Curiosity is one of the components of optimal function and links challenge and novelty with the opportunity to grow. For example, searching for meaning of things could guide a sense of direction and purpose in life. We are part of many social groupings. We know that many of the emotions we have can motivate us in many directions and with varying amounts of intensity. Writings from earliest times, including the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament and the Code of Hamurabi, indicate that human beings have always perceived the need to order and restrain certain human emotions and motivations for the greater good of society. Anger, sexual passion, and covetousness are among those emotions whose expressions are universally structured. The emotions themselves are no more important or powerful than any others, but the fullest expression of them have consequences for more than one individual. Anger, for instance, when carried to an extreme, can lead to such violent expressions are murder, assault, destructiveness. Sexual passions can in their extremes lead to sex by physical force or threat, adultery, and similar offenses against others. Covetousness carried to extremes leads to aggression against the property of another person. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

When human’s social life began, leaders found it necessary to form an unwritten social contract, whereby in return for the benefits of group-living, the individual had to agree to abide by certain laws and restrictions. Some people are instinctively aggressive, and there is the necessity for inhibiting aggressiveness through ritualized actions. The phrase “nature red in tooth and claw” was originally intended to refer to the brutal prey-killing activities of the carnivores, but it has been applied incorrectly in general terms to the whole subject of animal fighting. Nothing could be further from the truth. If a species is to survive, it simply cannot afford to go around slaughtering its own kind. Intra-specific aggression has to be inhibited and controlled, and the more powerful and savage the prey-killing weapons of a particular species are, the stronger must be the inhibitions about using them to settle dispute with rivals. This is the “law of the jungle” where territorial and hierarchy disagreements are concerned. Those species that failed to obey this law have long since become extinct. Some people believe that in nature there is a pitiless fight for survival, an eternal conflict. The strong always overcome the weak, and this makes development possible. The forces keeping population under control are disasters, such as war, famine, and disease. Basically, in order for some people to live, it is necessary for others to die, which makes existence a permanent war. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

The struggle for existence goes on everywhere from long continuous observations of animals and plants, and under these circumstances favorable variations will tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones will be destroyed. The result of this will be the formation of a new species. People consider humans animals because of their continuity with nature, because they share with all other organism similarities in ways of existing: eating, utilizing oxygen, drinking, reproducing, etc. Man, and Woman’s humanness consists of ways in which one has transcended one’s physical nature and its one-to-one dependence on the physical environment. Humans can profit from experience. And, having experienced the benefits to be derived from their social living, one can move in ways that enhance the group so blithely give up one’s own existence. However, human beings do not quite so blithely give up their instinctive selfishness and follow the rules of other people. We have evidence that from the beginning of human’s intellectual life there was as much survival-value for one in cooperation and social living as there may have been in individualistic action and self-seeking behavior. Some people believe that humans are primarily beasts, innately aggressive and instinctively territorial animals, others have been struggling to show us the evidence for the opposite view. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

Physical anthropologists have been arguing for several years that both human nature and nurture are much more inclined toward cooperative behavior than toward either competitive or hostile actions: The evidence as we are able to judge it, on the basis of field observations among living primates, indicates the deep-seated nature of the cooperative drives which bind the members of primate societies together and preserve them. Among early humans these cooperative drives were undoubtedly intensified for the very reason that every member of early human society was in an even more interdependent relation to one’s fellows than the member of any other primate group had ever been. The critical state of immaturity in which the human infant is born, and the long period of dependency which is characteristic of a person, have from the first intensified and reinforced the cooperative organization of the responses from others upon which the human child is dependent for one’s survival and one’s development as a human being. However, people do seem to have territorial or property attitudes, and they seem to justify attack and self-defense and even armed aggression in the name of those attitude. How do we explain this? #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

Our earliest ancestors were wanderers, but not entirely nomadic. They wandered about in search of food and, of course, to escape from the dangers of their physical environment. When they found an area that contained sufficient foods and access to water, they, like many primates observed today, settled for a while. One of the main reasons for the settling was the need of women for a stable situation in which to give birth and rear their children. If there was sufficient food and water and the place was safe (or could be made safe) from animals that might attack them, the women probably preferred to settle. The settling usually involved some kind of laying out or defining of the boundaries (President Trump’s boarder all is not so unheard of). And, if attack came, where from other humans or wilder animals, the defense usually took the form of rituals, rather than warfare. The rituals, observed in many wild animals and to some degree in modern primates, including ourselves, involved shows of strength, bluffing, dancing, loud cries and shouting. Armed fighting was a last resort. Within the small family or band other kinds of rituals would evolve, elaborate patterns of social regulations which were agreed upon by all, for each person could understand one’s own desire to possess and keep that which is his or hers. Those pre-human and human ancestors who selected cooperative and nonaggressive patterns of social interaction were the ones who survived. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

There is more than just guesswork involved here. If the relations within families and tribes had been aggressive and hostile, or even begrudgingly tolerant, mating and the development of family life could hardly have taken place. Moreover, we have fossil and other physical evidence that cooperation and group living were the dominant social patterns for early humans just as several universal patterns of cooperation and group living have been found in every society that has ever been studied: a family form, kinship relations, incest taboos, naming, birth and death rituals, and many others. In the opening half of the nineteenth century, throughout Europe, members of the ruling class gathered to discuss the newly discovered “Population problem” and to devise ways to increase the mortality rate of the poor: Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, they encouraged contrary habits. In towns, they made the streets narrower, crowded more people into the houses, and courted the return of plagues. In the country, they built their villages near stagnant pools, and encouraged settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations and so forth. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

As a result of the cruel policy, the strong would defeat the weak in the struggle for survival, and this is probably why not much is being done about the violence in Chicago, it is a form of population control. Much like in the 19^th century, the idea is to crush the poor. People ask why cannot people enjoy how beautiful our World is and why is there so much violence and crime and the answer is because the cost of living is so high and there are so many people in competition for money, sex, food, land, and other resources. It is a result of the struggle for survival. With the struggle in nature also being accepted as being in human nature, conflicts in the name of racism, Fascism, Communism, and imperialism, and the efforts of strong peoples to crush peoples they perceived as weaker are by now clothed in a scientific façade. It is now impossible to reproach or obstruct those who carried out barbarous massacres, treated human beings like animals, turned peoples against each other, who despised others on account of their race, who closed down small businesses in the name of competition, and who refused to extend the hand of help to the poor. Because they are doing this in accordance with scientific natural law. This is known as Social Darwinism. Subsequent arguments for slavery, colonialism, racial differences, class struggles, and gender roles go forth primarily under the banner of science. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

One point requires careful attention here. All periods of human history have seen wars, atrocities, ruthlessness, racism, and conflict. However, there is at all times a Divine religion teaching people that what they are doing is wrong and calling them to peace, justice, and clam. Because human beings knew this Divine religion, they at least had a measure of understanding tat what they are doing is wrong when they engaged in violence. However, Darwinism has become an excuse for the struggle for profit and injustice, it has become an element of scientific justification to the people, and they believe this is all part of human nature, that people carry savage and aggressive tendencies left over from their ancestors, and in that same way as the strongest and most aggressive animal survived, the same laws apply to human beings. Under the influence of this thinking, wars, sufferings, and massacres began to affect a very large part of the World. Darwinism supported and encouraged all those movements which brought pain, blood, and oppression to the World, showed them to be reasonable and justified, and backed all their practical applications. As a result of this so-called scientific backing all these dangerous ideologies continue to grow increasingly stronger, and have stamped the name of the age of suffering on the 21^st century. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

And the questions a child asks, the observations a child shares, and the discussions that occur provide crucial spiritual early warning signals. Importantly, parents can help to discern what their children are learning, thinking, and feeling about the truths contained in the sacred scripture, as well as the difficulties they may be facing. “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whole the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I had said unto you. Peace I leave you with, my peace I give unto you: not as the World gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,” reports John 14.26-27. The knowledge and spiritual conviction we receive from the Holy Ghost are the result of revelation. Seeking for and obtaining these blessings require a sincere heart, real intent, and faith in Christ. “If you shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost,” reports Moroni 10.4. A personal testimony also brings responsibility and accountability. “Neither take what you shall say; but treasure up in your mind continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in that hour that portion that shall be meted unto every person,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 84.85. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9