By Grant Lawrence

For the last several years, Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance “charity” have conducted “Freedom Concerts” across America. They’ve told you that they are raising money to pay for the college tuition of the children of fallen soldiers and to pay severely wounded war vets…..

….In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferry the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes. Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly $500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships…..Source: debbie Schlussel.com

Talk radio is show business.

Americans can no longer separate reality from show business and entertainment. Sean Hannity, a right wing Rush Limbaugh want-a-be radio talker, isn’t even a good entertainer.

So Hannity has these ‘Freedom Concerts’ that are supposed to help veterans and their families. A little money goes that way. But the ‘Freedom Concerts’ main goal is to promote Sean Hannity and to have his gullible listeners pay for it.

It is certainly shameful that a great deal of the money generated for Hannity’s charity actually goes for consultants and expenses. But what is even more shameful is that the very policies that Hannity and the other clownish right wing radio talkers advocate have contributed so much suffering of the Veterans and their families.

Hannity does seem to know how to generate a lot of money off suffering. Interestingly, he and the other radio freaks promote unlimited war and free enterprise (meaning no social safety nets or protections for people). Yet they pretend to care so much for our Veterans.

Hannity cares so much that he will even give a ‘Freedom Concert’ that not only promotes Hannity, but also promotes more war and political policies that lead to the fleecing of the Vets, their families, and every other American in this country.

Some great guy that Sean Hannity is.

He really cares.

Radio hucksters like Hannity and Limbaugh have made a fortune off telling their listeners lies and promoting the dark side of human nature. They have made a fortune off of the foolish and they have contributed to a great deal of suffering. It is only natural that they don’t want people to consider that their wealth is blood money, gained from scaring and misinforming their radio public into believing the unbelievable and doing the unimaginable.

So Hannity and the radio war mongers talk of how much they care about the troops. Their talk of compassion is like everything else they say. It is all for show and to make money. If they really cared then they wouldn’t advocate policies that lead to so much pain, death, and destruction.

So Hannity’s charity is a scam and that is sad.

But what is even sadder is the scam he plays on all of his radio listeners everyday. He sells them the dark side wrapped in a package of freedom and to that his listeners blindly follow in their ‘Tea Bag’ stupidity. Like Hannity’s Charity, the corporatist, war mongering mentality presented by him is a hoax. Unfortunately, his mentally goose stepping listeners pay for ‘Hannity’s Hoaxes’ with their futures.

There is a lot of news on the European sexual abuse scandal by Catholic Priests. The Pope has become a key figure in the story that is now rocking the Church.

The big news is that the allegations are coming from many more European countries. Originally sexual abuse charges accusing priests made headlines in Ireland, but it has now spread throughout Europe.

More big news is that Pope Benedict may have been involved in allowing a pedophille priest to continue his ministry.

Other big news is that Pope Benedict ordered bishops to keep quiet on  sex abuse by priests in a Vatican letter while still a Cardinal in 2001.

Grant

Archbishop Ratzinger Embroiled in Pedophile Priest Scandal

…..the Munich archdiocese admitted that it had allowed a priest suspected of having abused a child to return to pastoral work in the 1980s, while Benedict was archbishop. It stressed that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger didn’t know about the transfer and that it had been decided by a lower-ranking official.

The archdiocese said there were no accusations against the chaplain, identified only as H., during his 1980-1982 spell in Munich, where he underwent therapy for suspected “sexual relations with boys.” But he then moved to nearby Grafing, where he was suspended in early 1985 following new accusations of sexual abuse. The following year, he was convicted of sexually abusing minors…..Source:AP

Priest Pedophile Sex Abuse Charges Spread
– The Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) in the United States is watching with dismay as more and more victims come forward in Europe.

KCBS’ Bob Butler reports

“In Ireland and Germany, the Netherlands, even in the Vatican City itself.”

Melanie Sakoda refers to allegations that Pope Benedict years ago protected a pedophile priest, charges that the Vatican flatly denied…..Source: kcbs.com

Ratzinger’s Vatican Letter Ordered Secrecy

….The pope, meanwhile, continues to be under fire for a 2001 Vatican letter he sent to all bishops advising them that all cases of sexual abuse of minors must be forwarded to his then-office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and that the cases were to be subject to pontifical secret….Source: Gazette.com

….Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had ‘obstructed justice’ after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church’s investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.

The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.

It asserted the church’s right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II’s successor last week.

Lawyers acting for abuse victims claim it was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accuse Ratzinger of committing a ‘clear obstruction of justice‘.

The letter, ‘concerning very grave sins’, was sent from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that once presided over the Inquisition and was overseen by Ratzinger.

It spells out to bishops the church’s position on a number of matters ranging from celebrating the eucharist with a non-Catholic to sexual abuse by a cleric ‘with a minor below the age of 18 years’. Ratzinger’s letter states that the church can claim jurisdiction in cases where abuse has been ‘perpetrated with a minor by a cleric’…..guardian.co.uk

By Grant Lawrence

Two GOP congressmen say most Republicans on the Hill now believe the Iraq war was a mistake, and “more than half the Republican caucus” believes the way in which the US entered the Afghanistan war was also a mistake.

Reps. Tom McClintock (R-CA) and Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) made the comments at a discussion panel at the Cato Institute on Thursday…..

“….In retrospect, almost all of us think that was a horrible mistake,” Rohrbacher said....Source: Raw Story

So after 7 years of war, GOP Congressmen are even admitting that the Iraq War was a horrible mistake. They are obviously right from a humanitarian perspective.

According to a Lancet Medical Journal Study in 2006, the Iraqi War had killed as many as 655,000 Iraqis. Some estimates have the figure well over a million now. Estimates of American deaths can’t be trusted because there is the problem of not counting some deaths as war casualties and there is the lack of reliable information on how many private American contractors were killed. Tens of thousands of Americans have been wounded. But nobody knows for sure because the Pentagon hides the true numbers. According to a Duke University Study in 2006, millions of Americans knew someone killed or injured in Iraq.

All of this doesn’t include the nearly trillion dollars or so for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But here again we have to rely on likely lies since the true cost is not known. The Pentagon is not subject to a real independent audit and will likely not be subject to one in many years, if ever.

So there were no WMDs in Iraq, and all of this was a great big fat mistake. Or so most now agree.

But was it really a mistake?

Sure the war has been horrible but a look at the facts show it wasn’t a mistake. It is well known with the leak of the Downing Street Memo and other subsequent information that the war was actually initiated before March of 2003 and was planned well in advance. WMDs or no WMDs, the illegal war on Iraq was going to happen no matter what. The WMDs were really Weapons of Mass Deception to get the American and the World to go along with an invasion.

But you likely know all of that.

There was never any mistake. The American and the British had plans to confiscate the Iraqi oil for the Oil Monopolies, to corporatize or privatize Iraq for economic globalization, and to place permenent bases in Iraq for the expansion of Empire.

So were these goals met?

According to Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq on Democracy Now, it looks like the goals of the Military Industrial Complex were achieved rather well.

“…..The other side of the issue, which not many people are talking about, is the economic agenda in Iraq, the privatization, the heavy privatization, that’s happened in Iraq in the last two years, where tens of thousands of workers have been laid off, with no work to go to, with no social insurance to support them, while in the same time there is an economic agenda of supporting foreign investment in a way where there is protection for foreign investment, but there is no labor law, no unemployment insurance for people. And in the same time, we are being surprised by the Ministry of Finance telling the Iraqis that we need to have a loan from the World Bank, which will put the Iraq policies under such pressure, and it is a surprise to everybody because the revenues of oil are so high that we do not really need a loan from the World Bank. So, economically, it’s a rollercoaster here in Iraq—privatization, no security for the working class, much investment for multinational countries, and, in the same time, a democracy which has brought forward groups which are transformations of the first political forces that started off with militias, but now they are politicians and they are sitting in the Green Zone.

So it’s a very strange scene that we are in Iraq now. High poverty among women, very high poverty, especially among the millions of population, the millions of widows of war and orphans of war, who do not have sufficient social insurance to support them. And there are no social programs to tell us what to do with these millions who do not have a place to go or a economy to support them. And in the same time, the oil law has been signed already, big investment for foreign companies. We do not have any promises of a good labor law…..

How about those permanent bases in Iraq?

That is the plan too.

The Iraqi war is now being made to appear as a bumbling bloody mistake when in fact there was no bumbling involved. It was no mistake from the perspective of the financial and corporate elite and their ‘war criminal’ political puppets.

The killers are now making a killing and enjoying the fruits of their evil. The Iraqis, after years of brutal war, can now enjoy the freedom we have here in America and can become credit serfs too.

The Iraqi War was a fantastic success for the merchants of death and dehumanization. The only mistake is that people believe it was a mistake to those that rule.

I am struck by the Tea Party members in their corporate sponsored protests. Aging white baby boomers that are only too happy to take their medicare and social security as they promote war and greed.

They seem to care nothing for the other generations of Americans and their future.

They are very sad and pathetic.

In the end, their own selfishness and ignorance will mean that they also will reap the America that they want for the rest. A society with no social safety nets (medicare, social security, etc.) and a society with no compassion or care for others. A society controlled by the greedy few and directed only in their interests. A broken society where fear, suspicion, and hatred rule.

Picture Source

Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and spiritual; and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.”

“If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.”

– Albert Einstein

Humanity is at the brink of evolving itself into a new life form. It seems to me at some point a life form advances to such a point that it begins to take control of its own evolution. That is if the life form doesn’t destroy itself first with that technology. I think that humanity has arrived at this point now.

Just how the new evolved human will look, I am not sure. But I am confident that the future evolved “human” will be a genetically engineered form of man and machine. It is also likely that humankind will create some type of self aware machine that may someday itself evolve into a bio machine.

All of this is quite unsettling for those trapped in the dark ages of religious myth and fantasy. Not that there is no room for myth and storytelling in helping to understand the human experience. But it is important to come to terms with reality and our relationship with it. If religious traditions and storytelling doesn’t offer a glimpse into reality, but merely causes more confusion, then it needs to be clarified and understood for what it is.

How will any religion or spirituality help humanity deal with this “Brave New World” of science and technology so that life can retain its meaning and some joy?

As the rest of human life is changing at tremendous pace so to will be our understanding of the psyche, consciousness, and the hidden realms of the spiritual. We cannot discard that spiritual aspect of our lives now that humanity will soon be evolving itself into something else. I firmly believe that it is fundamentally important that we don’t discard the spiritual, especially now, because it is the spiritual that will allow us to keep our heads (sanity) as we navigate through some very difficult times for humanity.

But what spiritual tradition can help humanity move hopefully, peacefully, and lovingly into a fantastic and sometimes frightening world of change. I agree with Einstein that Buddhism can be that “cosmic religion of the future.”

I am not asking anyone to discard their atheism or their belief in a particular religion. But what I am saying to those that have some understanding of the future is that spirituality is an important aspect of life. Rather than abandon the spiritual life because the “old” religious traditions and beliefs no longer fit and are not helpful, I propose that we consider adopting a cosmic understanding to go with the cosmic change that awaits us.

Buddhism is the path of a good mind and a good heart.

In traditional Buddhism, what is not reasonable, reliable, and truthful should be discarded.
Buddhism doesn’t ask us to believe in a supreme creator or a personal God but we can if we find that such is our understanding. Instead Buddhism asks us to consider in what way our thoughts, words, and deeds have contributed to building our lives. Buddhism also asks us to consider in what way we are connected and interconnected with the rest of life and to what extent we have effected our relationships and they have effected us. Buddhism offers a path of right living and right mindfulness so that we suffer less and we have more joy in our lives. This path can be found through the spiritual discipline of meditation and association with others in a spiritual community.

Buddhism doesn’t ask us to discard the unseen forces that exist all around us, it only asks us to consider in what way these forces are helpful or unhelpful. Buddhism points to the Absolute and the truth behind all of the energies and movement that we see as our life.

But, Buddhism also is a religion of love. Life without love is intolerable and Buddhism understands this. The Buddha asks us to go beyond the conditioning of our society, culture, and families and to see people as ourselves with similar likes, dislikes, feelings, and emotions. Also, the Buddha asks us to consider all of life and all of the beings that we are aware of and to think in terms of being a part of each other. The Buddha taught that there can be no peace, no real joy, and no harmony when we are contributing to people being abused or unjustly treated. The path of the Buddha was a royal road of teaching, helping, and comforting with the truth.

In this coming cycle of humanity, there needs to be a spirituality that fits our minds as well as our hearts. A spirituality that doesn’t ask us to abandon wisdom and understanding in favor of rituals, traditions, and routine. I am not asking anyone to abandon a religion, or their lack of religion, if that is helping them and is a blessing to others. But I am asking those that have given up on spirituality because they don’t want to give up on reality to consider Buddhism and meditation.

I believe, like Einstein, that Buddhism can allow us to joyfully access the “hidden” spiritual life as we move through a world that will be profoundly changed by science and technology. In the coming decades, what it means to be human will profoundly change. But the truth that, no matter how life evolves, it is all life and we are that life will help us through the future. Buddhism and the path of meditation offer a way of spiritual hope while not abandoning our reasoning, our science, or our technology.

In truth, humanity will not abandon science and technology but it doesn’t have to abandon the joy of life which is found in the spirituality of having a good heart and a good mind.

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• Buddhist Atheism (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
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I am a licensed mental health counselor that works as a school counselor in a middle school in Gallup, New Mexico. Most of my students are Navajo, and much of our school district is on the Navajo reservation. Our community is one of the poorest in the country (if not the poorest).

Still the people here face the challenges of poverty and other social issues with great courage. Sometimes the problems get too much for people, no matter how great their courage.

For years the students in the Gallup Mckinley County School District had a very high rate of suicide. Fortunately for the last few years there have been very few suicides of students.

I believe that the student suicide rates have been drastically reduced (we had a couple of years with no suicides of students) by an active approach to increase awareness, teach students about depression and warning signs of student suicidal behavior, and to work to identify those students that need help.

Obviously we can’t always be successful in saving lives, even the most loving and caring families have experienced suicides. Still, our success in helping to save many lives demonstrates that pro-active caring and compassion by community professionals and other members of the community can help teens and their families cope with poverty and despair.

Unfortunately we are not able to cure poverty, but we can help to alleviate its effects on people and the community by seeking to help those in need.

As the woman says in the news video, “Our children are crying for help, and it seems like nobody is listening to them.”

Grant

Teen suicide a fact of life on Native American reservations

Source: RT

Pine Ridge is one of the poorest Indian reservations in the United States. An 80 percent unemployment rate and little hope for the future has translated into a growing number of teen suicides.

On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, alcoholism, unemployment and inadequate housing only a few of the problems facing young people coming of age in the community. One of the results of the desperate situation is an increasing rate of teen suicide….

MORE

By Grant Lawrence

Weary men, what reap ye? Golden corn for the stranger.
What sow ye? Human corpses that wait for the avenger.
Fainting forms, Hunger—stricken, what see you in the offing
Stately ships to bear our food away, amid the stranger’s scoffing.
There’s a proud array of soldiers—what do they round your door?
They guard our master’s granaries from the thin hands of the poor.
Pale mothers, wherefore weeping? ‘Would to God that we were dead—
Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread.^[64]
Speranza^[65]

Between 1845 and 1852 the population of Ireland dropped by nearly 25%. One Million people died and One Million people left Ireland. This is referred to as the Great Famine.

Like many Americans, I have descendants that made their way to the United States from Ireland because of the starvation and the desperation that arose during this period. Thankfully, there were countries open to taking us. The crossing to the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries was brutal. My great, great grandmother made the voyage with her family and lost a small child on the way.

Here in America, those of Irish ancestry and those that appreciate the Irish celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with too much food and drink. Few if any spend time to remember the Great Famine that caused the mass deaths, migration, and suffering of the Irish.

History tells us that the Great Famine was caused by the potato blight. But, the potato disease shouldn’t have created the misery of what came to be known as the Great Famine. The starvation and suffering that arose from the potato failure could have been drastically reduced or even eliminated if the British had implemented governmental policies against exploitation to protect the Irish people. Instead, the British did just the opposite.

In response to the Irish famine the British instituted free market policies and work houses for the poor.

….Initially, England believed that the free market would end the famine. In 1846, in a victory for advocates of free trade, Britain repealed the Corn Laws, which protected domestic grain producers from foreign competition. The repeal of the Corn Laws failed to end the crisis since the Irish lacked sufficient money to purchase foreign grain….Source: Digital History

.….Records show Irish lands exported food even during the worst years of the Famine. When Ireland had experienced a famine in 1782–83, ports were closed to keep Irish-grown food in Ireland to feed the Irish. Local food prices promptly dropped. Merchants lobbied against the export ban, but government in the 1780s overrode their protests. No such export ban happened in the 1840s.^[62] Cecil Woodham-Smith, an authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger; Ireland 1845–1849 that no issue has provoked so much anger and embittered relations between England and Ireland as “the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation.” Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine….Source: Wikipedia

Tenant farmers held short-term leases that were payable each six months in arrears. If the tenants failed to pay their rent, they were jailed or evicted and their homes burned. During the time of the Great Hunger (1845-1847), approximately 500,000 people were evicted, many of whom died of starvation or disease or relocated to mismanaged and inadequate poor houses.(29) The alternative to eviction, poorhouses, or starvation was emigration….Source: American.edu

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, 150 years after the Great Famine, issued an apology to the Irish people and blamed the massive deaths and suffering on “those who governed in London at the time failed their people.”

So that is the people’s history of the Irish Great Famine. Massive starvation, death, and migration in a land that probably had enough food to feed its people. The British could have instituted different policies to save the Irish people, but instead they opted for greed and exploitation. In another century, a British Prime Minister recognizes mistakes were made.

But history keeps repeating itself.

Today countries have instituted free trade policies, like the North American Free Trade Agreement, that are exploiting the poor all over the world. Unfortunately, unlike my ancestors there is often not the option of escape in migration for the poor of the world.

For example, the city of Juarez, a border city in Mexico, is a killing field. Small Mexican farmers have been forced to sell their lands and move to the cities in search of work because they can’t compete with the wealthy corporate farming conglomerates. Many found work in factories in the border towns, but a lot of those factories have been shut down because of Asian competition.

You can see the poverty from across the border from El Paso. The dilapidated houses on the hill. But in the city, there is not only poverty but tremendous fear. No one goes out at night and everyone watches their back. In 2008, citizens in Juarez had a three and a half times greater risk of being killed than in Baghdad, and it hasn’t gotten any better. The drug lords and drug money rule the city.

“….You have a city where no one goes out at night; where small businesses all pay extortion; where 20,000 cars were officially stolen last year; where 2,600-plus people were officially murdered last year; where nobody keeps track of the people who have been kidnapped and never come back; where nobody counts the people buried in secret burying grounds, and they, in an unseemly way, claw out of the earth from time to time. You’ve got a disaster. And you have a million people, too poor to leave, imprisoned in it…..

….But we are destroying, or helping to destroy, a country next door by our policies. Although there are many explanations for the problems in Mexico, and most of them lie with Mexicans, but certainly our economic policy, NAFTA, our drug policies, the war on drugs, and our militarization of the country have proven to be nothing but a disaster for the Mexican people….. Charles Bowden, author of “The War Next Door” from Democracy Now

Unlike the people of Ireland during the Great Famine, the people of Mexico are now finding no escape from the poverty and drug wars that are destroying their country. There is no hope in the Mexican cities and American laws and border patrol make it more difficult to get into the United States.

America’s answer to the collapse of Mexico is to sell the Mexican government more arms and to offer it more military training. But we should be reconsidering so called ‘free trade’ agreements that only enrich the elites of both the United States and Mexico and changing American drug laws so that there could be a more humane approach to the problem. Instead, the American government continues with policies that exploit and take advantage of the poor of Mexico.

One hundred and fifty years from now, people will look back and say that Mexico’s tremendous poverty, war, migration, and attempted migration was the result of the social and economic policies of the United States.

There might even be an apology.

Hopefully in one hundred and fifty years, the people will have learned the lesson of disaster capitalism and unfair trade policies. But it will do nothing for the hundreds of millions that suffer in both countries today. Nor will it do anything for the billions that now suffer around the world because of economic globalization that only further enriches the super rich as it steals hope and food from the poor.

By Grant Lawrence

“….Atheism in the Black community is synonymous with Satanism….”
Wrath James Wright, Source: Words of Wrath
a former fighter, a trainer, a husband, a proud father of three, and a Black atheist.

Wright, admittedly, is a rare person in the Black community. A Black person that will openly admit his doubts about and even antagonism toward God and Christianity.

Wright observes in his article , “The Invisibility of the Black Atheist” from his The Words of Wrath blog, that:

.…In these communities you find more tolerance towards gangbangers, drug addicts, and prostitutes, who pray to God for forgiveness than for honest productive citizens who deny the existence of God. This, for me, is one of the most embarrassing elements of Black culture, our zealous embracement of the God of our kidnappers, murderers, slave masters and oppressors….

.….There is something unseemly about Black Americans being so thoroughly conquered right down to their very minds and spirits. I admit, I find it all rather pathetic and embarrassing. If I were being completely honest I would have to admit that I am saddened and somewhat disgusted by the very idea of a Black Christian.….

….What I don’t understand is how this has continued right through the Civil Rights movement and the Black power movement. How this patriarchal Master/ Slave religion could continue to be so ardently embraced by the children of slaves. What I don’t understand is how we still find ourselves praying to the great overseer in the sky even in the new millennium….

Wright raises some important points. The Black atheist is seemingly almost nonexistent. Yet, Black people have for the most part enthusiastically embraced Christianity, the religion of their oppressors.

Wright’s own mother was a minister, and he observes that the pressure to be a Christian is found in nearly every aspect of Black society. There is tremendous pressure on Blacks, Wright explains, to believe in God and to be Christian. For a Black person,“Telling our mothers and grandmothers that we no longer believe in god, and thus breaking their hearts, is a painful situation to even contemplate,” he writes.

Yet it cannot be denied that religion and the churches have helped Black Americans cope with their oppression and survive.

But Wright sees embracing the brutal master’s Christian religion as a source of shame and error for the Black community.

He writes:

….It is true that many of us did seek to leave the Christian faith in favor of more African belief systems such as Yuruba and Islam (another Abrahamic “Master /Slave” religion.) Unfortunately, too many of them returned to Christianity due to pressure from family and friends within our community, reaching out to pull them back in like crabs pulling each other back into the basket that’s heading toward the boiling pot. Others returned missing the old familiarity of the Black Church. This is the same set of circumstances now keeping those who have realized the absurdity of the God hypothesis from following their logical minds instead of their hearts…..

Wright and others might argue that it is not enough for the Black community to cope and survive. In fact, they might argue that their survival has not really been helped by embracing a religion and a mindset of their oppressors.

The level of poverty, racial and economic injustice, and lack of opportunity experienced by young
Black men has left many of them facing a future of unemployment, violence, imprisonment, and even death.

….Joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions — 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population…..Source: Washington Post

….Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34….Source: New York Times

.…The report found, among other things, that from 2002 to 2007, the number of homicides involving black male youth as victims rose by 31 percent, and when they were the perpetrators, by 43 percent. When looking specifically at gun killings, the numbers rose further: 54% for young black male victims and 47% for young black male perpetrators. By contrast, homicides among White youth increased only slightly, or decreased….Source: Burns Institute

Obviously it is not the young black men, but the whole of the Black Community that face brutal social and economic injustice.

Wright and others argue that embracing the religion of the oppressors has led to a mindset of oppression. Thus, accepting the slave master’s paradigm of reality has led to invisible chains of social, political, and economic injustice. Christianity is merely a tool to continue the oppression.

Wright is speaking out as a Black atheist so that others in the Black community might see another alternative to the slave master’s mindset, and so that other Black atheists might feel comforted in knowing that they are not alone. He writes that most in the Black community are afraid to speak out about their atheism for being ostracized and ridiculed.

Wright is to be admired for his courage in questioning and in challenging others to do the same. Atheism is choice that should be allowed any person, no matter their skin color. An atheist shouldn’t be demonized or ridiculed for questioning and coming to certain conclusions.

But for those that believe in God and Christianity, they will generally say that their beliefs have been a source of strength to them. As a counselor, I have often seen how people faced with the trauma of deep loss have found their only solace in their belief in God and their religion. I don’t think we could or should seek to take that away from those that deeply suffer.

But I do believe that religion can go beyond helping people cope during difficult times. It can also be used a source of great power to fight social and economic injustice for those that believe.

It doesn’t have to be, and it shouldn’t be, a battleground between those that believe in God and those that don’t. I think the divisions are often fueled by the power structure to keep the people fighting against themselves when they should be united for each other.

Whatever people of any race or culture believe about God and religion is not really an issue, unless those people are being harmed by those beliefs. Wright would argue that Blacks are being harmed by embracing the slave master’s religion and he has some good points to make and every right to make that case. If we do see that any system of thought or belief is abusing and exploiting people then we not only have a right but a duty to speak out.

Still, I think we might be better able to move forward if we focus on how we can use our beliefs to support a better life for ourselves and each other. Religion should be promoting compassion, social and economic justice, and unity. In the same way a lack of religion is not a deterrent to opening ones mind to seeing the benefits of compassion, social and economic justice, and unity.

What is needed at present is greater understanding of people’s views and of their circumstances, no matter if they believe in God or in organized religions. Then we can clearly see that no matter what our particular belief or lack of belief is we are human and have certain rights and dignities.

It is time to use both our hearts and minds to help heal ourselves and our society.

By Grant Lawrence

“I cannot seriously believe in quantum theory because it cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance.” - Albert Einstein

“…..This is you being quoted in the UK’s Daily Mail: “I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven. That begs the question do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal?”

Then you went on in a subsequent interview and further refined that by saying: “That’s a slight misquote because I was using the term in more of a general sense of ESP. That is, I was not talking about remote viewing per se, but rather Ganzfeld, etc. as well. I think that they do meet the usual standards for a normal claim but are not convincing enough for an extraordinary claim…..”
Moderator Alex Tsakiris in an exchange with paranormal skeptic Dr. Richard Wiseman and paranormal proponent Dr. Richard Sheldrake….”Source: Skeptico

I recently listened with some fascination to a debate between Dr. Wiseman, a parapsychology skeptic, and Dr. Sheldrake, a parapsychology advocate. After awhile it became abundantly clear that the science of the proof of parapsychology, or what some would call psychic phenomena, would never be accepted because whatever evidence that is gathered would always be shot down with the silly argument ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.’

First off, who is to decide if a claim is extraordinary or not?

If you ask quantum theoretical physicists, they might not look upon claims of psychic phenomena as that extraordinary since they have come to understand that consciousness and energy are somehow entangled.

.”…Einstein’s great objection to quantum theory came from its denial of physical reality before observation (quantum theory says that only after we measure a property value of a particle does that property gain physical reality – before we measure it we must consider it to be in a superposition state). We often quote Einstein’s rejection of quantum indeterminacy: “God does not play dice”, but his less-quoted objection to quantum theory’s denial of physical reality reveals his more serious concern: “‘ Source: Ipod.org

Secondly, who is to decide what amount of extraordinary evidence, over and above the usual evidence required in psychological experiments, is going to be sufficient?

Early research conducted by JB Rhine at Duke University in the 1930’s and 40′ demonstrated parapsychology or ESP as it was often called. Rhine also conducted the first meta-analysis in psychology when he and a colleague examined all scientific telepathy and clairvoyance experiments that were published over 60 years and found the evidence supported the paranormal.

More recently various experiments have shown that the body’s autonomic nervous system responds in a ‘precognitive’ way to frightening or stimulating stimuli before the introduction of any stimulus or conditioning. Dr. Dean Radin of the Institute of Noetic Sciences found that subjects’ skin response showed electrical activity before they were shown ‘affective pictures’, or images that draw a strong emotional response.

Moreover, “A growing number of recent studies are suggesting that other parts of the body may also show a presentiment response, including the heart (McCraty et al., 2004a) and the brain (Bierman & Scholte, 2002; Bierman & van Ditzhuijzen, 2006; Hinterberger et al., 2006; McCraty et al., 2004b). The results of a study by Radin and Eva Lobach (2007) of the University of Amsterdam, which was published in the latest issue of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, seems to add to the evidence for the latter.” Source: Public Parapsychology. It has also been shown and replicated that secret observation of subjects increase skin conductance response (Marilyn J. Schlitz , Stephen LaBerg)

One of the most widely performed extra-sensory perception experiments is the Ganzfield test. In this test, a subject is deprived of sensory stimulus while a sender attempts to send random images mentally. The subject repeats out loud the mental images that he or she is receiving and those responses are compared to the visual images sent by the sender. “By chance the average subject should guess the right target 25% of the time but Edinburgh’s Koestler Parapsychological Unit often achieves 33% . Also, “Between 1974 and 2004, 88 ganzfeld experiments were done, reporting 1,008 hits out of 3,145 tests (a 32.1% hit rate).^[11] In 1982, Charles Honorton presented a paper at the annual convention of the Parapsychological Association that summarized the results of the Ganzfeld experiments up to that date, and concluded that they represented sufficient evidence to demonstrate the existence of psi.”

The amount of experiments and the massive data from decades of research is overwhelming. Yet, The skeptics always say, after decades of proof, that the experiments are flawed (even before examining them) and/or that more proof is needed to make a firm conclusion. No matter how much scientific and empirical evidence is gathered concerning the paranormal, the skeptics will always decide that the massive amount of replicated proof obtained will not meet their unscientific and ill defined requirement of ‘extraordinary evidence.’

In truth, saying that some claim requires extraordinary evidence with no empirical parameters to decide what should qualify as ‘extraordinary’ is completely unscientific.

The skeptics are acting irrational, doctrinaire, and unscientific in their use of an unreasonable argument to dismiss true scientific inquiry of psychic phenomenon, which has been scientifically proven to be a real phenomenon by usual levels of validity and reliability for psychological experiments.

So why should parapsychology be held to a higher standard than normal psychological research?

The answer: It shouldn’t

Rather it is clear that parapsychology only seems extraordinary to those that hold a completely outdated view of reality which happens to be most of science. That view of reality is found in 17th century Newtonian Physics and the mechanistic view of matter and the universe.

The scientific establishment is dependent on governmental and corporate funding and grants. So as usual, we have to follow the money trail to see why there is such little interest and such a great deal of skepticism from the scientific community over the paranormal. In short, if there isn’t any money in a particular field of inquiry and investigation then there will be few in the scientific community to pursue it. There will also be a great deal of skepticism toward what they are not conditioned through economic reward to pursue or understand.

But let’s examine this further.

It is clear that the government has, and is likely still using, psychic programs in the interests of national security. Most of us are familiar with the comedy movie “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” What we should also understand is that the movie was loosely based on a real government operation. The intelligence agencies of our government for decades have accepted the reality of psychic phenomenon (the same was true of the former Soviet Union), yet when it comes to the reality of parapsychology it becomes a source for an endless attack and ridicule of skeptics and those that claim to know something.

The governmental corporate structure that rules over America will secretly and reliably use psychic phenomenon but they will not, at least openly and in public, finance the further investigation of parapsychology.

Why?

The whole thrust of American structural indoctrination is to mold people into good little, mindless consumers. The elite power structure that creates our reality through the constant conditioning and programming that comes through media and societal structures want people that consume, are compliant, and are only trained to do certain tasks at a minimum level of functionality.

Clearly the further understanding of our true human potential, as demonstrated in psychic and paranormal experiments, would open people’s mind to more than materialism and consumption. It would, in fact, open our minds and expand our present understanding beyond the narrow range of human beliefs and functioning programmed into us.

Presently, the power structure in America does everything it can to get people not to use their reason. We Americans are the victim of an endless presentation of mindless media used to titillate, fascinate, and placate while we close our minds to a much greater and fantastic reality.

If people would actually think then that would make for a great change in society.

But imagine if Americans, and all the people of the world, would actually use their whole brain to tap into their mental and spiritual potential.

The Military Industrial Complex that presently rules much of the world would very quickly come to an end. No more would those that possess an expanded consciousness accept the waste of wealth, resources, and human potential on war, human subjugation, and empire.

There is a conspiracy to stop humanity from realizing its true human potential. That conspiracy is seen in attempts to shut down the scientific inquiry into psychic phenomenon and the paranormal. The skeptics are unwitting pawns in this conspiracy. Their close minded and narrow view of reality and their pretense of objective scientific inquiry only serves the power elite’s mass conditioning to limit human potential. The power structure is playing a high stakes game of mind manipulation and reality control in a matrix type of government and corporate controlled simulated reality. We perceive the reality we are allowed to have. The expansion of human understanding would mean the end of the contained reality we are supposed to perceive and their inhuman empire.

But the stakes are even greater for humanity. The failure of humanity to understand and embrace their true human potential will mean a further dehumanization of humankind, massive death and destruction in endless wars, and perhaps the collapse of our eco-system in a desperate gamble for greater greed by the power elite.

This nightmare scenario we are facing could easily be changed. It would only take an awakening to our true human potential and that is why there is a conspiracy to deny the real.

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