Modern Christians espousing Garbage vs. What ought to be done

Sermon by Jodi Hickerson on the book of James

REAL LIFE CHURCH, Valencia, CA 6/7/26 on YOUTUBE
https://www.youtube.com/@rlcvalencia


and classic hilarious poem by Silverstein

"Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans,
... And so it piled up to the ceilings:
.... . The garbage rolled on down the hall,
It raised the roof, it broke the wall
.... At last the garbage reached so high
That it finally touched the sky.
... But then, of course, it was too late. . .
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate.
And there, in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sarah met an awful fate..."

by Shel Silverstein

Who Owns the land and by What Right?

Here are eight of the possible views of land ownership:

#1 Historic Right

#2 Worldview/Religion/Moral Claim

#3 Present Possession

#4 Military Might (The most popular view with most people in most of history)

#5 Best Use

#6 Diplomacy/Compromise

#7 Legal Claim

#8 Visitor Status (No one group, nation, religion, ideology, etc. “owns” the land. All humans are merely visiting. We must share.)



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Wokeness to 'Systemic Racism" and Original Sin--2 false ideological claims

Randal Rauser, a systematic theologian, claims: “Personally, I struggle with all sorts of impulses to be prejudiced against other people. This is a manifestation of the more general struggle with sin and the fallen human nature. Day by day, I need to seek and call out my own internal fallen impulses to otherize and dehumanize my fellow human beings.

"Wokeness is at its best not as a punctiliar moment of revelation equivalent to the old Methodist perfectionism but rather an invitation to examine oneself and become woke every day to one’s own sin and wickedness including in the area of race.”
-Randal Rauser, Canadian Systematic Theologian at Taylor Seminary.
https://randalrauser.com/2021/11/a-review-of-owen-strachans-debate-performance-on-unbelievable/

Rauser appears to defend the claim that systemic racism exists at present in the United States even though it isn’t as bad as during Jim Crow and antebellum slavery.

While I agree that in some places and among some individuals overt racism does still exist. I think that the claim there is “systemic racism” in all of the U.S. is not only untrue, but is an ideological falsehood of the worst sort.

A number of Black scholars including Thomas Sowell, Professor of Economics, author of A Conflict of Visions and Walter Williams, Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University have emphasized that while some racism does exist and needs to be strongly opposed, “systemic racism” doesn’t exist in present day America.

I do agree with Rauser that each of us do need to regularly check his/herself see whether or not we are being biased against others because of race, sex, class or nationality.
However, I don’t agree that all Americans and Canadians “struggle with all sorts of impulses to be prejudiced against other people” because of “sin and the fallen human nature.”
Unlike Rauser, I don’t believe in the creedal doctrine of Original Sin, don’t think humans are born sinful, totally depraved, “in essence, evil” because of Adam’s eating a fruit, like the vast majority of Christians do.

Original Sin or Systemic Racism of Whiteness and similar ideological claims have no basis in reality.

1. Geneticists seems to have demonstrated that there never were 2 humans 6,000 years ago who were the origin of all the billions of humans today. Instead, the evidence so far indicates that all of humankind came from a few thousand individuals in existence many thousadns of years ago.

2. Original Sin is a pernicious doctrine that claims what the alleged wrong the ancestor of all humans did thousands of years ago was innately transferred to each infant of him and down to each grandchild, great-grantchild, etc. This total depravity, sinfulness is so innate within human nature every infant upon conception and birth has this sinfulness within them, unable to overcome it. Indeed, according to this doctrine, even good actions by each of us, are actually sinful!! A wrong action by another person, even if it was by our parent can't be innately inserted within us as children because we are their children.

Even if such a biological claim could be possible (which it isn't), that would be utterly evil, to blame a child, even a day-old infant for what wrong-doing his parent did.

This strange doctrine of Christianity also demeans the Creator. A good Creator would never insert utter sinfulness into each new human infant, no matter how sinful his/her father was.

Original Sin is also a denial of human choice, creativity, ability, and inherent worth.
Etc.

This new ideological claim of "woke" humans, that whites are guilty of systematic racism stereotypes unique individuals based upon such a superficiality as skin color. It's claim all humans with white skin are racists is very untrue, unfair, and delusionary.

Woke believers ought to read a good scholarly book on genetics. Geneticists have discovered that there is more variation within some racial groupings than there is between 2 different racial groups!
Furthermore, such a claim is contrary to the history of humankind. Racism isn't unique to one racial grouping. It appears in various contexts among all human groups.
While European whites, especially the
British, were mostly racist against Blacks in North America and Africa in the past, other races and nationalities in different times were also given to prejudice.

In the last 30 years, in Zimbabwe, for instance, there is clear evidence of racial prejudice against whites. And in China for centuries there was prejudice against anyone who wasn't Chinese.

Japanese have been very prejudiced against non-Japanese.

In history, North Africans enslaved over a million white Europeans over a period of 300 years!

There was plenty of prejudice, abuse, and enslavement in the Americas before whites ever showed up here. Various native American groups treated other native groups unfairly, even massacred the "other."

Instead, of prejudice and racism being something unique about humans with white skin, humans generally are given to IN GROUP VERSUS OUT GROUP bias, and to unfair treatment toward others, regardless of the color of skin in particular.

We all can fall for the will to power, the temptation to generalize and stereotype, etc. For example, BLM leaders often did it on their website in their claims that all police officers systematically oppress Black people. That is factually wrong.
Heck, many thousands of officers are Black, Asian, Hispanic, etc.
The Police Chief of Chicago is Black as is the mayor; the Attorney General of Kentucky is Black, etc.

In some cities, a few officers have been shown to be racist, but that is a regrettable minority, not most, let alone all police officers.

What is often the case in many of these infamous cases of alleged racism by officers is that people of color aren't attacked by officers because of their color but because the individuals are engaging in criminal activities and resist arrest.

In only one protest by BLMers in Chicago, over 50 police officers were injured! The Chief of Police documents the riot-violence of the protesters in a news video.
Noting about racism at all.

Seek the Good, the True, and the Just,

Dan Wilcox

Review of Once Upon a Country, a Palestinian Autobiography by Sari Nusseibeh

Once Upon a Country by Sari Nusseibeh

Powerful autobiography and political history from one family’s perspective of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict of the 20th Century!

It restores my hope in Palestinians and makes me realize that the real problem in the Middle East (an elsewhere as well) isn’t any certain group of people, nor even any particular religion, but rather extremism, blind faith, and the dark side of human nature.

The central answer to intolerance is educated reason and the rejection of religious and political ideology!

I seem to have far more in common with this Palestinian, Sari Nusseibeh, than my own relatives for instance, more agreement with him than probably with anyone here on the Central Coast of California, where most people are fanatically supportive of the present administration of the U.S. and the Israeli government, and for various forms of creedal Christianity!

What Once Upon a Country also does is—despite Sari’s evident practical agnosticism and nominal faith—is restore confidence that we as humans can find hope and change despite the almost insurmountable problems and catastrophes of human history.

Sari communicates his life story and rational hopefulness and how he stood for nonviolence and reconciliation in the midst of intense hatred and violence, some even coming toward him and his family.

The book, too, again makes one cognizant of how much human destiny is affected by background, that while we do have some free creative choice (are morally responsible), some of us are better able to choose than others--
how upper class individuals who are bright and secularly educated, can have tremendous impact on their nations and the world, unlike average people who are more likely to be blinded by popular media and religious and political propaganda.

Part of the reason that Sari can be so rational and tolerant is that he comes from brilliant tolerant parents who sent him to England to be educated, where he earned his B.A. Then he earned his PhD in literature and philosophy in the United States at Harvard.

Such a background, while not guaranteeing moderation, hope, and nonviolence, certainly makes such moral qualities more possible than if he had grown up poverty-stricken in an intolerant family in Gaza with only a rudimentary education and filled with intolerant religious doctrines.

The extreme historical irony of reading this book is that Sari has been waging his nonviolent campaign for years yet the news never mentions it, but only the Palestinian extremists with bombs and Israeli settlers taking Palestinian land.

What if the international and U.S. news instead focused on Sari and other Palestinians’ peaceful protests and their efforts at education (such as Mars Elias Schools and Ramallah Friends School)?

This book has reignited my tremendous concern for Israel-Palestine. Thanks Sari!


In the Light of tolerance, education, and creativity,

Dan Wilcox

Talk About Tragic, Hypocritical, and Contrary to Its Founder's Wise Words

Look at the tragic selfish, unkind, unjust, and immoral position that White Evangelical Christians hold toward accepting refugees:

These devout Christians claim that they follow Jesus who told the Parable of the Good Samaritan and who spoke the Sermon on the Mount,
YET
they strongly refuse accepting and helping refugees.

Notice that these U.S. Evangelical Christians are the most opposed of any group to helping the abused, the impoverished, the persecuted, the helpless!!


Don't look to their selfish and fallacious religion for truth, justice, or hope.

Instead, consider these wise words:

In the LIGHT of kindness, compassion, generosity, help, and rescuing,

Daniel Wilcox

"History...a Nightmare" vs. "History...to Hope"?

"History is a nightmare we are trying to wake up from."
-James Joyce
VS.
"It is history that teaches us to hope."
-Civil War Talk website
---

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
-Winston Churchill

“If the people really knew [the truth] the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know and can’t know.”
-British Prime Minister Lloyd George, on Great War

"“It is necessary to know how to conceal...and to be a great pretender and dissembler...those princes who have done great things have considered keeping their word of little account, and have known how to beguile men’s minds by shrewdness and cunning. In the end these princes have overcome those who have relied on keeping their word.” “Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it..."
-Machiavelli
VS.
"The first casualty when war comes is truth, and whenever an individual nation seeks to coerce by force of arms another, it always acts, and insists that it acts in self-defense."
-American senator Hiram Johnson, on Great War

“.... more deliberate lies were told than in any other period of history, and the whole apparatus of the state went into action to suppress the truth”.
-War Journalist Phillip Knightley, on Great War

"When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty."
-Member of Parliament Arthur Ponson, Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War

from Wikipedia:
Historian Anne Morelli's explanation of "Ponsonby's classic in "ten commandments of propaganda":

"We do not want war.

The opposite party alone is guilty of war.

The enemy is the face of the devil.

We defend a noble cause, not our own interest.

The enemy systematically commits cruelties; our mishaps are involuntary.

The enemy uses forbidden weapons.

We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous.

Artists and intellectuals back our cause.

Our cause is sacred.

All who doubt our propaganda, are traitors."

Notice how ALL--or at least most--of those characterize nearly all wars in history, and include present-day conflicts, especially the 7 ones that the U.S. and other countries are currently engaging in!

See also, Jesus Wars and The Great and Holy War by Historian Phillip Jenkins

At this juncture in my aged life--
after at least 57 years of reading history tomes--it would seem that history is
neither "a Nightmare"
nor a "Hope,
but
rather our past life, and so we ought to study it for dear life, hoping that we can ferret out what is true from all the myths, all the intentional lies and semi-lies, and all the misunderstandings, confusions, and distortions that comprise the FOG of HISTORY.

Seeking the Truth,

Daniel Wilcox

What is True, Not "Politically Correct"

Part #2: What is True?

Honesty, Justice, Commitment, Reason, Goodness, Human Rights, Compassion, Duty, Kindness, Equality, Helpfulness, Peacemaking, Fairness, Patience, Fidelity, Generosity, Sharing, and so on...

What is False?

Dishonesty, Lying, Cheating, Injustice, Irrationalism, Fickleness, Cruelty, Torture, Rape, Enslavement, Abuse, Slaughter, infanticide, Violence, Theft, Racism, Promiscuity, Prostitution, Selfishness, and so on...

Many of these ethical truths, (and their contrary immoral actions) have been discovered by humans through experience, reasoning, and intuition and have been held up as ideals for thousands of years. Some of the ideals have taken much longer to become accepted by most humans than others.

But even way back in 250 B.C. one human leader in Western Asia banned slavery. And many of the virtues and ethical rights were emphasized even before then.

The POINT?

We humans, contrary to what many present leaders claim, don't need to reinvent the moral wheel of civilization over in every generation.

Instead, we reflect on the achievements of past moral leaders, sift and look for ways to improve on their lives and ideals. We finite individuals get to add in our insight and thinking, seeking greater and greater understanding of ethical truth. For instance, one topic that has come up in the last 50 years or so is the question of "animal rights." A deep topic to think about for the future.

CONTRARY to the many naysayers and negaters of the present, who claim that all ethics are "relative" and "subjective," and that no human has inherent value, and that there are no human rights,
we humans can live for
what is true,
what is good,
what is of inherent value.

NOW TO the "politically correct:"

So much of modern media has been touting catch phrases and words that many people adopt in mass, rather than test with previous ethical truths.

For instance:

Everyone is equal and that therefore those humans who have an orientation toward same sexuality ought to have the same right to commit to one other person to become his/her lover, spouse, and life-long partner.

Here's the 'socially and politically incorrect" part:

Terms and descriptions such as "GLBTQI" ought to be abandoned.

Why?

Because not only are such terms politically-charged catch phrases, they often aren't accurate.

#1 Same sexual is a more denotative term than the connotative terms such "gay" and lesbian."

#2 "Same sexual" explains how an individual human is orientated, but it doesn't define him/her in all of his/her complexity as do such popular sexual words such as "gay."

Opposite sexual individuals aren't defined by one term! There are many different sorts of opposite sexual individuals with widely different worldviews, life-stances, and perspectives.

That seems to be true for same sexual individuals, too.

#3 B stands for "bisexual," BUT this ambivalence in some humans ought not to be a defining description of them. If an individual feels emotionally and physically drawn to both sexes, that person needs to reflect deeply to which type of human he/she is most drawn. If it is 50-50, then he/she needs to make a definitive choice to go one way or the other.

If the person does choose, and then lives celibate until meeting his/her true love, and makes a commitment for life with that special person, then that is his/her chosen path.

He/she may still feel ambivalent, like a young adult might still feel torn some years later after choosing his/her career but usually continues with his commitment.

And he/she usually doesn't call themselves in an identifying term, such as I am a "bi-career";-) as if they feel so ambivalent about choosing to be a doctor or an engineer that they need to emphasize it to everybody!

#4 Transgendered is a very new field of study in human nature and ethics. Why do a few humans feel that they are caught in the wrong body? Sometimes the case is that when born, an infant is in the "middle" in his/her private parts and the obstetrician made a misdiagnosis.

This is tragic because it makes it so hard for the child as he/she grows up. However, transgendered individuals are of equal worth and inherent value as opposite and same sexual humans.

Again, why identify themselves centrally by their particular orientation?!

There is so much more to being human than sexuality, as important as that is to everyone of us.

#5 Lastly, another reason to stop using these catchy terms and "politically correct" phrases is that human sexuality ought to NEVER have been the political football it has become, where strident voices on all different sides of the issue yell at each other.

We need to focus on HUMANISM--the ideals, truths, and values that we all share.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Black Riots Matter

Black Riots Matter: Milwaukee, St. Paul, Baton Rouge, Ferguson...

Milwaukee News:
“…two nights of riots sparked by the fatal shooting of a black man by a black police officer.”

“…some rioters torched businesses and police cars...pelted riot police with bottles and bricks...Eight officers were wounded, and dozens of people were arrested…”

(Photo: Calvin Mattheis / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

“Sylville Smith, 23, was killed on Saturday afternoon after he was stopped for acting suspiciously and then fled. Authorities said he was carrying an illegal handgun and refused orders to drop it when he was shot.”

"Peaceful demonstrations in the Sherman Park area where Smith died turned into violent protests on Saturday and Sunday nights."

"Shots were fired, and some rioters torched businesses and police cars. Angry crowds pelted riot police with bottles and bricks."
Brendan O'Brien, Curtis Skinner, Lisa Von Ahn

And a gas station was set on fire.

WHY?

To use the old cliché, the devil (immoral choices, criminal actions, dysfunction, distortion, disinformation, propaganda, falsehoods, lies, slander, invective, etc.) is in the details.

St. Paul:
“The police in St. Paul said at least five officers had been injured by fireworks, rocks, bricks and glass bottles that they said were thrown by protesters.”

Then there was Baton Rouge, Ferguson, etc.

But why didn't the family, friends, and other Blacks of the 9 Black church members ruthlessly slaughtered by Dylann Roof in Charleston, then take to the streets and riot, burn stores, throw bricks, etc.?

Let’s first hear from Black leaders themselves, opposites counter.


“This entire community has sat back and witnessed how Milwaukee, Wis., has become the worst place to live for African-Americans in the entire country...”

“Do we continue – continue with the inequities, the injustice, the unemployment, the under-education, that creates these byproducts that we see this evening?
"The black people of Milwaukee are tired. They’re tired of living under this oppression."
Khalif Rainey
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Newspaper

“#BlackLivesMatter is working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.

"We affirm our contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.”
Black Lives Matter

“BLM banner protesters in Minnesota chant, "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon.”

“An immediate end to the criminalization and dehumanization of Black youth across all areas of society including, but not limited to; our nation’s justice and education systems, social service agencies, and media and pop culture. This includes an end to zero-tolerance school policies and arrests of students, the removal of police from schools, and the reallocation of funds from police and punitive school discipline practices to restorative services.
An Immediate End to the Criminalization and Dehumanization of Black Youth Across All Areas of Society Including, but Not Limited to, Our Nation’s Justice and Education Systems, Social Service Agencies, Media, and Pop Culture”

“Across the country, Black children attend under-resourced schools where they are often pushed off of an academic track onto a track to prison. Zero-tolerance policies — a combination of exclusionary disciplinary policies and school-based arrests — are often the first stop along the school-to-prison pipeline and play a key role in pushing students out of the school system and funneling them into jails and prisons.”

“Each year more than three million students are suspended from school — often for vague and subjective infractions such as “willful defiance” and “disrespect” — amounting to countless hours of lost instructional time. As a result, Black students are denied an opportunity to learn and punished for routine child and adolescent behaviors that their white peers are often not disciplined for at all.
The Movement for Black Lives
https://policy.m4bl.org/end-war-on-black-people/

"It’s A Few Bad Apples Or Police Departments Or Maybe The Entire System"
by Georgia Sand
"Examples of this would include shooting unarmed people in the back, tasering children in the head, killing children, or beating pregnant women, among others."

"In those situations, police-worshippers fall back on, “It’s just a few bad apples.” Alas, cop-lovers who lazily fall back on this term forget the full idiom: “A few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.”

"It would seem that in the face of entire departments all over the country demonstrating abject disregard for justice, Americans might become a little more open to the idea that it is less a problem of a “few bad apples” and more a problem of a rotten bunch."
Georgia Sand

VERSUS

Barbara Reynolds, Black activist and minister, author of 6 books and former editor for USA Today:
“I was a civil rights activist in the 1960s. But it’s hard for me to get behind Black Lives Matter."

I support BLM's cause, but not its approach.”

“Trained in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr., we were nonviolent activists who won hearts by conveying respectability and changed laws by delivering a message of love and unity.


"BLM seems intent on rejecting our proven methods...at protests today, it is difficult to distinguish legitimate activists from the mob actors who burn and loot."

"Now, the demonstrations are peppered with hate speech, profanity…”

“The power of the spiritual approach was evident recently in the way relatives of the nine victims in the Charleston church shooting responded at the bond hearing for Dylann Roof, the young white man who reportedly confessed to killing the church members “to start a race war.”

"One by one, the relatives stood in the courtroom, forgave the accused racist killer and prayed for mercy on his soul. As a result, in the wake of that horrific tragedy, not a single building was burned down. There was no riot or looting.”

“...we should remember the words of King: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

"The civil rights movement was not exclusively a black movement for black people. It valued all human lives, even those of people who worked against us."

"I can’t believe that the life of a murdered white police officer, or an Asian child sold into sex slavery, or a hungry family in Appalachia are lives that don’t matter."

"...the movement overlooks black-on-black homicides, the leading cause of death for black males between the ages of 15 and 34."

"That horrific fact remains off the movement’s radar, for fear that it puts black men in a negative light. So which black lives really matter?”

When told by a Black activist that she ought to listen to new racial equality movement’s lead song, “Alright” by rapper Kendrik Lamar,
Reynolds wrote,
“I listened to the song, expecting it would be as uplifting as “We Shall Overcome.”
I was terribly disappointed.
The beat was too harsh; the lyrics were nasty and misogynistic."

Alright: “Let me tell you about my life / Painkillers only put me in the twilight / Where pretty pussy and Benjamin is the highlight.”
--

Johnathan Gentry, minister at West Angeles Church of God in Christ, said the BLM movement is “superficial, shallow."

The movement ought to be challenged: “Why are you not cleaning up your own community if black lives matter?”

"Where was Black Lives Matter in Chicago, in Baltimore and in Ferguson when 9-year-old Jamyla Bolden was shot to death in her own home?"

BLM wants to “protest for thugs,” but the organization is “nowhere to be found in their own communities.”

“Stop blaming slavery and segregation for what is happening now."

“It is you. It’s not them. It’s not this person. It is you standing in need of prayer.”

He pointed out that while BLM leaders are holding protest signs against police officers, Blacks have been “killing each other all year.”

“Either put the sign down, or reflect it towards your own community. You understand? Because that’s where we’re dying — in our own community.”


Black leader David A. Clarke, Sheriff of Milwaukee County
said on his twitter account:
“Four murdered, 9 shot in Milwaukee Fri night/Sat morning. Silence. 1 cop kills an ARMED black guy & riots break out?”

"And there is no racism in the hearts of police officers."

Another Black leader stated, "But the notion that America's cops simply are gunning down innocent black people is one of today's biggest and deadliest lies."

Even a pro-BLM leader, John McWhorter, associate professor at Columbia University,
self-described as “liberal Democrat” wrote that BLM ought to also seek to stop how the vast majority of Blacks killings happen, Blacks killing Blacks.

To be continued--



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

How Does One Escape from the American Nightmare?

Another election year, another boondoggle...only it's even worse than usual because of the harsher rhetoric, blatant lies, put-downs, and ad hominem. The candidates seldom explain in careful detail new proposals.

A great country seems headed deeper into a worse nightmare.

This presidential primary season is so much more vulgar, so much less than what Americans could be achieving if they used their intellect, wisdom, and technology to spend all their time laying out practical, yet idealistic programs for significant change.

Look at how in the last 10 years NASA was able to send a probe all the way to Pluto, scientists made major discoveries in genetics, anthropology, medicine, and other areas of human learning.

Only in religion, the media, and in politics do humans seem caught in a endless cycle of pathetic tragedy and mindless absurdity.

Look back at the last few months--both a combination of Animal Farm and 1984.

What if instead of spending 30 million dollars in one state alone to try and win a primary if that one presidential candidate had used that wealth to create new programs to help impoverished and at-risk kids?

Think of all the many millions spent by the large number of primary hopefuls. What if all those many millions had been donated to actual projects?

Think of what FDR did in the severe Depression of 1930's in only one project--The Civilian Conservation Corp which created roads and trails, parks, built amazing architectural wonders, etc. Many millions of citizens yearly use the CCC's striking accomplishments.

"By September 1935 over 500,000 young men had lived in CCC camps, most staying from six months to a year...the men planted millions of trees on land made barren from fires, natural erosion, or lumbering—in fact, the CCC was responsible for over half the reforestation, public and private, done in the nation’s history.

"Corpsmen also dug canals and ditches, built over thirty thousand wildlife shelters, stocked rivers and lakes with nearly a billion fish, restored historic battlefields, and cleared beaches and campgrounds."

"In less than 10 years, the Civilian Conservation Corps built more than 800 parks and planted nearly 3 billion trees nationwide." The Reader’s Companion to American History, Editors Eric Foner and John A. Garraty
http://www.history.com/topics/civilian-conservation-corps

What if instead of building a multi-billion dollar wall across the southwestern border with Mexico, the U.S. and Mexico worked more together to make significant changes along the border?

What if the two governments used those billions of dollars to coordinate heath care, improve land ecology, and help the many kids, teens, and adults who wait at the Mexican border trying to get across, or wait on the U.S. border in holding places to be deported?

What if instead of 'to the nth degree' rehashing again and again various politicians' past failings, we instead focused on making wiser decisions now and in the future?

What if instead of large amounts of time being taken up on the various news channels with Hilary's email mistake, Ted's refusal to work with other senators, Donald's flip-floping on abortion, George's first strike war, etc.

INSTEAD

all that time and money would be spent educating the general populace and various leaders on the complicated nature of the civil wars in Syria, Iraq, and Libya?

and why we, the U.S., ought not to get any further involved financially in those wars between opposite Islamic groups and countries?

We could spend all the many billions that we give in military aid instead for rescuing millions of refugees and getting them resettled in safe places, in helping worldwide aid organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, in creating reconciliation groups...

And spend more billions on improving education, transportation, etc. here at home.

Of course that would be the American Dream again.

Most humans instead seemed fixated on more nightmares.


In the Light of Human Rights, Justice, and Equality,

Daniel Wilcox

Why Are These Behaviors Immoral? Yet Many Claim They Are Good?

#1 Polyamory

#2 Polygamy


#3 Promiscuity

#5 Pornography

Prostitution--selling sex (now called "sex worker") for money; what is meant to be an expression of intimacy between two committed individuals in romantic passion becomes the use of humans as objects for commerce

#6 Profanity-Obscenity



#7 Purity Culture--obsession with women as objects related to men's "honor"--in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.

#8 Pride “Patriotism”--Nationalism; "God Bless US"

#9 Propaganda--Merriam-Webster Dictionary: "ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government...;"

Almost all government officials and political leaders of all countries incessantly use propaganda.

Tragic historical example of propaganda: The U.S. government falsely reported in the late summer of 1964 that Vietnam had attacked U.S. ships. Quickly, the so-called Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed which dramatically increased the U.S. war attacks there.

Millions suffered and died because of lying by the American Government. Not that the Government of Vietnam was any more truthful. It also filled the airways with lies.


Another example: Justification by the U.S. for invasion of Iraq in both Gulf Wars; even though Saddam Hussein was a ruthless killer, the U.S had previously supported him in his other invasion, that of Iran!

Even more strangely, the U.S. has for many years supported Saudi Arabia, even though that government/country is much worse in human rights violations, persecution, and injustice than Iraq!

Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has set up repressive Islamic schools and mosques around the world with billions of their petrol dollars, and supported, funded, and sent out Islamic terrorists for years.

Political Elections: Consider all the propagandistic statements being made daily by the various presidential candidates at the present--one-liners, personal attacks, exaggerations, false information, ad hominem, spam, even slanderous statements...

Or consider the ridiculous false charges thrown at President Barrak Obama in the last 10 years--that he is a "radical Muslim," that he is a "communist," etc.

Many of these political claims actually go beyond mere propaganda; they are outright lies, yet millions of Americans believe them.

It would be tragic if it wasn't so absurd. The unethical spam reminds me of Winston's Churchill's infamous statement in support of lying for the government:
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

In war, (besides the slaughter of humans), lying and stealing are always the first unethical actions to be committed repeatedly by all sides.


#10 Prejudice--prejudging other individuals, especially leaders, even though one doesn't have the facts



#11 Plundering--stealing land, material, wealth, water for one's government and country; for instance, see this happening daily in Palestine/Israel, where the Israeli Government and Israeli settlers confiscate Palestinian land, bulldoze or burn orchards, destroy homes and this week even destroyed a school!


#12 Perfidy--infidelity, disloyalty, double-dealing



#13 Philandery--Alan Watts, the famous writer and Buddhist scholar, wrote in his autobiography, In My Own Way, about the joys of adultery that he experienced with various lady friends.

“…Deep down inside, almost everyone has a vague sense of eternity. Few dare admit this because it would amount to believing that you are God…My own sexual mores...I do not believe that I should be passionately in love with my partner...and still less, married."

"For there is a special and humanizing delight in erotic friendships with no strings attached...My life would be much, much poorer were it not for certain particular women with whom I have most happily and congenially committed adultery...”
Alan Watts

One gets a sense of Watt's attitude with his comment about the Christian Eucharist: "Holy Communion?" he was heard to remark. "Why, it's like
fucking a plastic woman!"

A PhD. anthropologist explained that the reason he regularly womanized is that it was his nature to need sex with many women.



#14 Pedophilia--Child Brides in Islam, etc; at 50 years of age, Muhammad "marrying" a child of 6, allegedly consummating the relationship when the child was 9.

Photo by Stephanie Sinclair



Many Roman Catholics priests have illicit sex with older children; then even worse, Roman Catholic Church leaders allow such priests to continue supervising children!

Furthermore, the RC. hierarchy didn't report such evil actions to the criminal justice system. And later the Church covered up the many cases of pedophilia when they were discovered by others.

When families of abused children sued the Church it seemed far more concerned with defending itself from loss of money than in the suffering and abuse it had caused and hidden!


Also, some secular leaders are overly lenient toward mild immoral actions. For instance, the famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins reported that he didn't think the "mild pedophilia of his teacher in elementary school was harmful!

"One day — I must have been about 11 — there was a master in the gallery with me. He pulled me onto his knee and put his hand inside my shorts."

"He did no more than have a little feel, but it was extremely disagreeable (the cremasteric reflex is not painful, but in a skin-crawling, creepy way it is almost worse than painful) as well as embarrassing."

"As soon as I could wriggle off his lap, I ran to tell my friends, many of whom had had the same experience with him."

"I don’t think he did any of us any lasting damage, but some years later he killed himself."
An Appetite for Wonder by Richard Dawkins


#15 Perversion—such as sadomasochism

#16 Pollution

#17 Predestination--the foreordination of most human beings to eternal damnation/torture by God in the religions of Islam, Christianity, etc.

#18 Pontification

#19 Pretension

#20 Politics (just kidding;-)

What is most weird about this list is that many of these immoral actions are being promoted and accepted in public, in the media, and on the Internet as good! Pro-articles for such actions as polyamory have appeared in The Atlantic and Scientific-American!

Brilliant individuals, some with PhD's, actually claim that there is nothing immoral or unethical about such behaviors. On the contrary, these thinker claim, it's monogamy and fidelity that are limiting, keeping humans from becoming all that they want to be.

Some spokespersons even go further, stating all ethics are “subjective,” only “personal preferences,” and social constructs, not grounded in reality. Being against prostitution is analogous to disliking the color red! It's only a subjective preference.

What a despairing darkness has overtaken modern culture and society. We need not speak of the horrific actions of the historic past; there are so many violations at present.

In the midst of my positive posts, I will try and tackle some of these devious beliefs and actions in future posts. Wish me luck.

I will need all the help I can get. For the last few years, especially, various thinkers in books and in person and online have been defending most of these evil behaviors as fine for any human to do if he/she chooses to live them.

Live in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Tragic Naming of a Baby for Terror, "Knife of Jerusalem" by his Palestinian Parents

How can humans, no matter what nationality, what religion, stoop so low as to name their new born infant "Knife of Jerusalem" in honor of the intentional murderers of other humans they live only a few kilometers from?

59 Israelis have been attacked savagely by knife-wielding Palestinians in the last month.

12 Israelis have been murdered, 19 seriously wounded. Palestinians have also thrown 377 molotov coctails and rammed Israeli civilians with their cars. Also horrific and evil.

But to come up close to a 13-year-old Israeli teen riding his bike and slash him with a knife, critically injuring him!

And then for a Palestinian mother and father to name their infant in honor of such horror, such evil?

His father Shebika states, “Allah has given me a new baby, and I’ve named him ‘Knife of Jerusalem’ after the intifada of the knives...
in support of the blood of the martyrs…
Giving him this name was the least I could do, even if many people don’t like it...Allah willing,
the third intifada will not stop.”

The infant's mother added, “in solidarity with our people in the West Bank. This is the least we can do for them.”


Where is the humanity of these two new parents?! Why are Palestinians turning so cruel, so heartless, so murderous?

Where is their empathy? Their compassion? Their humanity? Their common decency?


Yes, I know Palestinians are persecuted, abused, stolen from, lied to, and murdered. They suffer so much, too.

But their responding by murdering innocent Israelis with savage knife attacks isn't the way to respond.

Responding to evil with evil is NEVER right, or good, or Godly.

(We'll deal with the Israelis later, who are also guilty of murder, terrorism, injustice, theft, etc.)

And for attacking innocent humans, murdering some of them, leaving others in critical condition or at least hospitalized--

FOR THAT the knife attackers are praised by the leaders of Palestinians,
Fatah and HAMAS and other Palestinian organizations.

What has happened to us that we as a species are so callous that we would name a baby in honor of murderers?

Muslim Sheikh Muhammad Salakh preaches, “Restrain the victim while others attack him with axes and butcher knives. Do not fear what will be said about you. Oh men of the West Bank, next time, attack in a group of three, four, or five. Attack them in groups. Cut them into body parts.”

The "Ocean of Darkness" seems unrelenting...


Keep your lights shining,

Daniel Wilcox