I think it's interesting you use specifically a Muslim as your example, somewhat offensive to me having Syrian ancestry.
Syrians had their own belief systems before Islam, but I see what you are saying. I'm willing to wager a number of people in various communities around the world since antiquity did not in fact believe the popular religion of their time. For all you know your ancestors could've been atheists or followers of some religion lost to time. I find it interesting to associate religion with ethnicity. In many cases, you did not have a choice but to practice the religion of your governing peoples or face punishment, even death. Muslims are the most obvious example in modern times, because by and large, they are the predominant religious group engaging in violent conversion. They are the only major world religion to have actual laws governing the people of their nations in regards to how you may or may not live, according to their religion. They are not only not believers in separation of church and state, but in many cases, they are very much one and the same. There's loads of people living in Islamic countries that would really enjoy not having it forced upon them, how many is uncertain, as you will in fact fact real problems for being a vocal atheist or non-Muslim in those nations, and that is a fact you can lookup. Christianity and Judaism and other minor religions had similar persecutions of people in their past... but I don't know of a single religion outside Islam that has that kind of power in the modern world, aside from perhaps the Vatican in the Holy See and Judaism in Israel. For the most part... religion is on the decline in terms of power, and secular authority is on the rise.
The idea of killing someone in the name another's ideal is not specific to them.
Indeed not, but they are the most prolific religious group to still do so today. There is a huge debate as to whether these actions are religiously or politically motivated, however, and I personally think politics has a much larger hand to play here.
I would regard the taking of another's life for any sort of reason other than mercy to be selfish, though that's something not many would like to admit.
When those Christians used to burn "witches" at the stake they did so to save their soul from damnation. Now this to us is ludricious, but in the context of their belief system, killing someone on Earth to spare them an eternity of torment as a very merciful thing. Context is everything... I see nothing selfish about that. The only way you could kill someone and consider it selfish, would be if you killed someone for their possessions, or something that directly benefits you personally. Killing for an ideal is not selfish, likewise, evil is often not selfish either. Selfishness is more of a morally grey idea... unless of course it crosses to extremes like killing people and looting them of their money... which is pretty much evil, unless survival itself is at stake, which becomes a more complex issue. But killing someone for their X-BOX is obviously evil and stupid, but that's an example of selfishness. Killing for an ideal cannot be selfish, as the self does not directly benefit.
Where did I say humans cannot function without a presence in power over us? My statement was that humans do not have the required mind-set to live in any form of Anarchic society with mutual respect for what is and is not acceptable.
These two statements are not mutually exclusive. A power over use sets what is and what is not acceptable... in a term known as laws, and forces them to be obeyed by punishing those who violate said values. Since as what you said is correct, laws constantly are in a flux and change quite often. However... there general ideas are that you don't kill me, I won't kill you, you don't steal from me, I won't steal from you. We can agree on basic tenets, without agreeing on specific ideas. Don't mess with me I won't mess with you is the rule of the land in an anarchy.
We have not altered nature, it remains the same, we cannot breath in space or water. We have merely created tools to suit our nature, the breathing apparatus for example does not allow us to breath underwater, it allows us to breath in a certain space that is perceived to be underwater. Changing our nature would be genetically altering ourselves to have gills.
Genetic alteration and technological alteration are literally the same thing. The end result is you've modified nature to suit your ends. Even if technology can be separated from you, while you are using it, you are effectively altered. I fail to see a difference here. Anyway nature by definition is the unaltered state of reality. Once you alter it, it becomes artificial, or man-made. That's a textbook definition. Artificial = not natural = not nature. Technology = artificial = not natural, genetic modification = artificial = man made = not natural. See?
Our planet is one evolution away from destruction? Yet it has survived for over 40 million years up until now without our assistance, we are not Gods, the planet has does and will function without us and if such a thing were to happen the rest of the lifeforms here would change to suit it, that is evolution.
Evolution is completely random governed only by what works best. If a beast evolves to over-hunt its prey, it dies out, but so does it prey. If a beast can eat any organic matter, all life dies out. See how that works? An extreme example, but certainly possible. 40 million years means nothing because it takes millions of years for significant evolutionary changes to occur... as in one species to go to another. Small changes won't make massive differences in ecosystems, but large changes will. Human intelligence is an example of a change that has massively changed the ecosystem. A bacteria that eats all life could be another.
Where did you hear this about grass, I've never heard nor can I find anything about it.
Millions of years ago there was no such a thing of grass. Grass evolves and now covers much of the world's surface. It goes to show how widespread a successful mutation can become. Dandelions are another good example. Let weeds grow in your garden and they will kill the other plants there... all it takes is an unlucky thing to evolve that is too successful to wipe out an entire ecosystem... and this HAS happened. The vast majority of species to ever have lived are now extinct. Luckily nature balances itself in the fact that if you eat all your food you die as well, but now two species have still gone extinct. Get a species that eats everything and has no predators, and you are in trouble.
I find it hard to believe we would ever be able to change physics. We barely understand 1% of it as it is, just a few years ago one of our major thoughts about it were proven wrong by the discovery that Black Holes can close, which also battered our ideas about time as well. We are by no means near such an achievement, I doubt we would see it even in the next 10,000 years.
Even so we will one day see a change. Think how insane the idea of a cellphone would've sounded to cavemen or even men in the 18th century. Imagine talking to someone across the world... or even seeing their face and moving pictures with sound! All within milliseconds second of delay! That is something you wouldn't comprehend back then... so very likely such things can be possible. Again, I can't prove it without inventing it... but I feel it is the case. Also, technological breakthroughs are not gradual progressions over a long period of time, sometimes, it occurs in very rapid amounts over a very small period of time. Take computers for example, or the internet. Only a few decades old and look how much has changed. The digital revolution itself is less than fifty years old, and look how fast it has advanced.
Lookup the singularity to see what is coming... likely.
