In all seriousness.. I was thinking hard today and I wondered for a long time.. Is man capable of perfecting himself?

We have always been trying to throughout time.. If not with modern technology, then with the strength of our religion or upbringing... With people like myself who believe that if we live by a set of rules we will be be in perfect paradise.. With people who have set their standard of honor high like the Japanese in the time of the samurai..

Anyway.. I'm VERY curious about any idea's anyone could think of for either side of the arguement. There are some damn good points posted on this message board by its readers (Many of them not board trolls) ;)

Perfection? Whatcha mean? Be more specific.

Master Damoiel Mindbend
Retired Enchanter of the 60th Season

A single man can perfect himself, and live by strong ideals without breaking them. But with all the ones who break every rule just to get money/power, man is never gonna be perfect, or never gonna live by honor as a whole. In my opinion, religions were made up so the church had power on the people, and alot of the technology we make is to be 'stronger' than the neighbor. I don't really call it perfecting ourselves. You're a very good man if you can live by your ideals at all costs, even tho VERY few people did it in the history.

Impresario Almadar Tegleftyln
Retired

Most of the systems throughout history have, ultimately, been a method of controlling the masses - not something that I woudl particularly call "perfecting."

The Bushido code was more out of fear than perfection - after all if you went out of bounds there was a VERY good chance of someone taking a sword to your head. Fear yes, perfection? I dont think so...

There is a reason we call people Saints....

Well.. I just mean pure perfection. Everyon perfecting the mind and soul. Everybody's a Jesus sorta world. :b

If we survive long enough.. We'll get there or close to it someday. (I hope!)

I hate to admit it but i'm already there... Thanks try again.:rollin :rollin

Bah.. I'm serious here. There's a part of us that tries to find out new things.. And if you think about it... by having the will to better ourselves, we are trying to perfect ourselves.

You need to find a way to engineer a lot of societal/behavioral problems out of people.

(edit: added behavioral)

Personally one can never achieve "perfection". The more perfect you try and make your self the more things you'll find wrong. It will just move it's self in a circle like that until you finally realize the only way to be perfect is to be dead. The real trick, I think, is to find that happy median where you can exist with your self and accept your self for who you are. At least thats good enough for me. >D

The problem with this line of thinking is that its impossible to truly define what would be considered perfection for the entirety of humanity. Youll never, ever, ever get everyone to agree on what perfection is because each human is individual and therefore has his or her own idea of what constitues perfection. Perfection for one person might be a society where everyone worked together for a common goal, and perfection for another might be a society where everyone freely gave each other oral sex :p

I dunno, if you can achieve all of your own goals and are happy with your own life then you've done your best to reach perfection for yourself - but don't expect anyone else to agree with you.

Master Damoiel Mindbend
Retired Enchanter of the 60th Season

I am perfect. I'm really really ridiculously good looking. I'm incredibly smart. And I beat Pokemon Gold version in like 4 days.

Admitting to playing Pokemon alone is grounds for immediate execution.

You cant be perfect, Shew. Youre asian.

Master Damoiel Mindbend
Retired Enchanter of the 60th Season

Oh yeah, fuck :(

I agree that everyone has their own standards of perfection or paradise. there is usually something and someone in everybody's life that is considered to be perfect even if not by anyone else. no matter what it is your talking about, people are too complex and diverse to ALL view one thing as perfect. there are always going to be different standards. even with like technology or something like that, some people are convinced things were perfect before and now its just meddlesome and unnatural. others might think that the future holds endless forward progression, and then other think maybe we have hit our technological stride and from here on we will just be the undoing of ourselves :p As far as people's paradise goes, it all depends on their upbringing and cultures. Some consider being a bum in hawaii and pickpocketing tourists a perfect life, while this seems morally unacceptable to others. For some people, including myself, even if they did find what they think to be their utopia or ultimate perfection.. then what will there be to strive for anymore? it would certainly get mundane until you change your standards around again for something new. I think its a better idea not to worry about being perfect and just live your life, cuz you'll probably just end up looney. Now that i feel like i just wrote my god damn upper division writing test all over again.... its time to PERFECT my sleeping technique