"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long
habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in
defense of custom.
But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. "
SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term “atheism” has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States that being an atheist is now a perfect impediment to a career in politics (in a way that being black, Muslim or homosexual is not). According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 37% of Americans would vote for an otherwise qualified atheist for president.
Atheists are often imagined to be intolerant, immoral, depressed, blind to the beauty of nature and dogmatically closed to evidence of the supernatural.
Even John Locke, one of the great patriarchs of the Enlightenment, believed that atheism was “not at all to be tolerated” because, he said, “promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human societies, can have no hold upon an atheist.”
That was more than 300 years ago. But in the United States today, little seems to have changed. A remarkable 87% of the population claims “never to doubt” the existence of God; fewer than 10% identify themselves as atheists — and their reputation appears to be deteriorating.
Given that we know that atheists are often among the most intelligent and scientifically literate people in any society, it seems important to deflate the myths that prevent them from playing a larger role in our national discourse.
1) Atheists believe that life is meaningless.
On the contrary, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that it can only be redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Atheists tend to be quite sure that life is precious. Life is imbued with meaning by being really and fully lived. Our relationships with those we love are meaningful now; they need not last forever to be made so. Atheists tend to find this fear of meaninglessness … well … meaningless.
2) Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.
People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok which are in fact dogmas, i.e. . There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.
3) Atheism is dogmatic.
Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so prescient of humanity’s needs that they could only have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. An atheist is simply a person who has considered this claim, read the books and found the claim to be ridiculous. One doesn’t have to take anything on faith, or be otherwise dogmatic, to reject unjustified religious beliefs. As the historian Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-71) once said: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
4) Atheists think everything in the universe arose by chance.
No one knows why the universe came into being. In fact, it is not entirely clear that we can coherently speak about the “beginning” or “creation” of the universe at all, as these ideas invoke the concept of time, and here we are talking about the origin of space-time itself.
The notion that atheists believe that everything was created by chance is also regularly thrown up as a criticism of Darwinian evolution. As Richard Dawkins explains in his marvelous book, “The God Delusion,” this represents an utter misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Although we don’t know precisely how the Earth’s early chemistry begat biology, we know that the diversity and complexity we see in the living world is not a product of mere chance. Evolution is a combination of chance mutation and natural selection. Darwin arrived at the phrase “natural selection” by analogy to the “artificial selection” performed by breeders of livestock. In both cases, selection exerts a highly non-random effect on the development of any species.
5) Atheism has no connection to science.
Although it is possible to be a scientist and still believe in God — as some scientists seem to manage it — there is no question that an engagement with scientific thinking tends to erode, rather than support, religious faith. Taking the U.S. population as an example: Most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God; yet 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not. This suggests that there are few modes of thinking less congenial to religious faith than science is.
6) Atheists are arrogant.
When scientists don’t know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn’t know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn’t arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.
7) Atheists are closed to spiritual experience.
There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don’t tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences.
There is, in fact, not a Christian on this Earth who can be certain that Jesus even wore a beard, much less that he was born of a virgin or rose from the dead. These are just not the sort of claims that spiritual experience can authenticate.
8) Atheists believe that there is nothing beyond human life and human understanding.
Atheists are free to admit the limits of human understanding in a way that religious people are not. It is obvious that we do not fully understand the universe; but it is even more obvious that neither the Bible nor the Koran reflects our best understanding of it. We do not know whether there is complex life elsewhere in the cosmos, but there might be. If there is, such beings could have developed an understanding of nature’s laws that vastly exceeds our own. Atheists can freely entertain such possibilities. They also can admit that if brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the contents of the Bible and the Koran will be even less impressive to them than they are to human atheists.
From the atheist point of view, the world’s religions utterly trivialize the real beauty and immensity of the universe. One doesn’t have to accept anything on insufficient evidence to make such an observation.
9) Atheists ignore the fact that religion is extremely beneficial to society.
Those who emphasize the good effects of religion never seem to realize that such effects fail to demonstrate the truth of any religious doctrine. This is why we have terms such as “wishful thinking” and “self-deception.” There is a profound distinction between a consoling delusion and the truth.
In any case, the good effects of religion can surely be disputed. In most cases, it seems that religion gives people bad reasons to behave well, when good reasons are actually available. Ask yourself, which is more moral, helping the poor out of concern for their suffering, or doing so because you think the creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing it or will punish you for not doing it?
10) Atheism provides no basis for morality.
If a person doesn’t already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won’t discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.
We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn’t make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.
Reality, along with the decision to remain in it, i.e., to stay alive, dictates and demands an entire set of behaviors. We do not pursue these behaviors automatically; we must be taught these behaviors from others and or discover them in the process of living. But do not forget that cognitive/brain research has now made clear that there are unconscious forces at work that impact the cerebral cortex before our "conscious world" unfolds. We are NOT simply thinking machines: we are also profound feeling machines moved by the brain stem and limbic system - we are profoundly non-rational as well.
A given "object" or "behavior" advances our life, threatens our life or may in fact be insignificant to our life. Libmansworld proposes that the use of logic and reason, combined with depth of experience and feeling, our relationship with others and a great deal of luck coming in the form of genetic characteristics and serendipitous events, are our ultimate means of survival.
Libmansworld is not constrained by tradition and is willing to challenge unsubstantiated and unverifiable testimony, regardless of its emotional appeal. The quality of the evidence, about objects, behaviors, events and our feelings, enables us to reach a conclusion that will not be intimidated or influenced by religious dogma or authority.
Libmansworld argues for the use of of the tools of logic, reason and "precision" in language which allow us to make distinctions in our world that otherwise go unnoticed. And with these tools we can evaluate the credibility of a claim or statement especially when that claim or statement pertains to the "supernatural" affecting the "natural" or to the bestowing of a "revealed" truth to an individual or group that can't be independently verified.
A social system is a code of laws which we choose to observe in order to live together. In order to evaluate a social system we must have standards against which its performance can be measured. At Libmansworld we suggest two interlinked standards: the freedom of our mind and our body.
Libmansworld's vision of an ideal social system recognizes:
1) the freedom of our mind because reason is our major means of survival, and 2) the freedom of our body because our body is the vehicle through which the products of the mind are brought into reality.
Therefore, Libmansworld suggests that an ideal social system be measured according to its ability to sustain the freedom of our mind and our body.
Libmansworld proposes that the government's fundamental moral principles sustain to the greatest degree possible:
1) the freedom to foster one's own life by voluntary, un-coerced choice
and
2) the freedom to engage in mutually consenting adult relationships
and
3) the freedom from things like fear, poverty, exploitation, violence, racism, etc..
ASIDE 1: There are two fundamental concepts of freedom - "freedom to do" and "freedom from." Some suggest that as we increase "freedom from" we limit "freedom to."
ASIDE 2: Please remember the above principles are highly simplified and demand serious thought. The simpler a principle is the higher probability it has exceptionally difficult complexities that will unravel in deeper analysis.
EXCERPTS FROM
Memo to Paul McCartney:There are Two Types
of Freedom, Sir
By Wayne Saunders
"Historically, the idea of liberty yields two basic threads: "freedom to do," and "freedom from." In modern times, "freedom to do" evolved out of the Enlightenment, when it became widely acclaimed that not just kings and aristocrats are born with certain inalienable rights.
On the other hand, "freedom from" arose from amending documents such as the U.S. Bill of Rights, whereby certain provisions limited the coercive power of central government. Moreover, freedom from also is derived from a continually evolving set of ideas, laws, and customs including such proactive and state interventionist notions like affirmative action, welfare, and employment insurance.
Actually, the two strands of freedom are interwoven, since it is impossible to realize one without the other, and neither are fully realized, anywhere."
"...the United States is a big "to do" country - the biggest ever, actually. Freedom to do encompasses many things including the right to economic, social and geographic mobility. But freedom to do also has a dark, collective manifestation with an historic imperial mandate."
"Pursuing life as one sees fit may embody the so-called American dream, be it myth or reality, for each individual. But freedom to do doesn't work even remotely fairly, without healthy doses of freedom from.
This involves freedom from things like fear, poverty, exploitation, violence, racism, war, and yes, terror. President Franklin Roosevelt touched upon this strand of freedom in his so-called Four Freedoms inaugural speech on January 6, 1941.
The first two freedoms were freedom of speech and freedom of worship. But the next two clearly fall into the freedom from category. The third freedom cited was freedom from want, in which he envisioned "economic understandings" that would "secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants." The fourth freedom, freedom from fear, was to be achieved by "a world-wide reduction of armaments..."
In this endeavor, the United States has reneged, and in many ways works to undermine freedom "from."
"... it's instructive to notice that we're all atheists with respect to Zeus and the thousands of other dead gods whom now nobody worships." Sam Harris, author of The End Of Faith
Dan Dennet Takes On Rich Warren
Sam Harris and Michael Shermer debate Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston Part 1 of 12
See The Other Videos Of The Debate
Sam Harris and Michael Shermer vs. Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston
I would suggest watching the documentary "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power" which can be seen online in 8 episodes. Here are the links which may change over time: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8.
It is said that oil is either owned or controlled by one of two groups:
NOC's supposedly manage over 90% of the world's oil, depending on how you count. Of the 20 biggest oil firms, in terms of reserves of oil and gas,16 are NOCs. In effect, NOCs remain firmly in control over the vast majority of the world's hydrocarbon resources.
The famous ''seven sisters'' -- Standard Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, Texaco, Chevron, Exxon, and Mobil -- are no longer what they once were. Whereas they once hogged 80 percent of the world's production and reserves of crude oil and natural gas, today they hold less than 10 percent and are just shadows of their former selves.
In 1987 British Petroleum purchased the remaining 45% of Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio) that they didn't already own, then in 1998, merged with Amoco (Standard Oil of Indiana), and in 2000 merged with Atlantic Richfield (ARCO). In 1998, Exxon (Esso, Standard Oil of New Jersey) merged with Mobil (Socony, Standard Oil of NewYork) to become ExxonMobil, the biggest oil company in the country, and third largest company in the U.S. In 2001, Conoco (Continental Oil and Phillips Petroleum (Phillips 66) merged, to make ConocoPhillips, the 3rd largest oil company in the U.S., the 12th largest company, and the 6th largest oil company in the world.
It has been claimed that the new state-owned enterprises are the basis for the astronomical price of oil and other associated calamities. According to Financial Times, these are the new villains: Saudi ARAMCO (Saudi Arabia), Gazprom (Russia), CNPC (China), NIOC (Iran), PDVSA (Venezuela), Petrobrás (Brazil) and Petronas (Malaysia).
From Frontline World
While the United States consumes roughly 19 million barrels of oil a day, mostly to power its 200 million automobiles, it produces only about 8 million barrels (or 42 percent) of that total domestically. The other 58 percent -- some 11 million barrels a day -- of our oil has to be imported from other countries.
The following chart divides US oil usage by four primary sectors: commercial; residential; transportation; and industrial, which includes the agricultural, manufacturing, construction, and mining industries.
DOES OPEC SET THE PRICE OF OIL?
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries(OPEC) doesn't set the price of oil. But OPEC can set their production level. In today's complex global markets, the price of crude oil is set by movements on the three major international petroleum exchanges, all of which have their own Web sites featuring information about oil prices. They are the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX, http://www.nymex.com), the International Petroleum Exchange in London (IPE, http://www.ipe.uk.com) and the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX, http://www.simex.com.sg). Commodity traders are responsible for oil prices by bidding on oil futures contracts. There are many factors they look at when developing the bids that create oil prices:
Worldwide Supply/Demand Issues: Current supply in terms of output, especially the production quota set by OPEC.
As an aside China is the second largest importer of oil only behind the US - the battle for oil has begun!
Oil reserves, including what is available in U.S. refineries and what is stored at the Strategic Petroleum Reserves.
Oil demand, particularly from the U.S. (as estimated by the Energy Information Agency . During the summer, forecasts for travel from AAA are used to determine potential gasoline use.
The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is an emergency petroleum store maintained by the United States Department of Energy. The US SPR is the largest emergency supply in the world with the current capacity to hold up to 727 million barrels (115,600,000 m³) of crude oil. The second largest emergency supply of petroleum is Japan's with a 2003 reported capacity of 579 million barrels (92,100,000 m³). The current inventory is displayed on the SPR's website.
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Just 40 years after a famous TIME magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" the answer appears to be a resounding "No!" According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, "God is Winning". Religions are increasingly a geopolitical force to be reckoned with. Fundamentalist movements - some violent in the extreme - are growing. Science and religion are at odds in the classrooms and courtrooms. And a return to religious values is widely touted as an antidote to the alleged decline in public morality. After two centuries, could this be twilight for the Enlightenment project and the beginning of a new age of unreason? Will faith and dogma trump rational inquiry, or will it be possible to reconcile religious and scientific world views? Can evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience help us to better understand how we construct beliefs, and experience empathy, fear and awe? Can science help us create a new rational narrative as poetic and powerful as those that have traditionally sustained societies? Can we treat religion as a natural phenomenon? Can we be good without God? And if not God, then what?
This is a critical moment in the human situation, and The Science Network in association with the Crick-Jacobs Center brought together an extraordinary group of scientists and philosophers to explore answers to these questions.
"We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence." Bertrand Russell
American Civil Liberties Union mission is to preserve your first amendment rights, your right to equal protection under the law, your right to due process and your right to privacy. Cato Institute is a public policy research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C. intimately linked with libertarian principles but be aware of how seductive their ideas can be. Center For Inquiry is a fantastic site dedicated to promoting and defending reason, science, and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor. Center for Media and Democracy strengthens participatory democracy by investigating and exposing public relations spin and propaganda, and by promoting media literacy and citizen journalism, media "of, by and for the people." Corp Watch is a research group supporting the campaigns which are increasingly successful in forcing corporations to back down. Corporations and Health Watch analyzes corporate practices that harm health and campaigns to change these practices across six industries: automobile food, alcohol, pharmaceutical, firearms and tobacco.
Center For American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1970 by John Gardner as a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest.
Corp Watch investigates and exposes corporate violations of human rights, environmental crimes, fraud and corruption around the world. We work to foster global justice, independent media activism and democratic control over corporations. CSPAN.ORG is a private, non-profit company, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a public service. Our mission is to provide public access to the political process. CQ Money Line is the most comprehensive and objective resource on money in politics. Center for Defense Information is dedicated to strengthening security through: international cooperation; reduced reliance on unilateral military power to resolve conflict; reduced reliance on nuclear weapons; a transformed and reformed military establishment; and, prudent oversight of, and spending on, defense programs. Capitalism Magazine in defense of individual rights. Always read with a critical eye!
Who Rules America?, presents detailed original information on how power and politics operate in the United States. The first edition came out in 1967 and is ranked 12th on the list of 50 best sellers in sociology between 1950 and 1995. A second edition, Who Rules America Now?, arrived in 1983 and landed at #43 on the same list. Third and fourth editions followed in 1998 and 2002, and the fifth edition, upon which most of this web site is based, came out in 2006.
You'll find the following here: supplementary information and updates for readers of the 5th edition of WRA; an overview of the American power structure at the national level and an in-depth look at power at the local level; an overview of the Four Networks theory of power, which provides the best general theory of power and social change within which to situate the class-domination theory I've developed specifically for the United States; commentaries on alternative theories of power; a special section on the Bohemian Club & Bohemian Grove, including pictures of the club in San Francisco and the encampment in the redwoods; suggestions for activists on what they can learn from social science research; links to Web sites and books about power and social change in the United States; and much more.
Critiques Of Libertarianism subject is libertarianism including Objectivism. This is not an anti-libertarian site, despite its critical nature of particular aspects of libertarianism that are untrue or undesirable. Disinformation is designed to be the search service of choice for individuals looking for information on current affairs, politics, new science and the "hidden information" that seldom seems to slip through the cracks of the corporate-owned media conglomerates. DraftResistence.org is specifically encouraging resistance to the registration laws of the United States, seeing registration as the necessary step toward conscription (the draft). Earth Justice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. Electronic Frontier Foundation was created to defend our rights to think, speak, and share our ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web. EFF is the first to identify threats to our basic rights online and to advocate on behalf of free expression in the digital age. FactCheck.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.
Edward Bernays - 1891 to 1995
Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.
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WHAT IS "SPIN"? --------------------------------------------
In public relations, spin is a usually pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in one's own favor of an event or situation. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, "spin" often implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or highly manipulative tactics.
To get a better understanding of historical relationships between corporations, public relations and the media take some time to watch "The Century of the Self" in 4 parts. Even though this documentary has been around for a while it is more relevant than ever.
The 4 part series:
Happiness Machines
The Engineering of Consent
There is a Policeman Inside All Our Head: He Must Be Destroyed
Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering
The brain is essentially made up of 3 parts: the brain stem, the limbic system and the cerebral cortex. It is now known that the brain stem and limbic system, often called the Old Brain, is where nonconscious forces act on the cerebral cortex, the area of the brain where our sense of self is housed, and called the New Brain.
Some cognitive research has suggested that there are fundamental nonconscious forces or "drives" that are located in the old brain. And that these drives profoundly impact our conscious behavior, i.e. the New Brain, whether we realize it or not. Here are the drives:
to nurture
to be nurtured by
to have sex
to fight
to flee
to submit
To suggest that there are 6 and only 6 drives seems a bit presumptuous. But the fact that we are moved by these "drives" in a very real way is a fact that needs to be taken seriously. Given the fact that one can be directed with very little effort(hypnosis and crowd hysteria for example)and that one tends not to consider these directives consciously seems reasonable grounds for study. Such study derives its fodder from cognitive research.
Limbic System- A Room In The House Of The Nonconscious
The limbic system wraps around the brain stem and is beneath the cerebral cortex. It is a major center for emotion formation and processing, for learning, and for memory. The limbic system contains many parts, including the cingulate gyrus, a band of cortex that runs from the front of the brain to the back, the parahippocampal gyrus, the dentate gyrus, and most notably, the hippocampus and amygdala. The hippocampus is involved in memory storage and formation. It is also involved in complex cognitive processing. The amygdala is associated with forming complex emotional responses, particularly involving aggression. The limbic structures are also connected with other major structures such as the cortex, hypothalamus, thalamus, and basal ganglia.
Limbic system structures are involved in many of our "emotions" and "motivations", particularly those that are related to "survival." Such emotions include fear, anger, and emotions related to sexual behavior. The limbic system is also involved in feelings of pleasure that are related to our survival, such as those experienced from eating and sex. Certain structures of the limbic system are involved in memory as well. Two large limbic system structures, the amygdala and hippocampus play important roles in memory.
As an aside:
See the works of V.S. Ramachandran , Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and professor with the Psychology Department and the Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute. See V.S. Ramachandran documentary on the brain called "Phantoms in the Brain: Part 1 : Part 2"
Also see "The Century of the Self" to understand how we can be moved to behave by forces of which we are unaware when conditioned by the cultural milieu in which one is raised.
F.E.A.R. Forfeiture endangers American rights. Free Press is a national nonpartisan organization working to increase informed public participation in crucial media policy debates, and to generate policies that will produce a more competitive and public interest-oriented media system with a strong nonprofit and noncommercial sector. Greg Palast award winning Investigative Reporter. Gyre.Org is an attempt to track the breakthroughs and implications of the next military and technological revolutions. Global Voices Global Issues Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. Idealist.org is an interactive site where people and organizations can exchange resources and ideas, locate opportunities and supporters, and take steps toward building a world where all people can lead free and dignified lives. Implode-O-Metertracks the housing finance breakdown: a saga of corruption, hypocrisy, and government complicity.
Journalism.org research, resources and ideas to improve journalism. Jurist legal news and research 'Lectric Law Library is one of the best free legal resources on the Web. Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today's "faster/cheaper" mind set and promote "slower/better" thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years. Multinational Monitor monitors multinational corporations around the world. Media Matters For America is a Web-based, not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Move On is a service – a way for busy but concerned citizens to find their political voice in a system dominated by big money and big media.
Of course the above is not as easy to follow as it is to understand. :)
New Politics Institute is a new kind of think tank helping progressives understand today’s transformation of politics due to the tumultuous changes in technology, media and the demographics of the country. National Whistleblower Center is a nonprofit, tax exempt, educational and advocacy organization dedicated to helping whistleblowers. Since 1988, the Center has used whistleblowers’ disclosures to improve environmental protection, nuclear safety, and government and corporate accountability. Oligopoly Watch is an attempt to make sense of the business pages in the newspaper, particularly the stories about mergers and acquisitions. Open Democracy is the leading independent website on global current affairs offering stimulating, critical analysis, promoting dialogue and debate on issues of global importance and linking citizens from around the world. Open Society Institute is a private operating and grant making foundation, founded by George Soros, that aims to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform. Progressive Policy Institute is a research and education institute defining and promoting a new progressive politics for America in the 21st century through its research, policies, and perspectives, while fashioning a new governing philosophy and an agenda for public innovation geared to the Information Age.
"If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia." --Thomas S. Szasz, The Second Sin
In the United States the dominant religion is Christianity. Christianity is one of many religions around the world. With so many religions around the world it does not seem unreasonable to conclude that the "religion" phenomenon has been part of the human experience for quite some time. But in the U.S. Christianity is dominant - and current statistics state Christianity is dominant in the world as well. And as most people know the soil of Christianity is the Jewish religion which is expressed in the Old Testament.
The Judeo-Christian biblical god is a macho male warrior. Though he said "Thou shalt not kill," he ordered death for all opposition, wholesale drowning and mass exterminations; punishes offspring to the fourth generation (Ex. 20:5); ordered pregnant women and children to be ripped up (Hos. 13:16); demands animal and human blood to appease his angry vanity; is partial to one race of people; judges women inferior to men; is a sadist who created a hell to torture unbelievers; created evil (Is. 45:7); discriminated against the handicapped (Le. 21:18-23); ordered virgins to be kept as spoils of war (Num. 31:15-18, Deut. 21:11-14);spread dung on people's faces (Mal. 2:3); sent bears to devour 42 children who teased a prophet (II Kings 2:23-24); punishes people with snakes, dogs, dragons, drunkenness, swords, arrows, axes, fire, famine, and infanticide; and said fathers should eat their sons (Ez. 5:10) And are there bible contradictions? Consider the following and you decide: PSA 145:9 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. And then on the other side of the god-coin, JER 13:14 And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD:I will not pity, nor spare, or have mercy, but destroy them.
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization founded by Ralph Nader in 1971 to represent consumer interests in Congress, the executive branch and the courts. ProCon.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) public benefit corporation whose purpose is to educate the public about controversial issues by presenting facts, news, and thousands of diverse opinions in a pro-con format. Reason Online is the monthly print magazine of “free minds and free markets.” It covers politics, culture, and ideas through a provocative mix of news, analysis, commentary, and reviews. Reason provides a refreshing alternative to right-wing and left-wing opinion magazines by making a principled case for liberty and individual choice in all areas of human activity. Reason Foundation advances a free society by developing, applying, and promoting the libertarian ideas of individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law. Rockridge Institute is committed to the democratization of knowledge about politics while deepening and broadening the public's understanding of the political world. Sierra Club is America's oldest, largest, and most effective environmental organization.
Secular Humanism is a term which has come into use in the last thirty years to describe a world view with the following elements and principles:
We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.
We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.
We believe that scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life.
We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.
We are committed to the principle of the separation of church and state.
We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding.
We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.
We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves.
We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.
We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.
We believe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest.
We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence.
We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity.
We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.
We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.
We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences.
We are citizens of the universe and are excited by discoveries still to be made in the cosmos.
We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking.
We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the service to others.
We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.
We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.
Sustainability Institute focuses on understanding the root causes of unsustainable behavior in complex systems to help restructure systems and shift mind sets that will help move human society toward sustainability. TakeOnIt The Grist is a site dedicated to environmental news and commentary. The Century Foundation is a nonprofit public policy research institution committed to the belief that a mix of effective government, open democracy, and free markets is the most effective solution to the major challenges facing the United States. ThomasPaine.com is is an online public affairs journal of progressive analysis and commentary combining depth with immediacy to equip progressives to compete effectively in the 21st century’s marketplace of ideas. Sustainable Food Laboratories mission is to accelerate improvement in mainstream food and agriculture systems so we can sustain a high quality life on earth. The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax-exempt organization that conducts investigative research and reporting on public policy issues in the United States and around the world. The Foundation on Economic Trends is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization whose mission is to examine emerging trends in science and technology, and their impacts on the environment, the economy, culture, and society. The National Priorities Project is a research organization that analyzes and clarifies federal data so that people can understand and influence how their tax dollars are spent. Located in Northampton, MA, since 1983, NPP focuses on the impact of federal spending and other policies at the national, state, congressional district and local levels. Tax Justice Network campaigns for transparency in international finance and opposes secrecy. They support a level playing field on tax and we oppose loopholes and distortions in tax and regulation, and the abuses that flow from them. We promote tax compliance and we oppose tax evasion, tax avoidance, and all the mechanisms that enable owners and controllers of wealth to escape their responsibilities to the societies on which they and their wealth depend. Tom Hartmann is an author and progressive liberal writer, author and talk show radio host at Air America. Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices. Wendy McElroy has her site for Individualist Feminism and Individualist Anarchism. Wiser Earth is a community directory and networking forum that maps and connects non-governmental organizations and individuals addressing the central issues of our day: climate change, poverty, the environment, peace, water, hunger, social justice, conservation, human rights and more. World Future Society is a nonprofit, nonpartisan scientific and educational association of people interested in how social and technological developments are shaping the future. World Population Awareness goal is to preserve the environment and its natural resources for the benefit of people, families, and future generations. Unfortunately, with exploding population growth, excessive consumption on the part of the more well-off people in the world, errant technology, and corrupt governments, the environment is in trouble and the sustainability of the people of our planet is threatened.
demands an entire set of behaviors. We do not pursue these behaviors automatically; we must be taught these behaviors from others and or discover them in the process of living. But do not forget that cognitive/brain research has now made clear that there are unconscious forces at work that impact the cerebral cortex before our "conscious world" unfolds. We are NOT simply thinking machines: we are also profound feeling machines moved by the brain stem and limbic system - we are profoundly non-rational as well. 
I would suggest watching the documentary "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power" which can be seen online in 8 episodes. Here are the links which may change over time: 
including the cingulate gyrus, a band of cortex that runs from the front of the brain to the back, the parahippocampal gyrus, the dentate gyrus, and most notably, the hippocampus and amygdala. The hippocampus is involved in memory storage and formation. It is also involved in complex cognitive processing. The amygdala is associated with forming complex emotional responses, particularly involving aggression. The limbic structures are also connected with other major structures such as the cortex, hypothalamus, thalamus, and basal ganglia. 
