TXDem:

The last philosophers I read..... Plato's Republic, where he talks about the ideal city (also meant to be theoretical, I believe, like what you said about Marxism). I thought it was interesting that he did not consider Democracy as the best form of government and would rate a monarchy higher. I also read Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World. That one took a while to soak in and I can't say I followed all of it, but he had some interesting points. I think he is too dismissive of the value of religion in society, though.

Application of religion to science (metaphysics?)is different than application of religion to society(philosophy). I think he approached it from how he was raised, the argument that god is looking "after even the smallest sparrow" argument does conjure up absurdity.

IE: if god is looking after the sparrows, who is looking after those women in the Middle East who are tortured for their deviance from mainstream society. ETC.

God applied to what is observed, vs god applied to what is not observed.

Religion is rough to me, I get the whole "I just don't believe in the white dude with the white beard, who is looking over sparrows" routine. There is an inherent desire to believe in how I was raised because it is part of who I am as a person. But the intellect does not allow it. I had viral meningitis over 5 years ago now and it ate through my shortterm memory (not the same as 50 first dates). My brain has since rewired itself, but the point is this. My girlfriend who is a catholic, was with me in the hospital and I began crying. "what's wrong" she asked...and I said "I'm afraid I'm going to become a religious cheerleader like my sisters" the thought of that had me pretty crazed. So I looked at my friend and said "do they have euthanasia for this type of thing?" She kinda looked at me and said "huh? no they don't!, but if you begin motivational speeches, I'll take care of you" hehe something like that. The memory it impacted was the ability to remember small things, (going to the bathroom, why I was in the mall, how did I get there, my memory for conversations remained intact, ability to do technical work was not diminished, just this short little cache was gone until my brain made a little work around for me)

At any rate....on Marxism:

Am reading this page ...." of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff."

Now that the issue of global taxation is upon us. It makes for an interesting read. This is page 176 for those with a kindle 4 pnt font downloaded from the gutenberg project.

Thanks for the Carl Sagan, it has been forever since I thought of him. I didn't read the Billions and Billions book, I had a book on tape with Cosmos in the title. I don't remember it terribly well. Hofstadter is more my speed as far as metaphysics go.