Secular Kids More Altruistic than Religion Taught Kids - Study Shows

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/religious-children-less-altruistic-secular-kids-study?CMP=fb_gu

Older children, usually those with a longer exposure to religion, “exhibit[ed] the greatest negative relations”.

The study also found that “religiosity affects children’s punitive tendencies”. Children from religious households “frequently appear to be more judgmental of others’ actions”, it said.

Muslim children judged “interpersonal harm as more mean” than children from Christian families, with non-religious children the least judgmental. Muslim children demanded harsher punishment than those from Christian or non-religious homes.

At the same time, the report said that religious parents were more likely than others to consider their children to be “more empathetic and more sensitive to the plight of others”. …

The report was “a welcome antidote to the presumption that religion is a prerequisite of morality”, said Keith Porteus Wood of the UK National Secular Society.

“It would be interesting to see further research in this area, but we hope this goes some way to undoing the idea that religious ethics are innately superior to the secular outlook. We suspect that people of all faiths and none share similar ethical principles in their day to day lives, albeit may express them differently depending on their worldview.”

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Is Lack of Transparency Without Accountability a Moral Question Anymore?

Is Europe Too Corrupt to Save? Can Transparency cure the corruption endemic to the southern tier culture of Europe, a Catholic culture except for the Greeks?  Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy all good Catholic cultures with blind fascist obedience to a Leader or Dictator or a Pope being the historic cultural background.  This is not anti-Catholic where I am taking this but it is part of my background argument.

Can a lack of transparency be the reason why RC bishops protect pedophilia? The Pedo State (Penn State) child rape and child trafficking ring trial is under way in Pennsylvania just as the Monsignor Lynn Child Abuse trial has been sent to the jury, also in Pennsylvania.

I for one am not eager to hear any more adult male penis in child mouth or anus testimony in a secular case as opposed to a religious pedophile trial.  No doubt Bill Donohue at the “Catholic” League will regularly be reporting to us and mentioning to his drinking buddy Cardinal Dolan on the daily jury trial activities of secular Coach Sandusky at Penn State – actually no, Sandusky is a good Catholic adult male and has been recognized as such with awards from the likes of the Knights of Columbus etc. …. (Can’t go there? Librul eastern media? Right?) 

The nuns have shot back across the bough at the anti-female Vatican quest to sack the nuns' American real estate holdings through trumped up liberal, progressive humanist charges with a simple idea within their June one response to the boys in the Vatican:

“The board members raised concerns about both the content of the doctrinal assessment and the process by which it was prepared. Board members concluded that the assessment was based on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency.”

"Transparency".  That’s the word Carl Anderson as board member of the Vatican Bank IOR (Institute for Religious Works) kept tossing around the librul press when their token part time consultant Gotti Tedeschi, President of the Vatican Bank, got sacrificed as a scapegoat(?) in the recent scandal over there.  

No transparency – real transparency – and European banks don’t want to deal with the Vatican Bank without a trustworthy rating regarding money laundering and terrorism funding.

If Carl Anderson ran his Knights of Columbus Insurance business like the Vatican Bank….(Let’s not go there.)

And let’s not forget – Too Big to Fail in America?

I keep running into the “T” word – TRANPARENCY – all over the web.  And the TRANPARENCY word seems not to have a SYNONYM like MORALITY.

TRANSPARENCY  -  just a word without an energy or force - MORALITY and or ACCOUNTABILITY

The secular world has broken away from the traditional superstitious world of religion in the west.  The west invented Christianity or remodeled Jesus stuff under Constantine in the fourth century and church fathers remodeled or plagiarized Aristotle, Plato and other concepts of morality from the pagan world.

Now that Christianity is on life support in the west, the most, best you can get in the public forum is a bunch of women hating closeted homosexuals running the RC church trying to preach morality without transparency or accountability in the day to day operations of the church. That and fundamentalist creationist political hack party evangelicals.

Businesses preach profit without morality and most importantly of all without transparency and definitely without any accountability whatsoever.

Government preaches democracy and law and order, verbal code words for morality, without transparency and or accountability for no-bid Bush Cheney type government contracts etc?

The simple truth is that a lot of corruption in western society lies with the separation of actions, any actions not tied to any transparency and or accountability.

That is why trillions have disappeared on Wall Street and nobody except Madoff is in prison.

Corruption equals Transparency minus Accountability minus Morality – all in the same category or all divorced from each other these days?

The end of western civilization as we have known it for thousands of years?

I give some credit for part of the idea of this article to the below article in Al Jazeera English which as an outsider  news agency of sorts is witnessing the meltdown of the West in mentioning some “Emperor Has No Clothes” observations ignored here in the west regarding the present Eurozone monetary crisis.

          Just how corrupt is Europe?                      

The warning comes in a new report that says poor governance contributed to financial and political scandals in almost every European country during 2011. 

Greece, Italy and Spain are listed as among the most corrupt countries on the continent. 

Political parties, businesses and the public sector are said to be the worst institutions for corruption, while electoral commissions and state auditors performed the best. 

The report named Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain – the eurozone's most financially-troubled nations – as having deeply-rooted problems in their public administrations where officials are not accountable for their actions. 

Political lobbying is also seen as a major cause for concern. Out of 25 European countries 19 have no regulations on political lobbying. 

Party funding, with the influence of lobbyists on decision-makers remaining veiled in secrecy, is seen as ripe for abuse by big businesses. The report says Europe's political parties must do more to make funding transparent.

(Like regulations on lobbying could really provide any protection from corruption? – Look at Washington DC as an example.)

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Facebook – Pornography – Divorce?

It is not illegal to post pictures of your erect penis or your wide open twat in self-made porn on Facebook with your cell phone camera. 

Of course restricted access in most cases separates Grandma’s pictures of baby from the steamy underside of the new age of “social interface”.  

The giggly teenage girls will still gossip and 20% of America divorces now citing Facebook in divorce cases will move on in time to the next flavor of the month “social network” thing.  But think about it.  

American are so much more gung ho. And Facebook was originally designed exclusively for college kids, drugs, sex, alcohol, Spring Break. Bring on the self-produced porn in the bathroom mirror and dirty steamy messages.

“Leisure time” activity, the pursuit of happiness?

Now we know why the Facebook stock scam  is worth 104 billion dollars in capital  on the stock market and why every pension fund and 401k in America must have it in their stock portfolio even at a loss with fees, fees, fees included.  

Wall Street certainly knows how to judge the moral compass or non-moral compass of America and currently it is Facebook.

The marriage killer: One in five American divorces now involve Facebook 

Facebook was by far the biggest offender, with 66 per cent of lawyers citing it as the primary source of evidence in a divorce case. MySpace followed with 15 per cent, Twitter at 5 per cent and other choices lumped together at 14 per cent. 

The survey reflects the findings of a UK law firm last year showing that 20 per cent of its divorce petitions blamed Facebook flings…. 

The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to,’ said Mark Keenan, managing director of Divorce-Online. 

Friends Reunited faced similar claims when it was launched to help people reconnect with old classmates, but the 23 million plus people now using Facebook in Britain means it is having a much bigger effect on rising divorce rates….  

An American minister also made the headlines recently when he called Facebook a ‘portal to infidelity’ and insisted that his congregation delete their accounts after revealing that 20 couples attending his New Jersey church had been led astray through the site. 

Rev. Cedric Millier, who runs the Living World Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune, New Jersey, said Facebook enabled spouses to reconnect with former lovers, leading to rows and bitterness. 

But Rev. Miller was forced to take a leave of absence after his own non-Facebook transgressions were revealed in an admission that he took part in three-way sexual trysts in the past. 

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Fork in the Road - Secular vs. Religious Morality

The Prez and the VP came out in favor the a civil rights issue on Marriage Equality in the past few days.

The Prez did so a day after the redneck bible thumpers in North Carolina had to reinforce their own "religious" POV which goes with the Old Testmament and for lack of more civil words, the male penis right to fuck his property, whether it be woman, slaves or other "chattels".

It is amazing what I have seen in my lifetime of the far right religious nuts taking on the absolute authoritarian Roman model of the guys in silk and lace at the Vatican.  Of taking over a political party and wearing a false mask of Jesus.

That model makes no apology and exploits any human being male or female, straight or homosexual, or "priest-like" sexual (question mark ?) persons who by birth or accident wander into the precincts of religious stone age authority.

It is a day when the fundies are pushing gay hate in Africa as a means to slide into the socio-economic scheme there as a moral factor in the growing future wealth of that continent.

The old are bankrolling the current propaganda war in the west, Europe, North America and parts of South America against the idea that someone might be born with a sexual orientation different than the majority tribe POV.  The young already cherish their freedom to choose life the way they see fit and as God intended.

It is a great day when an African-American President of the United States can interject a secular moral idea based on individual introspection based on a pro-Jesus POV onto the world stage.

While traditions in Africa will not likely to change.  From this day forward another global morality base idea is brought into sharp focus to the rest of humanity.  While the Muslim world is not likely to follow on the merits of same sex marriage, the idea, the seed of change, of a diverse global POV is planted.

It is remarkable when the old men in the Vatican in the sixties put all their prestige and money so to speak on the Craps Table and based the whole future of a dying church on trying to monopolize an individual's right to choose and or to deny their right to live out freely what God has imposed on them as an individual in terms of his or her animus, animal nature.

The spiritual power, the "higher angels of out nature", is the goal, the evolution of the species to achieve over the baser forms of our shared lesser nature.

It is to be remembered that the words of the arch-villian of humanity, archbishop Wojtyla's advice and prejudice to Paul VI on birth control, took a biased view of Protestantism and the rights of individuals by stating that the "holy spirit" was exclusively with the Roman Catholic POV.

Well maybe the "holy spirit" now speaks on matters of human sexuality directly to the individual, a very Protestant concept, and the old fashioned generally corrupted religious POV is growing obsolete in the new global arena of thought.

The Enlightment, though blockaded and detoured through the recent past, is on a clear path to the future.

Human morality and human sexuality are no longer properties owned by the state and or state religion in this new dawning global age.

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National Morality Tax on Abortion – National American Identity Card – Proposed Lori/Franks Bill

(tax stamp)

The assault on Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty, Religious Safety or whatever else as it is called or might be called in the future; I propose a balancing act, a means to pay for the madness.

All this whining and paranoia in the media about the secular reality intruding with sunshine onto the dark shadow lands of superstition “I want a free lunch on the Government’s dime” religious groups, NPOs and tax free religious agenda think tanks/poll enablers, here is a compromise.

Since what these religions want is for the government to control the inmates in their own share of Bedlam turf, I propose a morality tax kickback to the government in return for their sponsorship of the envisioned (by me) Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona legislation to design and execute the new American National Identity Card.

On that proposed National Identity Card is already a designated spot for Country of Birth.  Next to the spaces for RACE of yourself, your parents and your grandparents, I propose a place for one’s Religion.  Actually two spots.  One for Religion at Birth and one for Current Religion.  This is after all necessary to divvy up this new morality tax sharing with the States.

So the next time an abortion is found out, spied on, reported by the stalking public citizen safety committees on morality, about a disloyal American citizen, a Vagina Terrorist, all assets of that individual will be confiscated and returned to the state for the costs of healthcare, incarceration for this person to be examined and also to be sterilized so that she can never have another abortion ever.  Sounds reasonable. Right?  

Hate the Sin. Forgive the Sinner. Prevent the future Sin (medically). Amen

It is for the woman’s own good that she never sin against the Christian god again and or the Roman Catholic Church or the Baptists god, Mormons god etc.

Now here comes the good part.  Since this sinning worthless piece of shit female has found an abortion place somewhere here or Canada or Mexico, I propose a million dollar tax kickback to the government from the churches that did not teach her properly on her morality and civic duty according to her religion.

If she is both born and currently Roman Catholic, the RC church must be fined a full $ 1 million morality tax fine so in order to pay for the government and its vast bureaucracy to police American life, media and privacy looking for people attacking Roman Catholic Freedom, Liberty, Safety or whatnot.

Here is the fair part of the Proposed Lori/Franks Bill of Public Religious safety that includes the new national identity card and DNA sample.  If the sinner was born a Catholic and is now a Baptist, the million dollar government fine is split between the two offending teaching institutions of morality for not indoctrinating their members properly.  You’ve got to be properly taught.

It is only fair that the funding for witch hunts and making everybody else in America conform to Catholic Sharia law help defray expenses in this protecting of the Racket church business in America. But you Baptists and Mormons, don’t get paranoid about the Catholic Sharia Law thing.  The country on the map will have designated Sharia Primary Law areas or turfs.  Utah, Nevada and parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho with be Mormon Sharia primary turf. 

Baptist Sharia Law territory is all across the old Confederacy.  The Catholics have the Northeast, Midwest and all other parts west are up for grabs, bid and or compromise negotiated for said disputed turf. It’s a definite Win Win for religious institutions.

With a new national flat income tax 999 (666), the churches will also be entitled to more tax breaks, a flat payout from the treasury to salaries for clerics, church building projects, schools, nursing homes, hospitals, Religiously owned or shareholder controlled Healthcare Insurance Companies and any other related church business, factories, warehouses, import-export, or banking entities.

There are those who say that the American Church businesses and rackets have got it pretty good right now and should just leave well enough alone.  Why get greedy-greedier?  I say - Go for it boys!  All or Nothing!

Morality, Gravity and Foreclosures

This week the banks backed off of foreclosures because the paperwork involved in 19th century protocols that 21st century computers did not have a clue about.

The morality of foreclosure never existed. The legality of having the right papers to sign in mass foreclosure brought even the mighty banks to a temporary halt. Or at least until a judge somewhere says go ahead with the process.

The computer speeds things up and creates volume. It does not however create quality or accuracy. These front office jockeys who have outsourced half our jobs off to China and India do not know how the back office works or is supposed to work.

It is as if corporations are all sitting in luxury carriages and have dismissed the horse and coachman mainly due to the expense of the horse and the coachman’s meager wages. It all goes unnoticed if the traffic is all down hill which it is at the moment. Does gravity really run our largest corporations at the present moment and not common sense???

God save us all from the U.S.S. Titanic mindset of the idiots in charge of business and government.

Ayn Rand's Pagan Religion

Most people in a secular society give lip service to altruism. It, as phrased by Any Rand, is the basis of the current moral standards in the west that fall short of her Objectivism which states that individual selfishness is the right approach to reality.

As in some cases, a visual is more informative.   A picture is worth a thousand words.

Viewing some ancient Ayn Rand interviews on YouTube, I felt that this pagan high priestess of the New American Fascism Free Market Capitalist philosophy does not see the forest for the need to piss on the tree right in front of you.

I can see that the so-called altruism of Christianity has not been fulfilled fully over the centuries. Some progress on a regular basis on the evolutionary scale and toward a better humanity is the implied overall message, reality, of Christianity.

Ayn Rand’s anti-human atheism is being touted more than ever before as America is trying to get its fix on its place in the brave new global reality.

If Fascism is the best way to go mixed with Fox New Fear and Lies agitprop rumors, then chaos is not only here temporarily but the eye of the storm moves back to the permanent violence and chaos of nature - a dark age.

That building a better world and being able to share it is the make or break moment of any civilization and more so now in the evolution of our species at this point in time in global history.

Look at the ash tray above.

Individual pleasure and selfishness says to smoke. Burdening your lung cancer treatment bills on insurance companies or the Government is the real end result of this false fucked up Tea Party philosophy. Total individual independence in the middle of your own forest is a myth long gone from the reality of the American landscape. I doubt that any of these arm chair fascist philosphers espousing Ayn Rand and her wanna be new American State Religion are really going to do the lung cancer treatment thing out of their own pocket.

That is the basic flaw of Ayn Rand – time marches on and a static philosophy must change or adapt to present situations. If you are locked into a never changing religion/philosophy/dogma of selfishness, you are already the ash (the dead past) at the bottom of the ashtray in terms of not trying to any make meaningful contributions to the present and continued future interdependence of humanity.

The filled ashtray of history to date is Objectivism, sad to say. No brave new light to the future there.