Well we do need to grow cotton and such, but the environment is not as fragile! The economy can collapse easily, but the environment fixes itself over time (yes, many many many years, but it's not like the economy can miraculously get better without our intervention).
I prefer physical books and I'm sure we will always have them, but I agree that e-books will take over. I mean, they take up less space, they're easier to read (with a light up screen), and it's something a lot of people will prefer with technology becoming more and more popular.
"I feel the environment is much more important."
I guess in the long run, it is- especially after every major government on Earth collapses. lol. But since the environment has been known to fix itself over the centuries and the economy affects more people right now, I think we should work on that first. Besides, as I stated on the other side, you need money from the economy to help fix the environment. ;)
I'd love it if every nation abolished ALL forms of warfare. But the truth is that nuclear weapons can be a very good way of protecting the free world. Korea and Iran don't use the nuclear weapons the (might) have because they know that is they do, their countries would get annihilated by the hundreds of nukes we have. And even if we were able to abolish them, do you really think North Korea and Iran, for examples, would follow suit? No! They would surely attack us!
Getting rid of minimum wage laws would not raise wages. It seems as if getting rid of the minimum would cause competition between businesses in making the best wages out there, but I'm sure most businesses and companies would actually lower wages to what they are overseas to make more money. Minimum wage enables the government to ensure that any hard worker in America can live off of the money. Of course, it doesn't ensure the same for families or people who barely work though...
I don't really see too much of a problem with a national school system that regulates curriculum and the like, but I still think there should be local school systems simply out of practicality. There are just too many schools in America to all be in the same system centered in one place, unless there are other secondary school systems throughout the nation.
"The national curriculum should not include any material pertaining to the origin of life or the history of life, i.e., evolution and creationism/intelligent design should not be addressed."
I believe these subjects should be taught together. If you think about it, most children, like myself, go to some sort of catechism or Sunday school, which would only teach creation. I think every child should be taught both and make up his or her own mind on the matter.
Finally, I find your remark about how "private schools do not work and cannot serve as an alternative to public schools" very offensive. I just graduated from a private school and I must say it's a better education than what I would've gotten at my public school, which is overcrowded and full of vanity and materialism. My public school gives students very short classes and too much free time throughout the day. My schedule, for the most part, was 40 minute classes, with 8 classes a day and double period labs. We only get one lunch period, until senior year when we no longer take gym and health (but my school was so big on sports and clubs and stuff that gym was a joke any way. I skipped every day junior year.) So even though we got out a month earlier than public school, we technically got more time for each class than the public school students. Not to mention, since our school is a college prep school, we didn't waste time with electives and such, but had math, science (bio, chem, and physics), English, world language, history, and religion (lots of philosophy, morality, and history of Church. Not so much Church teachings.)
Just because there were several people that were successful without a college education, does not mean college is not worth it. Almost every person that is that successful without college is famous for writing novels, acting, singing, etc. The average person will not be that famous and thus we all kind of need higher education to be able to get jobs. It looks really good on a resume. :p
"Where do you go from there?"
That's it. Once somebody accepts that there is an initial force, he has to realize it is a supernatural being (because it cannot logically be a natural being) and a god or gods will follow suit. Thus "initial force = god/gods".
Okay, so let's say it was an accident- how did the accident come to be? There really is no explanation for why the universe began without factoring some supernatural being.
We don't need to know anything about the initial force that created the universe- that's why there are many different religions out there. We just need to understand that there was some initial force.
