File this under... Duh...

Thinking About God Calms Believers, Stresses Atheists:

Researchers have determined that thinking about God can help relieve anxiety associated with making mistakes. However, the finding only holds for people who believe in a God.

The researchers measured brain waves for a particular kind of distress response while participants made mistakes on a test.

Those who had been prepared with religious thoughts had a less prominent response to mistakes than those who hadn’t.

“Eighty-five percent of the world has some sort of religious beliefs,” says Michael Inzlicht, who cowrote the study with Alexa Tullett, both at the University of Toronto-Scarborough.

“I think it behooves us as psychologists to study why people have these beliefs; exploring what functions, if any, they may serve.”

With two experiments, the researchers showed that when people think about religion and God, their brains respond differently—in a way that lets them take setbacks in stride and react with less distress to anxiety-provoking mistakes.

Participants either wrote about religion or did a scrambled word task that included religion and God-related words.

Then the researchers recorded their brain activity as they completed a computerized task—one that was chosen because it has a high rate of errors.

The results showed that when people were primed to think about religion and God, either consciously or unconsciously, brain activity decreases in areas consistent with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The ACC is associated with a number of things, including regulating bodily states of arousal and alerting us when things are going wrong.

Interestingly, atheists reacted differently. When they were unconsciously primed with God-related ideas, their ACC increased its activity. The researchers suggest that for religious people, thinking about God may provide a way of ordering the world and explaining apparently random events and thus reduce their feelings of distress.

Not exactly a surprising result.

Personal best 10K time!

I ran my personal best 10k today. Not really all that impressive, as it was my first 10K run today. My video crew filmed a bit near the end, in which I have been running an hour.

Time: 1:00:06

Shoes: River shoes (see previous blog entry)

Style: Forefooted running style (aka: barefooted style)

Calories burned: 890

Distance covered: 6.21 miles (10k... duh)

Aftermath:

Cardiovascular system, no issues, I had plenty of wind. Lower back, Forefooted style is with a straight back and level head, no issues. Knees, no issues. Shin splints, no issue. Ankles, no issue. Feet, nothing structural. I did suffer some blisters on my big toe. Next time I will need some socks to wick away the sweat in the river shoes. Yes, I said next time. Calf muscles, strained and sore. In getting the running style down I have a tendency to not let my heel touch the ground at all. I believe I have this issue resolved.

I cannot recall needing to ingest food like I did after the race. In a good way. More to follow, I have to go ride bikes with Connor now.

Thought on Offensive.

When someone claims to have been “offended” by someone else’s remarks, he is usually grandstanding.

It is a choice to be offended, after all.

Why exactly?

Someone recently commented on Facebook that they hated poor people. The assertion is this person is fiscally well off and should be demonized. Why exactly?

Hate itself is a problem: 1 a : intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury b : extreme dislike or antipathy : loathing.

Hatred is irrational most of the time, so I can see questioning the rational behind the above loathing. How different is I hate poor people from I hate people?

Do I have intense hostility for the tall person sitting in front of me at the theater? Maybe it is just a pet peeve of mine. Not sure.

If you hate something, surely you want less of that something around. Juxtapose Loveing something you would want more. So if you hate poor people you would want less poor people around. I would venture to guess many poor people would like to move up and out of that tax bracket. If not, state lotteries would not do nearly so well.

If you love poor people you would want more and more of them. Hmmm, maybe this explains the liberal mindset?

John Stewart Mass Breakdown!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mass Backwards
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

I enjoy this delicious clip, probably for all the wrong partisan reasons. Still..., enjoy!

Freedom Demolition

At one point in time I was talking to a friend about firearm purchases. His contention was anyone who owned a firearm was a danger to society. Recently I was reading about certain TV sets being banned in California. The phrase "Why would anyone buy something like that?" popped into my mind. That question, in one context, is perfectly reasonable. In another context, one dealing with banning or regulation, is the elimination of freedoms.

Are there certain things a person should not be able to buy? Sure, weapons grade plutonium, for instance. The line that gets drawn is a slippery slope fraught with peril.

One of the channels on the TV played Demolition man, and it had a bit more social commentary then I had given credit. Given the current administrations perchance for regulation and neologisms.

Napolitano preferred the euphemism Man-Made disaster in place of Terrorist Attack. Iin the film: homicide is referred to as a "non-sanctioned life termination" and as "Murder Death Kill" or "MDK". The loosening of decency standards depicted is more of a conservative bent then liberal. A violation of the Verbal Morality Statute, is punishable by police reprimand or a fine. In liberal fashion though, the fine is automatically deducted from a citizen's finances.

Then the government control of media in that the favorite songs of the time are old 20th-century commercial jingles (kid oriented ones) and many words have gained redundant, childish repetitions: to be happy is to experience "joy-joy" feelings. Which bodes of the nanny state.

Then comes the crux. It is explained that anything "not good for you" is deemed "bad" and therefore illegal, including alcohol, caffeine, contact sports, non-educational toys, meat, spicy and unhealthy food, table salt and tobacco (sound familier?). Firearms can only be seen in museums (Gun Control!). Physical contact was recognized as causing the spread of disease and is now seen as unusual (This is enforced in Elementary school). Even high-fives have been replaced with energetic waving. Procreation is carried out in a laboratory (Heavily regulated no doubt); abortion is illegal, but so is unlicensed pregnancy. I can see Nancy Pelosi salivating at the prospect!

I ponder why it is those elected to 'represent us' sometimes feel the need to "protect us from ourselves?"

Chasing Corporations Out Of The U.S.

This was a disturbing read for me.

"But it is not just taxation that is chasing corporations out of America. Another top consideration is access to talent. The U.S. now spends more per capita on public education than any other OECD country, but its students test in the bottom decile."

"A culture that turns a blind eye to government failure, but is quick and unrelenting to blame society's ills on business, will naturally and subliminally embrace socialist solutions. The problem is that when one intervention fails, the government attempts to fix its errors with yet more intervention"

As taxes become more punitive for the rich, those who can will relocate to a more hospitable local. A liberal blogger I know, when confronted with this stated that "The rich will not leave the US, they never had it so good."

This is not the world of the 1950's and 1960's. Well educated workforce's are luring businesses to their locations in a siren song of business friendly government. Our administration seems content with pressing forward with the idea that business needs to earn less and pay more to the government and workforce.

Everything has a price. Every choice has repercussions.

In a large group meeting, at a previous employer of mine. One of management was asking the crowd "What is it you want?" in my typical clownish style shouted anonymously "More Pay for less work." Which got a laugh and the management response of "Me too!"

Talk about human nature in action. If you took a paper and pencil out right now and started a list of things that you should be doing around your home. I am pretty sure that list would grow a life of its own as each item conjured up another. If you were to do the same exercise three months later, I bet you will list many of the same things.

As a thought experiment, what if you were to assign some compensation to the top five items on the list, a reward, if you will...

Human nature.

The beginning of a school year is an appropriate time to question how our schools propose to teach our children.

Today's educators, observing widespread self-doubt and despair among the young, believe that the way to get a student to learn is to inflate his self-image. They believe that the curriculum should be designed, in the words of a resolution from the National Education Association, to "foster positive self-esteem."

There is indeed a lack of self-esteem among our students. The real tragedy, though, is that the educators' irrational view of "positive self-esteem" not only prevents a solution to this problem--but is itself the very cause.

Educators believe that self-esteem can be achieved by simply encouraging a child to "feel good" about himself. They continually exhort students to praise themselves--to praise themselves causelessly--by such means as chanting in class: "I am me and I am enough."

The objective reality of the child's life--the choices he makes, the thinking he engages in, the effort he exerts, the actions he takes--is disregarded. As one guidebook on self-esteem explains: "Children have the right to feel good about themselves exactly as they are. . . . A child's value is unconditional. Nothing the child does, says or chooses can change it."

Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you--by your choices, effort and actions--have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction--based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning--that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success.

Since it is only through rational thought and action that one develops the ability to cope with reality, self-esteem results from an individual's commitment to reason. A rational, productive person will possess self-esteem; a drug-addicted bum will not.

But in the view of our Dewey-inspired educators, logic is a "straitjacket." Students are taught by "progressive" educators that there are no rigid principles in life, and that emotion, not reason, is one's link to reality. Thus, if a child is somehow made to feel good about himself, he is good--irrespective of whether there exists any objective basis for that conclusion.

Of course this approach cannot work. A child who makes bad choices--who does not think but drifts in class, who shuts down his mind at the first sign of difficulty, who heads for the mall instead of exerting the effort that learning requires--will not acquire self-esteem. Constantly getting the answers wrong in class and feeling bewildered by the world outside, such a child experiences only uncertainty, helplessness and self-doubt.

How then will educators make him "feel good" about himself? By attempting to obliterate any facts that lead him to a negative estimate of himself. Accordingly, they teach him that there are never any wrong answers.

This is what gives rise to such nightmarish phenomena as inventive spelling, whereby a fourth-grader who spells "favorite" as "fffifit" is lauded by the teacher for expressing a "creative feeling." This viewpoint infects even the most objective of disciplines, mathematics. One educator explains the root of a girl's errors in mathematics: "She was trying to get these problems right. The alternative was to get them wrong. . . . So this is a situation within the win-lose world in which there's no way the child can feel good about the assignment."

Erase the concept of truth--these educators maintain--and a child will never discover that he is thinking or acting wrongly. If he is taught that anything he does is right because he feels it, he will always "feel good" about himself. For this reason a Minnesota Education Association's guide to self-esteem tells students: "Express your beliefs . . . as your point of view--not as the 'truth.'"

Today's child lacks self-esteem precisely because modern educators encourage him to dispense with his mind, and to indulge his feelings. Self-doubt is the inevitable result, as the child realizes that he lacks the tool by which to comprehend reality.

Yet, to solve the problem they themselves have created, educators propose to continue the same anti-reason, emotionalist approach to teaching.

There is certainly a crisis of self-esteem among America's students. But don't look to the modern pushers of pseudo self-esteem for the remedy. Their ideas are the disease.

thanks to Dr. Ghate

The lost art of debate.

Once upon a time, someone used the phrase "Straw Man Argument" I had no clue what that meant so I headed to the Jr. High Library and found some information about fallacious arguments.

A List Of Fallacious Arguments Something like this list provided via the information superhighway. (Thank you Al Gore!)

As of late there has been lots of dissent over health care and the general direction of our country. Some opinions are very strong, well worded with real world examples to draw conclusions upon. Other opinions are barking a party line.

While some tend to use tricks to deal with the issues while not dealing with them. Or President loves the Straw Man argument and has been diligently using this device with nearly each of his pleadings of support on his version of Health Care.

There are accepted ways to argue, debate teams are a prime example of this. Being able to argue either side of an issue really gives you a good clear understanding of the issue. This would be regardless of your personal belief.

There is a big difference between discussion and debate and argument. Recognizing a straw man, for instance, for what it is can give you a clearer picture. Same with other debate tactics.

Speculative Historical RetCon by James C Bennett

Jefferson was a mixed bag, as was Adams, although on balance Adams was probably sounder. Jefferson was an agrarian romantic who didn’t really understand the financial side of the Anglosphere toolkit, an ideological republican who had some of the shortcomings of all ideological romantics, and because of those things, a Francophile who lingered with the French revolution far too long. On the plus side, he understood the cultural roots of England and English-speaking society quite well, although in an excessively Whiggish way - he believed in the purity of Anglo-Saxon society and the corruption of the Norman yoke. He saw the American revolution as the vindication of the freedom-loving Saxon against the Norman crown and aristocracy - the Witangemot reborn in America. This was based on a fairly good reading of Montestquieu whose appreciation of English constitutionalism was basically correct. His Anglo-Saxon romanticism led him to institute Anglo-Saxon courses at the University of Virginia.

He was also good on decentralism, suspicion of Federal power, and entrenched rights. He was good on the Louisiana Purchase. He was bad on foreign policy in general, and the terrible Embargo.

Adams is better on his theoretical understanding of society, and particularly good on his appreciation of Common Law. He was too reflexively anti-British in foreign policy (Coincidentally, I am right now reading Kathleen Burk’s Old World, New World where she is discussing his record)

I had never liked Hamilton very much, as too much of a centralist - he was perhaps our first National Greatness Conservative - but as I start to understand the financial side of the Anglosphere Toolkit better, the more I realize what he was about. He understood the tools that England had been applying for a century, realized that American was getting the dregs of mercantilist policy while England was enjoying the fruits of a better policy, and understood that with independence we could use those tools at home — which he proceeded to do, and very well.

But perhaps best of all was Franklin. Underneath the homespun PR façade, he understood both England and America quite well (France too, which is why he was so effective there.) He spent so much of his life in London that he really should be considered a great Londoner. He had a very clear-minded picture of what American and Britain could do together if only they could create an effective constitution for it - and spent a great deal of his life trying to create such an Imperial constitution and promote it in England. He only gave up at the very end, and went home to make the best of an independent America, putting his insights to work at the Constitutional convention. That imperial constitution (of which the Comonwealth was only a weak realization) was perhaps the greatest of his inventions that never came to fruition.

Lessons in Government

Great story from MEP Daniel Hannan (link on the right):

I recently asked my friend’s little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up.

She said she wanted to be Prime Minister some day. Both of her parents, Labour supporters, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were Prime Minister what would be the first thing you would do?’

She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’

Her parents beamed.

‘Splendid: what a worthy goal.’ I told her ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re Prime Minister to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you £50.

Then I’ll take you over to the supermarket where that homeless fellow hangs out, and you can give him the £50 to use toward food and a new house.’

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked:

‘Why doesn’t the homeless man come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the £50? ’

I said, ‘Welcome to the Conservative Party.’

Her parents still aren’t speaking to me.

perception is reality

"perception is reality"- is a favorite quote from an ex-manager I had at Dell. This grated on my nerves every time she touted this as an excuse for one thing or another. First off not dealing with an issue in a straight forward manner is irksome, using a platitude as an excuse (ie: boys will be boys), compounds the frustration and generally makes the quoter an ass.

I digress.

I have an old chum and in HS he would come up with one plan after another for something that we should do. These were always highly flawed from the beginning and pointing out the flaws would lead into an argument. My mutual friend would always just agree to the plan and enthusiastically jump on board. At one point I pulled him aside and asked why he always enthusiastically agreed. His answer was "He only talks about this stuff, he never follows through, so I just agree because I know it is never going to happen, why argue about something that never happens?"

He was right of course, and that answer in itself brings up all sorts of ethical issues around honesty, friendship, lies and enabling. Yet the perception was me being negative and shooting down ideas and my buddy was a "better friend" for being supportive. It is very easy to find fault with idea's, throwing up walls, focusing on minutia. When ego's are involved the results of non-consideration over condemnation can stifle ANY idea, good or bad.

Is real life only our observation?

Lack of diversity in institutions of higher learning.

I came across this opinion paper from the CSM. Dan Lawton is a journalism student at the University of Oregon

He posed the question: "Nearly all my professors are Democrats. Isn't that a problem?" The essay follows.

EUGENE, ORE. - When I began examining the political affiliation of faculty at the University of Oregon, the lone conservative professor I spoke with cautioned that I would "make a lot of people unhappy."

Though I mostly brushed off his warning – assuming that academia would be interested in such discourse – I was careful to frame my research for a column for the school newspaper diplomatically.

The University of Oregon (UO), where I study journalism, invested millions annually in a diversity program that explicitly included "political affiliation" as a component. Yet, out of the 111 registered Oregon voters in the departments of journalism, law, political science, economics, and sociology, there were only two registered Republicans.

A number of conservative students told me they felt Republican ideas were frequently caricatured and rarely presented fairly. Did the dearth of conservative professors on campus and apparent marginalization of ideas on the right belie the university's commitment to providing a marketplace of ideas?

In my column, published in the campus newspaper The Oregon Daily Emerald June 1, I suggested that such a disparity hurt UO. I argued that the lifeblood of higher education was subjecting students to diverse viewpoints and the university needed to work on attracting more conservative professors.

I also suggested that students working on right-leaning ideas may have difficulty finding faculty mentors. I couldn't imagine, for instance, that journalism that supported the Iraq war or gun rights would be met with much enthusiasm.

What I didn't realize is that journalism that examined the dominance of liberal ideas on campus would be addressed with hostility.

A professor who confronted me declared that he was "personally offended" by my column. He railed that his political viewpoints never affected his teaching and suggested that if I wanted a faculty with Republicans I should have attended a university in the South. "If you like conservatism you can certainly attend the University of Texas and you can walk past the statue of Jefferson Davis everyday on your way to class," he wrote in an e-mail.

I was shocked by such a comment, which seemed an attempt to link Republicans with racist orthodoxy. When I wrote back expressing my offense, he neither apologized nor clarified his remarks.

Instead, he reiterated them on the record. Was such a brazen expression of partisanship representative of the faculty as a whole? I decided to speak with him in person in the hope of finding common ground.

He was eager to chat, and after five minutes our dialogue bloomed into a lively discussion. As we hammered away at the issue, one of his colleagues with whom he shared an office grew visibly agitated. Then, while I was in mid-sentence, she exploded.

"You think you're so [expletive] cute with your little column," she told me. "I read your piece and all you want is attention. You're just like Bill O'Reilly. You just want to get up on your [expletive] soapbox and have people look at you."

From the disgust with which she attacked me, you would have thought I had advocated Nazism. She quickly grew so emotional that she had to leave the room. But before she departed, she stood over me and screamed.

"You understand that my column was basically a prophesy," I shot back. I had suggested right-leaning ideas weren't welcome on campus and in response the faculty had tied my viewpoints to racism and addressed me with profanity-laced insults.

What's so remarkable is that I hadn't actually advocated Republican ideas or conservative ideas. In fact, I'm not a conservative, nor a Republican. I simply believe in the concept of diversity – a primarily liberal idea – and think that we suffer when we don't include ideas we find unappealing.

After my article on political diversity was published, I received numerous e-mails from students at other schools who spoke of similar experiences. As a result of my research and personal experience, I can now say without reservation that the lack of ideological diversity on college campuses is a dangerous threat to free and open discourse in academia. Sadly, there are few perfect solutions.

One proposal considered by universities is endowing a chair of conservative thought to lure a high-profile conservative scholar to campus. However, this has the potential to exacerbate partisan tensions by sanctioning an explicitly ideological position.

A more draconian option is to enact a political litmus test and mandate that Republicans fill a certain number of positions, but doing so would exclude many qualified professors and be unfairly discriminatory.

The fact is that political diversity, like many diversity efforts, is something that cannot be created through edict, but only by a concerted effort on the behalf of those in power. While hiring on the basis of party affiliation isn't the answer to reducing political discrimination, denying that political beliefs influence pedagogy is simply naive.

Faculties in ideological departments should examine the body of work of a candidate to see if it fills a shortcoming. In a department of journalism or political science, a professor with a right-leaning perspective would not only provide a balance in curriculum, but a potential mentor to conservative students who feel isolated in their beliefs. At left-leaning universities, such professors should be aggressively pursued.

Above all, deans, provosts, and professors must not allow their aversion to conservative ideas to manifest so contemptuously.

Political disagreement is crucial to vibrant discourse, but not in the form of caricatures, slights, or mockery.

Students should never come under personal attack from faculty members for straying from the party line. The fact that they do shows how easily political partisanship can corrupt the elements of higher education that should be valued the most.

Discounted, discounts.

I came across this website. It is a blog site where people find those insane deals you hear about and post how to get them.

There seems to be quite a few things I am not interested in (bulk insulated stainless steel bottles). However, this might just be the bee's knees for someone out there. As per usual you can sign up for spam e-mails, which may not be your cup-o-Jo.

On a side note.

Our main money saving method is the meal planner. This is a pain in the rump but pays dividends quickly. Get fourteen days worth of meals and recipes. Write the days and foods on a refrigerator list, you will cross the meals off as you go. List the ingredient's for each recipe on a shopping list. mentally go over each meal and what condiments you want so you have a comprehensive list.

I like to do this on a spread sheet then sort the items and consolidate. Next I will group according to where in the store to find them. If your familiar with spread sheets this goes quick.

|Item | Quantity | Location in store | Coupon | meal used with | Best price |

If your really into the work a little save a lot you plug the best prices into the spreadsheet and over time you will know the buy in bulk price. So you take your shopping list, go through the cuppboard and check off what you have plenty of, hit the store. Now you have two weeks worth of meals, a reference guide to know what you can make and a database for long term savings. This cuts down on trips to the store and trying to figure out, whats for dinner. We have the big trip then the next weekend a fresh fruit and veg.

Two weeks is enough variety that you do not get the "Oh no not this again" comments going. Also, you can add new recepies to the list and take out tired ones. Or make it seasonal, so your not using the oven when its freeking hot outside.

Need .vs. Want

We have a saying "close your eyes, that's everything you need"

There is a big disconnect between wants and needs as far as people are concerned. What I have a hard time wrapping my head around is why some people want to dictate what others should be allowed to 'want'.

Recent suggestion was all the SUV's be banned because very few people 'need' them. Similarly, our President discussed an elderly person with a broken hip, would not 'need' surgery if they had another condition. My friend Shoo spoke of lowering health care costs is quickly done, if you restrict procedures. If someone looses an arm in a car crash, the health care cost of cauterizing the stump is much less then re-attaching the arm so it functions. Does a person really 'Need' two arms? I mean there are many people who get along fine with just one.

It is quite the slippery slope.

A gentleman named Abraham Maslow developed a Hierarchy of needs. Breathing, Food, Water, Sleep, Homeostasis, Shelter and Sex are at his list of basics. It is really easy to extrapolate quickly from these needs into wants. Food for example, you need to eat a certain amount of a certain variety to sustain your life and health. There is nothing anyone, anyplace could ever argue that would justify that a deep fried Twinkies as a food of basic need.

Responsibility.

There is a news item that seems ridiculous. The California Department of Transportation must pay out 6.3 million for being partially responsible in the wrongful death of two teenage girls.

The driver, Gina Norris, who plead guilty in juvenile court to vehicular manslaughter received no jail time. The 17-year-old girl intentionally sped on a rolling road in the San Bernardino Mountains in a deliberate attempt to get airborne, lost control and killed two passengers. A survivor and mothers of the dead girls sued Caltrans for wrongful death, arguing the road was hazardous. Caltrans argued the road was safe when driven legally.

There is defined right and wrong here that is set aside. Culpability belongs to Gina Norris. She is not an adult so her parents (or guardian) should be held accountable for certain fiscal aspects.

Your average parents would not be able to afford a 6.3 million dollars. Teens dying in a crash is a sad tragic thing. The State of California has a large cash flow, so lets compensate the loss from someone with money... What exactly does that say about this particular jury?

What example does it set when the leader of your country brings about a cutback of charitable giving and states that the government will take up the slack? We hear a lot about government responsibility and quite a bit more of the government blaming the government for what the government did and how only the government can fix this mess the government made.

Responsibility for your actions and choices is not marginalized by your ability to pay. Neither is it mitigated by which direction you point. You are responsible for yourself and your family, your community and your representatives and your fellow human beings. You can not delegate responsibility away, you can only be irresponsible in your choices.

Goverment Responsibility? Harry Truman is rotating in his grave.

Common Sense

"sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts."

All others Pay Cash!

There is an ongoing question in many scientists' mind around humans ability to formulate understandable mathematical expression of virtually every natural phenomenon. Could this be speaking to a supernatural existence?

In the book, Quantum Questions, Ken Wilber compiled the original writings of thirteen important founders of modern quantum and relativistic physics, to explore their understanding of the relationship of physics and mysticism. Without exception, each one of them believed that modern physics does NOT prove spiritual realities in any fashion. And yet each of them was a mystic, not because of physics, but in spite of it. By pushing to the outer limits of their discipline, a feat of true genius, they found themselves face to face with realities that physics categorically could not explain.

One scientist explained that quantum physics provides us with a precise map of a part of God's creation, and in this respect we get more precise knowledge and understanding of God obliquely, He thinks science can never decisively "prove" the presence or absence of God. He felt God was somebody whom we trust and accept without proof.

DNA may prove my own Pop is my biological father, but I don't care about that. I know my Pop and Mom, love and care for me, and that's more then enough.

Acceptance of God is a matter of faith, not of scientific proof.

There is a professor of brain neurology who has became an Christian because he had been caught by an inexplicable awe when he was examining the mechanism of brain function. He concluded that nobody-else than God could have made the brain in such an orderly and sophisticated manner.

Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo said: "The Church never fears the truth of science, because we are convinced that all truth comes from God"

I think we should examine our "old maps" more seriously and be open-minded to refer to the "new maps" that science provide us. This does not mean that we throw the old away and accept new uncritically. Because an old map is still relevant and a new map can contain false information.

Words or Actions?

"Oh, but he has changed"

The above quote in any given context should be viewed with skepticism. Fact of the matter is people are slow to change, people dislike change and rally against change.

Ambiguity is public enemy number one. When someone says one thing, and does another, there is a dishonesty that needs to be noted. Yet, holding someone accountable for words and actions has a disconnect. Just as responsibilities for ones own words and actions is often redirected.

Honesty is more common in personal relationships then the national stage. Honor and loyalty has an air of naivete and quaintness.

Virtues that have been taught out of our society?

My Father-in-law prided himself on business deals made on a handshake. His reputation in his field was built on his high standards.

My own Father never considered his work ethic as a virtue, it was what it was, the way he was.

Both were satisfied with jobs done right, it was something that reflected upon them and earned them respect. People you could trust without reservation.

I consider myself lucky in the people whom I have that level of trust. I wonder if that number is smaller then my grandfathers and if my kids will have a smaller circle as well.

Being told what to do.

Universal Truth #4557:  People do not like being told what to do.  

There are negative terms for this, badgering, harping, demanding etc. Which further confirms the above truth.  There is a relationship between Age, Relationship, Knowledge and Tone that varies the response to being told what to do.

Example: 

The "teller" is young and the relationship to the "tasked" is a child.  

The "tasked" person is older and relationship to the "teller" is parent.

The level of knowledge of the "teller" is "average child"

Level of knowledge of the "tasked" is "adult insightful"

The tone of the "being told" is harsh.

The actual demand is: "I want ice cream now!"

The resulting action has a wide range.  None of which is a gracious dallop of icecream for the "teller".  In fact this may trigger some form of retribution.

At the other side:

The teller is a skilled rescue worker, the tasked is an injured person who is aware of the given situation and recognises the teller for what he\she is.

In this situation there is NO chance of resistance from the tasked. Who may be grateful to have someone telling them what to do.  They would still not be happy that they are now in this position.