j_b

Amy Goodman And Canada's Olympic Paranoia

You are right that nobody knows how rule by a Afghan pro-soviet regime would have turned out if the US hadn't supported the war lords and the religious extremists (support for the guerrillas started before the soviet invasion as confirmed by Brzezinski). Also, in addition to soldiers in Afghanistan today, there is an entire army of private contractors that is sure to grow even faster. But no matter the result it won't happen within a few years.

Can't blame people for wanting change.

Are we supposed to think that PP would rather have a president that delivered the change he promised? Or is he again trying to rub it in that corporate politicians will always betray their electorate and democracy?

"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose". Obama, the dash-pot presidency to save the status-quo despite systemic failure.

Better get used to hear about American politics because we may run short of water and oil in the not so distant future.

sure FW, a movie is going to have the same effect as fear and hate-mongering spewed on 24 hours a day TV channels and radio programs.

If we got rid of all overbearing egotistical assholes there probably would be a proportionate lesser amount of art around (not that I concur with your description of tvash).

Nice line and it sounds like a great adventure.

Hey, I won't wait after thanksgiving to have pork. I am fixing a garlic roasted pork shoulder for tomorrow: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Garlic-Roasted-Pork-Shoulder-239994 I'll probably cook a turkey next week.

FW gets his ass handed to him so often here that he has to make sure the world knows when he appears to be right about something, for once.

I am no art critic but from what Tvash has posted here, it looks pretty cool (imaginative, use of materials, ...) What don't you like about it? and why the use of quotes?

Mento/Calypso is it! [video:youtube]Vxuw10hlfrc [video:youtube]9p4crs7bij4

Along with shit burgers (see Yes Men), the way forward to entrepreneurship: Gang 'killed victims to extract their fat' Peruvian police arrest suspects who allegedly drained their victims and sold liquid as an anti-wrinkle treatment. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/20/peru-gang-killing-human-fat

“The Bible, and most other religious books, contain numerous examples of low-level moral reasoning, and this makes them poor vehicles for moral development. Consider, for example, the popular Sunday school story of David and Goliath. In the tale, David becomes enraged at the taunting challenge Goliath makes to the Israelites. After volunteering to answer the challenge, David brutally kills Goliath and becomes a tribal hero. To the literal understanding of most children and inmates, the story teaches that violence is an appropriate way to resolve conflict and its use will gain you respect among your peers. Inner-city youths use the same level of moral reasoning when they commit drive-by shootings against those who have offended them.” “If, then, biblical instruction and the basic doctrines of religion do not contribute to moral growth, does a high level of religiosity improve moral reasoning? This question has special relevance since inmates seem particularly inclined to ‘zealotry’ and are attracted to extremes such as the Calvinistic view of humanity as vile and depraved. Such a perspective seems to speak directly to their own inadequate self-esteem and sense of identity. But it reinforces a belief that they are compelled by their nature to sin, a view that can serve as a rationalization for committing further crime.” “The high number of religious child molesters illustrates that religiosity provides no guarantee of moral behaviour. It is well recognized that religiosity is central to the personality structure of certain types of child sex offenders (Schouweiler). The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (Hathaway and McKinley), a widely employed psychological assessment, uses religiosity as one indicator of paedophilia. In the reasoning often associated with such individuals, they have been forgiven for all sin (and criminal behaviour) through acceptance of ‘Jesus Christ,’ who redeemed their sinful deeds before they were born. As a consequence, they relinquish all personal accountability for their actions. In addition, a religiously deterministic rationale for criminal behaviour could claim that such conduct is all part of ‘God's Plan.’" “Research thus indicates that both religious instruction and high levels of religiosity should not be expected to contribute to moral development. Advancement in moral reasoning depends on exposure to the thought processes of Kohlberg's higher stages. The absolutism of religious reasoning encourages an inflexibility that stifles the cognitive conflict. This stifling obviates the mental processes required to advance to the next stage/s of personal moral development.”

“The underlying assumption that religion and morality are interrelated is simply untenable. For example, Freud suggested that religion served to undermine moral responsibility while promoting fanaticism. He contended that people who behave morally only out of fear of supernatural penalty would be unlikely to respect and care for others from an altruistic perspective. This argument receives support from the theory of moral reasoning developed by the late Lawrence Kohlberg.” “By moral reasoning, Kohlberg (1981) meant the process behind the conceptualisation of the rights and obligations that define an individual's relation to others and to society as a whole. He recognized that moral growth, like cognitive growth, is developmental in nature. Maturation proceeds from a desire to enhance one's self by any means as long as one escapes penalties (stage 1), to a willingness to do for others if there is a clear reciprocation (stage 2), to a need to conform to peer expectations (stage 3), to a need to follow the law uncritically (stage 4), and finally to concern for the rights and humanity of every person that is not bounded by conditions (stages 5 and 6). At the highest "post conventional level," (5&6) moral judgments must be justified on rational-moral grounds rather than by appeal to the order of nature or to religious authority or revelation. Healthy people normally move from one stage to the next, progressing as each stage is understood. In studies involving various cultures, researchers have found that individuals work through these stages between early childhood and young adulthood, although they estimate that only about 20 percent of the population reaches the post conventional levels of stage 5 or 6. What does this research say about the role that religion plays in moral growth? Clouse (1985) summarizes, ‘It would appear from the literature that adults who accept the basic doctrines of the Christian faith are less apt to reason at Kohlberg's highest stages than those who do not accept the Christian faith’ (1992).” “While Kohlberg never explicitly examined whether religion could arrest moral development, a study he conducted in Turkey found individuals in a strict Muslim community demonstrated no ‘post conventional’ thinking. Clouse's assessment of the relationship between Christianity and moral growth finds confirmation in the circumstances surrounding the quick religious conversions and renewals of prisoners that result from moral reasoning on Kohlberg's lowest levels. The prime motivation is to assure pleasant circumstances in an afterlife, an incentive that has nothing to do with examining one's relationship to others. Accepting ‘Jesus Christ’ as your ‘Lord and Saviour’ under these conditions is an example of a stage 2 ‘deal with God’. Most religious texts are concerned with defining human-to-God relationships. Four of the Ten Commandments dictate rules of behaviour toward [YHWH], not other humans.” how-religion-impedes-moral-development

True. I suspect it also depends on the message and how it fits in with societal needs for progress and stability.

I don't go out my way to attack christianity. Even though I realize it's historical significance, being atheist for most of my life I just have no use for it in my world (I also notice its overall negative influence on the society I live in). To be sure, the US progressive movement owes a lot to some denominations for their roles in many popular movements (civil rights, anti-war, ..) over the last 50 years.

'liberty alone'? it sounds pretty arm-wavy in a libertarian kind of way. What about education, family, sense of community, civic and republican duty, etc ... a bunch of unsupported premises if you ask me. I'd wager that in fact populations with greater proportions of atheists in the developed world such as Western and Northern Europe are more principled in terms of fairness, solidarity, and justice than religious ones such as the US and southern europe. The state is the collective expression of the people (or at least should) and therefore acts on the values that are dear to them. It has nothing to do with religion.

But what about the economic effect? I haven't read the studies but I strongly doubt that it is possible to assign a positive economic role to religion when comparing developed nations that also happen to have the largest atheist/non practicing populations (apart from a few like the US). Religious institutions played a large role when other institutions where significantly weaker than today but it is likely not the case anymore, in the developed world at least.

am I supposed to post a video of 'monkeys announcing themselves' now? or is it that only you can say things that shouldn't be taken literally.

You mean that you can hear all of this without playing it backward?

Let it be clear that the only thugs here are those that promote conspiracy theories about commies and terrorists under every bush in order to stifle dissent, in the finest McCarthyist tradition of course.

Krugman, Reich and many others have been saying since January that the stimulus was too small and mostly ineffective to jump start the economy because half of it was tax cuts that are at best break even, and it didn't include retooling industrial capacity.

'lagging indicator', the euphemism of the moment to have people believe that the recovery has started whereas it is likely that once the stimulus money runs out, the economy will start losing steam again.