I have always wondered about the banning of the number "zero" as heresy and the ways that has set us back in "evolution"--the figuring out of ways to either sustain the planet or get off it, yanno? Perhaps we'd be exploring other planets right now, or living on them, or discovering the universe more so than we are doing now, if we hadn't lost so much time due to punished heresy (say, female doctors, even, for example). I don't know--I guess I think of "evolution" as something else and don't put it in terms of morality, such as the impact of cheating or whathaveyou, so that is a bad example for me. I guess I am jaded entirely and see religious beliefs as a set back, spirituality as a set back to science.
There seems to be a catch 22 when it comes to altruism too, but then I am just a jaded athiest, I guess. I have never needed god to put me on a path to altruism and usually want to sin big in the eyes of god. God tends to make me a bit of a deviant.
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