Peterkin

It is a problem, though. Mostly of sanitation, but also of law-enforcement, property value, aesthetics, health and safety concerns. Also, homeless people freeze to death at a higher rate than the general population. Even in sunny California, it's a problem. A big one. Even more so, during a pandemic. And of course, there is a perception problem, as the prosperous citizens become increasingly antsy about all the crime they anticipate from homeless people. https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness/ And it's a growing problem, as housing grows ever less affordable.

Which ones are at half capacity? And how can the homeless of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal get to them?

Which ones? I know, I know, they've made bad choices....

If enough safe shelters exist, people will take advantage of those shelters. Just build those, make help available in physical and mental health, rehabilitation, education and employment. Save a ton of money on police overtime, court costs and barbed wire.

And you have found the public funds to hold individual trials for the newly-instituted crime of addiction? What's the wait-time for a court appearance? Have you lined up the advocates for both prosecution and defence?

Evidently, a less dystopian one than yours.

So... the solution to homeless drug addiction is concentration camps. Buildings, furnishings, water, sewer and power would have to be laid on. Food supplied. Staff hired.* Security measures built in: barbed wire, alarms, guards, tracking dogs - or maybe the inmates could be microchipped, right after the delousing. Obviously, after the entire law-enforcement budget has been used up to acquire the land and build the facilities, there wouldn't be any resources for individual or even mass trials. A classification of citizens would be criminalized without distinctions or hearings. And then rounded up. Only, of course, the police who did the rounding up would have to tell which of the homeless people are drug addicts and which are just unsteady on their feet from hunger, and decide whether the heroin, meth and crack addicts belong in the same camp with the winos. If a few sociology students who were just distributing blankets happen to be caught up in a raid, oh well, they probably had a joint or two in their pockets. Of course, all the alcoholics, coke users, opioid addicts and ritalin abusers who are currently housed would be immune from incarceration by the signal virtue of not yet being destitute, and could continue to support the legal and marginally respectable drug industries. But, of course, the illicit drug manufacturing, importing and distribution sector would be very hard hit financially, and forced to turn to other kinds of crime. And all the people who are homeless for reasons other than addiction would still be on the street, assuming the police could tell them apart from the addicts. * Or, we could just provide the housing, without the maximum security. Long as we're in the country, how about a few plots of land to grow vegetables? And a daycare center for the children? Or, we could just treat people better in the first place, so they don't turn to drugs for escape.

I didn't know that. Most people just do business where they live and earn - even if they're buying from companies that have their headquarters in another country, these companies are usually international, with financial interest in both the one where the buyer lives and the one where the buyer gets paid. Money is cosmopolitan. Considerable - even decisive - sums can be transferred from one nation to another. Also business operations, employment, investment, development, tax-exemption, licensing, waste removal and land-ceding can make a large impact. If an airline or manufacturer moved from one country to another, that might matter to both countries. It would take an awful lot of individuals' well-informed and directed cross-border shopping to counteract that effect. But that's not what I was referring to. I took this: to mean emigration, rather than overseas banking or habitual border-crossing.

For sure! It takes lots of little actions to balance a big one. But we who are capable of only small actions and cause only small consequences, need not waste energy blaming ourselves for major ones going wrong; it's more useful to pick up whatever pieces you can carry and keep truckin'.

Yes, it's as much significance as you can have without committing major acts of sedition or heroism. But it only works once. After you've become part of a new community or nation, you are expected to contribute to its welfare, help shape its future. You no longer matter to the old one, but you still can matter.

Butterflies may feel very important when they hear that. But they're really not. Thing is, while everything everyone does or doesn't do (You also didn't kill or rape or abuse anyone, right?) (Right?) has a lasting effect on everything that happens thereafter, the effects of each individual are not equal: some acts are a lot more consequential than others; some people leave bigger tracks than others.

Nothing - for the dead. For the living, it all depends on who and what is dead: food, trophy, relief, inheritance, liberty, grief, logistical problems, financial problems, guilt, loss, family duty, anger, loneliness, nightmares... it all depends on the relationships.

I don't need to define a god, or gods, or deity in order to be absolutely convinced that I do not believe any of the god-stories that I have heard or read so far. I can call myself an atheist, since I actively reject all of the supernatural claims of all of the religions i have encountered - including the ones I find attractive. If a belief system shows up that convinces me of its validity, I am prepared to change my mind ... but there isn't much time left, before I go to what I (sadly, reluctantly) believe is oblivion. If there is Something Out There that hasn't been catlogued and enshrined by organized religion, I'm content to remain ignorant of its existence and irreligious of its potential divinity.

If the earliest known imagery and narrative from human communities is an indication, then, yes, to the best of my understanding, that's how it happened. I don't know. Some kind of ritualistic practices seem to be common - that is, the fact of it, not the details - to all known human societies. As I mentioned before, they bear little resemblance to the ceremonies of the organized religions we know today.

Not for that abstract concept in particular, but for the capacity to abstract ideas. Imagination, projection, association, generalization, categorization. We have a big brain and a long life: time to have a lot of experiences, form a lot of attachments, ask a lot of questions and store a lot of memories. When you walk in tall grass, or a quiet forest, you can hear it whisper your name. Why your name? That's the usual reported one, but it might be the name of the girl you love, or 'sizzling steak' - the point being that your brain makes a meaningful pattern out of random noise. Just as we see pictures in clouds, or giants in rock formations. We make narrative out of experience. Also, we have these mirror neurons. In a sense, we impersonate one another - and that goes both ways: we project our own personality, feelings, desires and intentions onto not only other people, but inanimate objects - attribute malice to furniture we ourselves are guilty of kicking, for instance. How much more intensely we do with a environment that is anything but inanimate! The world around us --- well, not us modern people, so much, but the real people who lived in nature - moves, changes, makes noises, affects us in so many unexpected ways. It's inevitable that our ancestors would attribute human qualities and volition to the forces of nature. And then comes the desire to control. We figured, if the wind and water and and fire are living things like us, we should be able to talk to them, negotiate, bribe, persuade them to treat us well. And on from there.

like cigarettes.... But when you listen the very crude pitch of televangelists who own Lear jets and mansions next door to the Trumps, you have to wonder whether those clever men wasted their efforts; whether flares and trumpets aren't an easier sell.

I would argue back: it doesn't exist in nature - only in human minds. But I also agree: some people have temperaments and proclivities (which afaik have not been isolated, identified and catalogued) that make them more susceptible to belief, while others are by nature more inclined to skepticism. So, the first type of personality would become extremely and happily devout in an environment that rewards unquestioning faith and the second type would ask questions, annoying their religious mentors, which would earn them disapproval and hasten their alienation. So, character, intelligence, imagination, early environment, the caregivers, access to information and experience all play parts.

Depends on the environment. If you refuse to think about it because expressing any hint of disbelief might be hazardous to your health, you may be a closet atheist. If you don't think about it, simply because it isn't around, not claiming your attention, doesn't seem to matter, you're probably agnostic. You won't know which until you do think about it. (Might not take too much of your time)

Now, so would I think that way. When I was much younger, the lines - and knives - were not so firmly drawn. We had some fundamentalists of every stripe in Toronto, but most of the people I knew didn't advertise their belief or go out of their way to insult the people who didn't share it. All that politicization in the US has spilled over, and of course with the mess NATO helped make of the Middle East, that's all over Europe now. People are defensive and offensive and the whole subject is toxic.

I thought of that belatedly and added it on edit: Something you know about their belief had already turned you off, so you look at them and think: "How can you believe that? What's wrong with you?"

That would depend on how they behaved, wouldn't it? They're not colour-coded or labelled, so you can't immediately know when meeting someone whether they are religious, and if so, what brand. Unless they're wearing a habit, turban, yarmulke or hijab, they have to say or do something to indicate their religion. I assume that's what you react to when you become uncomfortable, rather than their physical presence. You also asked whether it was learned. I tried to answer both to the best of my ability. Your own sense of reality. Obviously, I don't know the particulars; everyone's encounters with religion and those who practice it are different. They said something or did something, or you knew something about their belief, that turned you off. Long after I made up my own mind about it, I find that some religious people set my teeth on edge the minute I lay eyes on them or hear their voice (of course, so do some non-religious ones). Some of those garments I mentioned are a factor; footballers crossing themselves all the bloody time; the word God pronounced in a certain way (something like Gawhhd'); a colleague used to raise her eyes to heaven and ask for strength whenever someone disagreed with her... And, of course, the TV preachers are odious from top to bottom - but they're not believers, but they're selling religion. OTOH, I've had enjoyable visits to friends' places of worship and amicable conversations about their moral strictures. In most cases, intel;ligent people cherry-pick their religious convictions; nobody I know is all the way invested in a faith. One of the aforementioned priests conducted useful group discussions about the science/faith problem and a young fellow protester against war was also a missionary - I found these people pleasant and interesting company.

That is a definition of non-religious or areligionist. Atheist means one who does not believe in god or gods. They can still have rituals; they can be animist or tree-worshippers or Buddhist. So do I and have said so above. I was speaking to an adult who hears about religion for the first time. It's rare, I suppose, but if one grew up in a strict Communist, or isolated humanist environment, religion can be news to someone with developed critical faculties. Attempts have been made on quite a large scale in the USSR and China. Not very successfully, because they didn't kill off all the old folks before taking over the young.

If you don't know it, you aren't one - you couldn't even be agnostic or ignostic without holding some opinion on the matter of god(s). You can't be a Muslim or utilitarian or vegetarian without knowing it. You have to be aware of your convictions and beliefs in order to name them. Babies are not unbelievers; they are simply unaware of of the world. When you first heard about religion - presumably just one, to begin with, you decided whether to believe it holus bolus, reject it out of hand, or learn more about it.

As are all reactions. How should I know? It depends on the Dutch poster, their fluency, their degree and manner of bluntness. If you don't fully understand what they mean, it would be wise to ask for clarification before concluding, but sometimes we are unwise and respond emotionally - in any language. Academic Nirvana?

Usually - though not invariably - one of two reasons: We already feel insecure in our grasp of the subject and fear exposure of our weakness. or The impression is correct drawing attention to some shortfall in our understanding really is intended to humiliate. It depends largely on how accurately the other person represented our point, what aspect of it they criticized and how they worded the response.