also arguing against trying to place them into some sort of overall hierarchy. Rather, it's about trying to recognize their differing values and where they are useful and where they are not. It's about not being overly glamorised because technology is so impressive and suggests a god like manipulation of matter and therefore assuming that science is the solution to the world#s problems. Currently science is f**king the world just as much as it is saving it - acting out of more positive psychic (emotional) states would counteract this rather than being greedy and holding shiney stuff in the highest esteem. It's also not assuming that religion will be better at giving cosmological descriptions of the universe - it simply doesn't - because of the myths of omnipotence and omniscience associated with the mystical experience of god (non-duality). Each has their respective capabilities and limits.

I gave an example of the limitations of evolution in my last post. If evolution gave complete understanding of the human because every action could be reduced to a function of evolution then that system would always be my reference point for making decisions with my life; but it isn't. There are many ways I can understand the human situation that don't include evolution - the mystical experience being one of them.

I'm sorry if I've come on a bit strong but I find staunch atheism and scientism quite frustrating when it belittles other views of reality without really understanding them in their complexity and diversity.

Edited November 3, 2011 by Ben Rowlands

[JT!]

Rather than just posting a reply I did read what you wrote a few times and slept on it a couple of nights...

Firstly.

I gave an example of the limitations of evolution in my last post. If evolution gave complete understanding of the human because every action could be reduced to a function of evolution then that system would always be my reference point for making decisions with my life; but it isn't.

That's totally illogical. That's like me saying every decision in my life is ultimately a function of evolution, therefor evolution is the only reference point because I use nothing else. Just because you use something else to guide you through life doesn't make it true.

I'd certainly argue that Christianity has had only a slight effect on our moral framework compared to our instinctual morals. And still to this day we hear things like gay marriage is immoral (which by definition of a moral it isn't), so not only has Christianity only played a slight role it's played a much bigger one creating immoral ideals.

I wouldn't particularly say that Christianity has produced compassionate, nice people relative to people from any other religion and people on no religion and atheists. Look at the population of the prison inmates here in the US, there's more Christians in there per capita than living free. Also, a great number of Christians compassion stems from the idea of heaven and hell. Ray Comfort said it himself, if there was no such place as heaven or hell, he's spend the rest of his life having fun on his boat in the ocean. Much more selfish than an atheist's compassion.

At that's talking about todays Christians, they become even more immoral the further you go back.

And the pretty much from that point on went over my head.

[JT!]

Ben, if this 'mystical experience' didn't exist. Would you then agree that 100% what we are is derived from evolution?

[1a2bcio8]

Ben, if this 'mystical experience' didn't exist. Would you then agree that 100% what we are is derived from evolution?

Not really because what underpins the evolutionary process is existence in general regardless of whether we have some mystical insight into it or not. Evolution follows from the movement of existence (we can simplify existence into matter if that's easier) into varying material forms which eventually become what we call life. It's from the point where 'life' has begun, continues and changes that evolution refers to. Evolution says nothing about what allowed for life to become what it is from matter that was not life.

In other words, the factors of evolution have played a role in the shape of life at present but they didn't set the ground or potential for life which clearly came from something beforehand. I'm not trying to suggest God here. What I am trying to say is that existence is fundamentally rigged to create life; the potential has always been there but evolution has nothing to say about this because evolution is about the adaptation of life not the transfer of life from that which isn't life. I can't say why existence is set to be that way but I don't think we need the Christian concept of God to describe it although I wouldn't want to entirely rule it out.

Furthermore and this might seem pedantic but it's an important point. Evolution could never be a cause; it's a general theory that tries to explain some of the causes involved in the changing of life over time - i.e. tall trees influencing the length of a giraffes neck. It doesn't indicate how it is possible for a giraffe to adapt to a tall tree only that when there is a tall tree and it is of benefit to reach it then adaptation occurs. Citing evolution as the cause is to suggest that evolution is a 'thing' that effects matter but it is only a theory. We do this with so much language though including, I think, the concept of God whereby we initially use the term to describe something about reality but then the word takes on a life of its own. So really from the theory of evolution we don't know either the primary cause of adaptation or the primary cause of life itself. They are probably of the same central (sufficient) cause but I don't think anybody really knows what that is.

I hope that last point makes sense. It headf**ks me just trying to explain it because it's so easy to 'reify' or make concrete terms that are only abstract. A theory is inescapably abstract though.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Ben Rowlands

[casualjoe]

existence is fundamentally rigged to create life

I'd say that is an amazing description to be fair.

[MonsieurMonkey]

The building blocks of life being molecules. Those molecules can be found combined in nebula creating complex proteins. That's the start of life. Obviously then the question is where do the stars come from. We are a freak occurrence at the end of the day (the planet and what it contains as a whole).

Evolution is a word to describe a process. The same as boil or wash. It's just a slightly more complicated one. And the giraffe example is just proof of evolution more than it complicates it surely. Animal can't reach the top of a tree, animal dies, genetic mutation of a taller, longer necked animal can reach the leaves therefore survives to pass on those same genes. Along the same lines and slightly more relevant, our bones are getting weaker, because they no longer need to be as strong as they once did

Sorry if I missed a point. I just like your alternate views and criticising them