Favorite aspect about history in general? U.S. and/or World?

[jennifer52100]

For me its always been the U.S. Presidents and i am not really big on politics.

[GrassrootsConservative]

Welcome to the forum.

I have an interest in the furthest back history could ever go. Not earth history, universe history.

How was the very first "whatever" created?

Was it a gas? Was it a solid? Was it a liquid?

No matter how far back you go, something had to be created from nothing at one point. It's a very deep thing to contemplate.

[Trinnity]

For me it's so interesting to see the ebb and flow of development over the centuries. For example in the glory days of Rome they had flowing hot and cold water - a real semblance of what we would consider modern Civilization. The govt had a Senate too. When Rome fell, the Dark Ages ensued and it was centuries before any civilization had that again.

The sad and regrettable part is that people always suffer from some form of dictatorship or bankrupting socialism and the suffering of totalitarianism and overcome it, only to lose the lesson and succumb to it again - like we're flirting with now.

Welcome to the site, Jennifer. Nice start.

[Trinnity]

Welcome to the forum.
I have an interest in the furthest back history could ever go. Not earth history, universe history.
How was the very first "whatever" created?
Was it a gas? Was it a solid? Was it a liquid?
No matter how far back you go, something had to be created from nothing at one point. It's a very deep thing to contemplate.

Oh, I'm SO all up in that!

[Captain Obvious]

Welcome to the forum, Jennifer - glad you're here.

[GrassrootsConservative]

Oh, I'm SO all up in that!

This is the only reason I have ever *not* dismissed religion as completely irrational beyond all belief. Is because if you're not religious, then something still downright miraculous happened at some point in time that caused all this to spring up over time.
You can either say God created it, or... what? I do not know, but honestly I do not think it's a "God."

Then you have people who say things have been here forever, big bang, blah blah blah. I refuse to believe that. Forever cannot exist in nature, everything is born and everything dies. For me the only answer is to say that something was, many many billions of billions of years ago, spawned in the vacuum of nothingness and began the slow journey of evolution to the universe we look at today.

[Deadwood]

Welcome Jennifer...

For me it has always been human history, from culture and religion to politics and law.
Man's ability to adapt, innovate, invent and create has always fascinated me. What I find most interesting is that 'a', man has always sought to communicate, and to leave sme kind of record, oral or written and 'b' man's ability to be absolutely certain about things at all times while history shows we are almost always wrong.
Alchemy was a "proven" science in Newton's day just as green house gasses are the cause of global warming today. The ancient Egyptians had dry cell batteries for some reason and performed brain surgery, the Persians knew chemistry before Christ and as Trinnity pointed out, the Romans had running water as well as "vomitoriums" to empty their stromachs so they could eat and drink more.

The Vikings had vineyards in Northern Canada and appear to have sailed through the Northwest Passage spanning at least one winter...and yet we cling to out "new" ideas like they are inventions.....

Imagine what would happen to our society as we know it if, for some reason, there was no more electricity.....

OK ...that rants done

Jennifer, who would you say was the United States "best" president?

[Carygrant]

Welcome to the forum.

I have an interest in the furthest back history could ever go. Not earth history, universe history.

How was the very first "whatever" created?

Was it a gas? Was it a solid? Was it a liquid?

No matter how far back you go, something had to be created from nothing at one point. It's a very deep thing to contemplate.

As expressed by you it is incorrect as any quick introduction to recent Cosmological /Philosophical work will show .
Even some of the latter group had reached this type of tentative conclusion nearly 100 years ago when the logical positivists and others pointed out that putting a question mark after a sentence does not logically identify it as a meaningful question .
It's a waste of time really , but you might also look at the concept of , "nothing" as now viewed at the cutting edge . This is at the heart of your conceptual error .

[Mister D]

As expressed by you it is incorrect as any quick introduction to recent Cosmological /Philosophical work will show .
Even some of the latter group had reached this type of tentative conclusion nearly 100 years ago when the logical positivists and others pointed out that putting a question mark after a sentence does not logically identify it as a meaningful question .
It's a waste of time really , but you might also look at the concept of , "nothing" as now viewed at the cutting edge . This is at the heart of your conceptual error .

Cary, logical positivism died before I was born. When was the last time you read any philosophy? The early 1970s? It was partly because logical positivists tried to dismiss all metaphysical questions as meaningless that it was itself dismissed and rather quickly. As Karl Popper pointed out, it's easy to dismiss things when you simply define them away. It's a waste of time really but you might want to acquaint yourself with philosophy at some point. It's far too easy to call your bluff.

[Cigar]

This it's in the Past and Gone forever.