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eagle-eyez · 3 years ago

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As vaccine uptake starts to wane, stories have began to emerge of people who refused the jab ending up in intensive care, ruing not having had the vaccine, and subsequently dying. These cautionary tales are certainly attention-grabbing, but is it right to publish or broadcast them?

If human morality depended only on totting up costs and benefits, our moral lives would be simple matters of accounting. On the plus side, if the vaccine saves lives, any cautionary tale to persuade the unpersuaded has to be good – doesn’t it? On the minus side, perhaps cautionary tales don’t always work. And what about the effects on bereaved families if a loved one is heartlessly portrayed as a victim of their own folly?

According to a philosophical view called consequentialism – which proposes that what is morally right is whatever makes the world best in the future – we should “do the sums” as best we can and check that the benefits outweigh the costs. But consequences, whether good or bad, are only part of our complex moral psychology, as shown by a long history of experiments, especially the famous trolley problems. A runaway trolley is hurtling down a railway line towards a crowd of people who will face certain death. There is a switch that will flip the trolley into a siding, saving the crowd but hitting and killing a single person. Should you flip the switch and divert the trolley?

A cost-benefit story is clear: flip the switch! But in experiments, many people refuse to flip the switch. Doing nothing means the whole crowd will die. But perhaps doing nothing isn’t killing, just allowing a tragic sequence of events to unfold.

Flipping the switch becomes very much less popular in a clever variant where the runaway trolley can only be stopped by pushing an innocent and heavy bystander, who happens to be standing on a footbridge, into the path of the oncoming trolley (imagine you are too light to stop the trolley by diving over the parapet yourself). Few people want to push an innocent person to their death, even if it saves many. And surely even those who judge this is morally right feel conflicted and uncertain.

So our moral queasiness about reporting the deaths of vaccine sceptics won’t go away just by showing that the ends justify the means. But what exactly is the missing moral ingredient that makes us so uncomfortable?

Moral psychology researchers often assume our morality is governed by two forces. One is a slow, rational process that tots up costs and benefits. The other is a fast emotional process that cares mainly about obeying moral rules (“killing is wrong!”). This way of putting things gives the impression that it is the rational system that we should be listening to.

The emotional system, with its blind desire to follow the rules, is pulling us away from the “right” action. From this standpoint, moral discomfort should be recognised, but put aside. If publicising the deaths of vaccine sceptics helps save others, we should do it, whether we feel queasy or not.

Contract-based approach

But there is a third philosophical tradition in ethics that psychologists have only recently started to consider. This puts matters in a very different light and helps us understand moral dilemmas in a new, but insightful, way.

According to contract-based approaches to ethics, people care not only about consequences and rules, but agreement. Roughly, something is morally OK if people agree to it – or would agree to it, if we had time to ask them.

This viewpoint helps explains why we are morally conflicted by flipping the switch: the hapless person on the siding would surely not agree to be killed. By contrast, we don’t need to get anyone’s agreement for doing nothing. Doing nothing is just the default option.

And consider the person on the footbridge. They surely, in our imagination, will protest even more vigorously against the terrifying prospect of being pushed to their death. And hence this feels even less morally acceptable.

From a contract-based view of moral psychology, the crucial question is: would the tragic victims of COVID have agreed to their case being reported? What about their families? And would they have approved the tone and storyline?

Also read: From lack of documentation to vaccine hesitancy, India’s trans community's struggle to access COVID-19 vaccines, explained

In some reported cases, people close to death, or their families, have asked for their stories to be broadcast to warn others. These cases feel morally fine, as the contract-based view would suggest. In other cases, though, such permission has neither been sought nor granted. Here, our queasiness is greatest, especially where people are portrayed, however subtly, as foolishly endangering their own lives. No one would agree to the printing of a story spun like that.

And there is yet another element. Our moral psychology cares, too, about whether people – and especially ourselves – are virtuous. Yet schadenfreude – the delight in the misfortune of others – is surely a vice: better to be kind and compassionate. So publicising, and being riveted by, the tragic deaths of vaccine sceptics invites us to indulge this vice, and we feel morally uncomfortable in doing so.

Our mixed feelings about reporting the deaths of vaccine sceptics reflect the complexity of our moral selves – consequences, rules, agreements and virtues can pull us in different directions. There is no one source of moral intuition but many, each with deep psychological roots.

So when is reporting justified, and when is it not? Moral psychology can only help us understand why people have different opinions and why many of us feel conflicted. Resolving these conflicts isn’t a job for psychology. It is a task for democratic societies and each individual conscience.

Nick Chater, Professor of Behavioural Science, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

source https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/vaccine-hesitancy-should-we-tell-stories-of-vaccine-sceptics-who-have-died-of-covid-19-9894191.html

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rauthschild · 4 years ago

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COVID Lunacy And Capitol Riot Lies Cause Saudi Arabia To Issue Declaration Of War On Biden

By: Sorcha Faal,

An insightful new Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today noting President Putin blasting the “monsters” that drive kids to commit suicide and goad teens into lawless rallies, says leading the list of these mass abusers of children is Supreme Socialist Leader Joe Biden, who ordered the US Embassy in Russia to post on the internet routes for kids to use so they could join the illegal Navalny protests—saw upwards of 1,400 Russian teenagers being ensnared by these Biden directed internet postings—and were children seduced by Biden and his socialist forces to support now imprisoned criminal Alexi Navalny, whom the human rights organization Amnesty International stripped from their “prisoner of conscience” designation because of his vile comparison of immigrants to cockroaches.

With the Foreign Ministry accurately stating that Western-backed opposition in Russia isn’t “liberal and democratic”, as its leaders are actually “agents of influence”, them being led by Biden is becoming more absurdly astonishing by the day—best exampled yesterday, when during a call with Dr. Swati Mohan, an Indian-American scientist who played a role in helping land a rover on Mars last week, Biden went full racist stating: “It’s amazing…Indian of decent Americans are taking over the country…You, my vice president, my speechwriter Vinay”—a racist statement quickly followed by the White House having socialist leader Kamala Harris take a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on behalf of Biden—then saw the White House rushing out to say they support the bipartisan effort underway in the US Senate to strip Biden of his war powers.

A move to strip Biden of his war powers before he can start World War III as warned about yesterday—that comes at the same time the “We Know Nothing” baffled Biden-backed World Health Organization admitted it’s no closer to finding the origins of the coronavirus—was joined by the shocking news that tyrannical socialist Democrat Party leader Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered a secret re-writing of a report to hide COVID nursing home deaths—then saw joining this COVID lunacy an explosion of articles appearing like “British Government Study Confirms Covid-19 Vaccine Risk: Infections INCREASE in Fortnight after Jab”, “Church Leaders Tell Catholics to Steer Clear from Johnson & Johnson Vaccine that was Produced Using Cell Lines from Aborted Baby Parts” and “GOING VIRAL IN AFRICA: Zambian Leader Dr. Mumba Refuses COVID Drugs After Discovering Bottles Marked ‘Not for Use in EU or USA’”—all of which was demonically responded to by American news and entertainment giant WarnerMedia, whose CEO Jason Kilar gleefully proclaimed yesterday: “Covid-19 has been really good for CNN’s ratings!”.

Was a gleeful celebration of how COVID propaganda and lies have enriched the leftist media coming on the same day of 4 March when supposed hordes of Trump supporters were said would descend on the US Capitol, but never happened—and though another riot lie made by the leftist media and socialist Democrats was exposed by nothing happening yesterday, it nevertheless was followed by articles appearing like “US Capitol Police Call For National Guard To Be Deployed For Another TWO MONTHS, Citing Threats” and “National Guard Surprised By Extension Request And Find No QAnon-Inspired Protesters”—saw this kind of “surprise” also overcoming Obama-appointed Chief US Federal Judge Beryl A. Howell, who in her courtroom yesterday was hearing the FBI case against Proud Boys member Ethan Nordean, whom the leftist media and socialist Democrats portrayed as one of the evil masterminds of the US Capitol riot—but after hearing the FBI evidence against him, saw Judge Howell ordering Nordean’s immediatel release, and her stating: “What the government said in its original papers was that he directed the Proud Boys with specific plans, telling them to split up into groups and attempt to break in to the Capitol building...That’s a far cry from what I heard at the hearing today…The dearth of evidence about his directions is significant”—though most important to notice is a “dearth of evidence” not applying to the Antifa and BLM terrorists who destroyed Portland-Oregon with riots and looting, thus making it inexplicable why Biden’s federal prosecutors are now quietly dismissing all of the felony charges against them.

Being overlooked to their peril by Biden and his socialist forces in the midst of this COVID lunacy and Capitol riot lies, however, is “The Oil War Of 2016”—a war initiated by Saudi Arabia that skyrocketed the price of fuel in America during a presidential election year, and caused Obama, in an awkward twist, to become Saudi Arabia's defender, but came too late, and saw President Donald Trump winning—and is a history worth remembering because Saudi Arabia’s decision to extend oil cuts indefinitely can be taken as a declaration of intent, indeed, a thinly veiled declaration of war on the Biden administration. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]

According to this report, with it being stunningly revealed this week that $2.4 billion of US taxpayer money was spent on buildings and vehicles in Afghanistan that were unused or abandoned, it was followed by deeply troubling articles appearing in America like “The Quality Of Life In The United States Is Going Down The Toilet”, that warns: “Even though we are taking so many “happy pills”, Americans continue to kill themselves at a staggering pace, and this is particularly true for our young people”, and “Land Of The Fee, Home Of The Grave? For All Its International Posturing And Boasting, The US Can’t Even Take Care Of Its Citizens”, wherein it sadly states: “Between the Covid-19 pandemic and the disastrous economic fallout engendered by government responses to that outbreak, the US has proven itself shockingly incapable of actually functioning in any way its peers might consider “normal”…Whether it’s keeping the lights on in American households, providing healthcare that cures rather than kills, educating children, or merely standing out of the way while residents try to build a life for themselves, Washington has demonstrated a profound, almost malignant ineptitude at the simplest tasks, so much that one might ask if it actually wants to perform them at all”.

Important to notice about these articles’ accurate description of America, this report details, is that this misery and government ineptitude is being specifically evidenced in the socialist Democrat Party controlled States its citizens are fleeing from by the millions, not the Republican Party led States these peoples are fleeing to—which makes it significant to notice the socialist Democrats in the US House having just passed their “Permanent Democrat Rule Act” by a vote of 220-210 in an “effort to create a US Politburo and One-Party Government”—that’s otherwise known by its official name of HR 1, and in the just published Wall Street Journal article “Democrats Sell Out Their States” sees it being described as “Pelosi’s power grab”, and fearfully says about: “It’s actually an unprecedented federal effort to dictate state voting rules…The bill would strip states of their authority to decide methods of balloting, election deadlines and most aspects of election security…It would mandate mail-in voting, impose registration rules, dictate ballot-return dates, and void identification standards…It even limits states’ ability to draw congressional districts”.

Coinciding with this unprecedented socialist Democrat Party power grab, this report notes, is the continuing radical leftist cultural war being waged against America—that now sees woke educators having released a letter declaring that objective math is a form of “white supremacy”—sees the leftist American media conglomerate Gannett, which formerly used the slogan “A World of Different Voices Where Freedom Speaks”, banning the popular comic strip “Mallard Fillmore” from its publications because it made a joke about Biden—and sees the global beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss being wiped from existence, to the extent that Ebay has now banned the sale of his children’s books, but you can still buy Nazi leader Adolph Hitler’s book there—the same Dr. Seuss whom Obama praised in 2015, with his telling children “Pretty much all you need to know is in his books”—a truthful statement by Obama about the “We Are All The Same” message of inclusivity found in all of Dr. Seuss’s books—but not being understood by Americans, is the exact reason leftists need to destroy Dr. Seuss, because they openly admit they don’t want everyone to be the same—and in viewing this socialist insanity, makes it no wonder why leftist comic television host Jimmy Kimmel warned his audience this week: “This is how Trump gets reelected, by the way...Cancel Dr. Seuss, cancel Abe Lincoln, melt down Mr. Potato Head’s private parts and throw them at the Muppets...That is his path to victory the next time around”.

With “Tremendous Landslide Wins For Republicans In 2022” being predicted in response to this socialist-leftist insanity, this report concludes, it’s no surprise that Biden and his socialist Democrats are desperately trying to make their “Permanent Democrat Rule Act” an actual law—and though no one expects the US Senate to even dare consider this despotic bill, the Attorney Generals in 20 States have nevertheless prepared themselves to destroy it for being the unconstitutional piece of socialist trash it truly is—and because articles are now appearing like “Top Pollster Says Pelosi, Dems’ Every Move Makes Trump Even MORE Popular”, these socialist forces have been thrown into such terror that leftist internet giant Google has just ordered its YouTube video service to delete all videos of President Trump’s speech at CPAC last week and suspend anyone who posts them—a move meant to help all of Trump’s enemies, but who seem to be destroying themselves all on their own—best exampled by it being revealed this week that the Chinese wife of Republican in name only US Senator Mitch McConnell is under federal investigation for misusing government resources for personal gain—which explains the bombshell article published a few hours ago entitled “MITCH MCCONNELL WORKING WITH KENTUCKY LEGISLATURE ON SENATE EXIT STRATEGY”.

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hollowaymason1995 · 4 years ago

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#Cat Peeing Same Spot Floor Easy And Cheap Ideas #Cat Pee Enzyme Cleaner

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phaelosopher · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://www.phaelosopher.com/2019/02/23/who-is-beating-the-we-must-vaccinate-drum/

Who is Beating the 'We MUST Vaccinate' Drum?

“If 100% of the population were vaccinated, there would be no disease.”

That appears to be the implied and I’ll say baseless motivation behind the legislative efforts to induce or coerce people to think that they should give up their option to refuse vaccine administration to their children.

Of course it’s not baseless. They are beating the ‘We Must Vaccinate’ drum like there’s no tomorrow.

Except that there is, and will always be one.

Such is the subtext that is unfolding in the state of Washington after a late-January measles outbreak in Portland led to several cases in Vancouver (Clark County), across the Columbia River to the north, to which Gov. Jay Inslee declared a public health emergency for reasons of “vaccine hesitancy”.

Del Bigtree, producer of the film “Vaxxed” covers talking points with local TV reporter.

Interesting term, “vaccine hesitancy”. I’d use the words legitimate reason, common sense, overwhelming evidence that something is not as it should be.

Not only are legislators maintaining a blind eye to the ample evidence, and dismissing a parent’s natural instinct to protect their children, they (or those who are urging them on) are systematically attempting to establish their authority to dictate to the public what is or is not permissible to disagree on.

As of February 21, almost one month after the outbreak, 63 people in Clark and King County had contracted measles (44 under 10 years of age with one 50 years of age). This group represents less than 0.03% of a population of roughly 231,200 people, the response for which is estimated to be over $1 million.

My question is why?

Since the large majority ~not all ~ of the cases were “unvaccinated” children, state law conjurers have elected to make this the reason to attempt to take away parents’ options to use “philosophical grounds” as a reason to refuse to allow vaccinations on their children.

Standing behind “science” is a weak attempt to marginalize this fundamental truth.

While a parent’s power of non-consent is inalienable and inviolate, there remains a very clear effort to have the public believe that the state has some power or right to force them to do something that is against, not only their conscience and will, but their own personal knowledge, whether “science” acknowledges or admits it, or not.

Unvaccinated children that get measles don’t get it a second time. Having had measles in my youth, I can say that it was no big deal. It came, then it left. Yet, it appears that getting an MMR vaccination was not enough to ensure that a child won’t still get measles, and getting it one time is no guarantee that they won’t get it again.

However, chances are increased that vaccinated child will have to deal with one or more of a much wider list of chronic and degenerative conditions that are all on the rise.

The 25 healthiest countries (shaded in gold), according to Bloomberg Health Index.

‘Leading’ to Health Ignominy

America has become a “leader” of far too many dubious distinctions. To be “the land of the free,” more Americans are in prison, by a wide margin, than any country on Earth.

However, there are prisons, and there are prisons. The social, psychological,and metabolic fallout from the unmitigated push to force unnatural chemical agents into human biological systems, hints at an agenda that appears to be about more than money. The absence of objectivity from the medical/professional sector, the blindly obsessive push to raise vaccine rates up (already over 90%), reveals a complete disregard for the trail of trampled and obliterated hopes and dreams, and the utter bewilderment when what would be a common sense response by any rational human being ~ i.e., dial vaccine schedules back, or even stop them altogether to see if the sudden injuries stop ~ are ignored.

The general health trend in the United States is down. An undeclared state of emergency sparks a new wave of dubious American leadership with the continuing advance in frequency of conditions known variously as ADHD, Asperger syndrome, autism or ASD (which in 2014 had reached a frequency of 1 in 59 children), asthma (affecing 25 million people including 7 million children), diabetes (100 million people affected according to CDC), and many more. including childhood cancers.

And “science” sees no connection between its standard policies and practices, and shattered lives.

In fact, Commissioner Scott Gottlieb of the FDA (an un-elected official who is not fettered with concern over being re-elected) told CNN that some states with “lax” vaccine requirement laws may eventually “force the hand of the federal health agencies.” (See U.S. News article.)

SOURCE: US NEWS.

Sounds like a less than veiled threat, which may also be why the big hullabaloo about “the outbreak”. See if the elected officials can snark their illogical and baseless proposition pass the people, and whether the people will be distracted or incoherent enough to let it happen.

It’s not really about the “philosophical” reasoning. It is whether you continue to allow these people to convince you to give them your authority.

No Matter How Many Times ‘Scientists’ Say Otherwise, Baseless is Baseless

By sticking to a narrow and implausible assertion that there is no scientific link to the MMR vaccine and autism, proponents of vaccinations dodge calling attention to the far greater evidence that the institutionalized use of various delivery modalities of unnatural chemicals is, in fact, connected to all of the maladies that could go under the umbrella of “vaccine damage”.

Whether causal or not, vaccines significantly contribute to the pathogenesis of a myriad of ailments that eventually become chronic and degenerative. Virtually all of which are met by an apparently puzzled research body that professes to feverishly look for “cures”.

This is the psychological morass that is life n America today. Freedoms are being assaulted right at home, by people who would convince us that we need a wall, but deny the damage to health that they are supporting by not halting , or even questioning, their “marching orders.”

I wonder who is beating their drum?

youtube

OnDoc Bears Mentioning Here

With that apparent indictment of the medical system, a word about OnDoc would seem a contradiction. In fact, because the medical system is how it is, it behooves each to give one’s self a way to interact with its representatives on more equal terms.

OnDoc (On-Doc.com), a startup that launches April 2019, is a new player in the fast-growing telehealth sector. It is not an “insurance” product, but the thousands of doctors that are available through the service are fully able to listen to and evaluate your non-emergency situation and, where necessary, write prescriptions, in far less time than it takes to go through conventional channels, and at less cost.

The company provides 24/7 virtual and timely access to licensed, board certified medical doctors by way of your smartphone, tablet, or video chat. It allows you to handle 75% of the reasons that people visit urgent care, emergency room, and doctor’s office visits, all for a monthly subscription membership of $30, which covers an individual or household.

At the time of this writing OnDoc is in 46 states. Washington is not yet among them. However, the remainder are expected to be on line by the company’s official launch in April.

While the launch is in April, coverage for over 300 million people is available today. The company offers a unique compensation system that allows members to not only get there subscription for free, but to actually make a very nice passive income by sharing this timely and valuable service with others.

For more information, follow this referral link, where you can also use to join.

Please follow and like us:

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picardonhealth · 3 years ago

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Separating news from noise on vaccines. Despite the hullabaloo over coronavirus vaccinations, one thing is clear: They're safe, and you should get one

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

ANDRÉ PICARD, The Globe and Mail

Efficacy, blood clots, fetal cells, age restrictions, one shot or two, allergies and more.

The barrage of headlines about coronavirus vaccines can be overwhelming. It's almost enough to make you think that getting a vaccine is more risky than not getting one.

So let's start with the big picture.

Just one year after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, almost a dozen vaccines have been tested and approved around the world - an unparalleled feat of science. To date, 360 million people worldwide have been vaccinated, and that's increasing by about 10 million daily. Despite a slow start, more than three million Canadians have now been vaccinated.

One of the big questions people are now considering is whether one vaccine is better than the others.

Canada has, to date, approved four vaccines. In clinical trials, the Pfizer vaccine had 95-per-cent efficacy against infection; Moderna 95 per cent; Johnson & Johnson 67 per cent; and AstraZeneca 62 per cent.

That doesn't necessarily mean the Pfizer vaccine is way better than AstraZeneca. They measured efficacy slightly differently, and the trials happened at different times. Notably, the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines were tested when variants had already begun to circulate.

All the vaccines seem to be a little less effective in protecting against variants, and that makes it all the more urgent that we vaccinate people as quickly as possible.

None of the vaccines is perfect.

But all of them are close to 100per-cent effective at preventing hospitalization and death. If there's one statistic to remember as you head to the pharmacy for a shot, it's that one.

If you read the news, you will know there are also a couple of other knocks against the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Some countries, including Canada, recommend that the AstraZeneca vaccine not be administered to people older than 65.

This recommendation, from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, was "due to limited information," meaning not many seniors were included in the clinical trials. In the real world, however, the AstraZeneca vaccine seems to be working well in all age groups.

As a result, many countries have overturned their earlier agebased restriction, and NACI will likely do the same in the coming days. Quebec is already using AstraZeneca vaccine for seniors.

It's a reminder that experts can disagree, and that's okay. Responding to a global pandemic is very much like building a plane in mid-flight: When you're learning on the fly, some of the signals can be confusing.

Take the issue of blood clots as an example. In recent days, several countries have temporarily suspended the use of the beleaguered AstraZeneca vaccine owing to reports of blood clots occurring after vaccination. Germany, France and Italy joined them on Monday.

This is likely a classic case of correlation not implying causation. More than 17 million people have received the AstraZeneca vaccine, and there have been 37 reports of blood clots, which is less than the background rate (the normal rate that blood clots happen, without the vaccine). So it's likely a coincidence.

What we do know is that COVID-19 affects the circulatory system and blood clots occur far more often in the infected, which is another reason to get a vaccine.

The same correlation-versuscausation caution applies to stories about allergic reactions, seizures and deaths after vaccination. People have all manner of health problems; those don't go away during a pandemic, nor are they necessarily exacerbated by vaccination.

Virtually everyone with allergies can safely get the vaccines.

The only specific warnings are for those with a severe allergy to polyethylene glycol (PEG) to avoid the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and those allergic to polysorbate to avoid J&J's product.

Another issue that has made headlines is the claim that coronavirus vaccines contain fetal tissue. That is incorrect. What is true is that cell lines derived from (voluntarily) aborted fetuses are used in the manufacturing of many vaccines and prescription drugs. The AstraZeneca vaccine uses the HEK-293 kidney cell line, which was derived from a fetus in 1972, and J&J uses the PER.C6 cell line (from 1985). While a few antichoice zealots object, even the Vatican has said that Catholics can use medications derived from fetal cell lines in good conscience.

Still, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says people should be able to refuse these vaccines for moral reasons. Other than being an oddly selective embrace of pro-choice views, it raises the question: Should Canadians be able to choose which coronavirus vaccine they get?

Theoretically, sure. But in practice, that would unduly complicate the rollout, for no good reason.

While there is a lot of noise out there, there is also a clear signal: Coronavirus vaccines are remarkably safe and effective. And the best vaccine is the one you can get into your arm.

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teeky185 · 4 years ago

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We have all seen the alarming headlines: Coronavirus cases are surging in 40 states, with new cases and hospitalization rates climbing at an alarming rate. Health officials have warned that the U.S. must act quickly to halt the spread – or we risk losing control over the pandemic. There’s a clear consensus that Americans should wear masks in public and continue to practice proper social distancing. While a majority of Americans support wearing masks, widespread and consistent compliance has proven difficult to maintain in communities across the country. Demonstrators gathered outside city halls in Scottsdale, Arizona; Austin, Texas; and other cities to protest local mask mandates. Several South Carolina sheriffs have announced they will not enforce their state’s mask order.I’ve researched the history of the 1918 pandemic extensively. At that time, with no effective vaccine or drug therapies, communities across the country instituted a host of public health measures to slow the spread of a deadly influenza epidemic: They closed schools and businesses, banned public gatherings and isolated and quarantined those who were infected. Many communities recommended or required that citizens wear face masks in public – and this, not the onerous lockdowns, drew the most ire.In mid-October of 1918, amidst a raging epidemic in the Northeast and rapidly growing outbreaks nationwide, the United States Public Health Service circulated leaflets recommending that all citizens wear a mask. The Red Cross took out newspaper ads encouraging their use and offered instructions on how to construct masks at home using gauze and cotton string. Some state health departments launched their own initiatives, most notably California, Utah and Washington.[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]Nationwide, posters presented mask-wearing as a civic duty – social responsibility had been embedded into the social fabric by a massive wartime federal propaganda campaign launched in early 1917 when the U.S. entered the Great War. San Francisco Mayor James Rolph announced that “conscience, patriotism and self-protection demand immediate and rigid compliance” with mask wearing. In nearby Oakland, Mayor John Davie stated that “it is sensible and patriotic, no matter what our personal beliefs may be, to safeguard our fellow citizens by joining in this practice” of wearing a mask.Health officials understood that radically changing public behavior was a difficult undertaking, especially since many found masks uncomfortable to wear. Appeals to patriotism could go only so far. As one Sacramento official noted, people “must be forced to do the things that are for their best interests.” The Red Cross bluntly stated that “the man or woman or child who will not wear a mask now is a dangerous slacker.” Numerous communities, particularly across the West, imposed mandatory ordinances. Some sentenced scofflaws to short jail terms, and fines ranged from US$5 to $200. Passing these ordinances was frequently a contentious affair. For example, it took several attempts for Sacramento’s health officer to convince city officials to enact the order. In Los Angeles, it was scuttled. A draft resolution in Portland, Oregon led to heated city council debate, with one official declaring the measure “autocratic and unconstitutional,” adding that “under no circumstances will I be muzzled like a hydrophobic dog.” It was voted down. Utah’s board of health considered issuing a mandatory statewide mask order but decided against it, arguing that citizens would take false security in the effectiveness of masks and relax their vigilance. As the epidemic resurged, Oakland tabled its debate over a second mask order after the mayor angrily recounted his arrest in Sacramento for not wearing a mask. A prominent physician in attendance commented that “if a cave man should appear…he would think the masked citizens all lunatics.”In places where mask orders were successfully implemented, noncompliance and outright defiance quickly became a problem. Many businesses, unwilling to turn away shoppers, wouldn’t bar unmasked customers from their stores. Workers complained that masks were too uncomfortable to wear all day. One Denver salesperson refused because she said her “nose went to sleep” every time she put one on. Another said she believed that “an authority higher than the Denver Department of Health was looking after her well-being.” As one local newspaper put it, the order to wear masks “was almost totally ignored by the people; in fact, the order was cause of mirth.” The rule was amended to apply only to streetcar conductors – who then threatened to strike. A walkout was averted when the city watered down the order yet again. Denver endured the remainder of the epidemic without any measures protecting public health.In Seattle, streetcar conductors refused to turn away unmasked passengers. Noncompliance was so widespread in Oakland that officials deputized 300 War Service civilian volunteers to secure the names and addresses of violators so they could be charged. When a mask order went into effect in Sacramento, the police chief instructed officers to “Go out on the streets, and whenever you see a man without a mask, bring him in or send for the wagon.” Within 20 minutes, police stations were flooded with offenders. In San Francisco, there were so many arrests that the police chief warned city officials he was running out of jail cells. Judges and officers were forced to work late nights and weekends to clear the backlog of cases.Many who were caught without masks thought they might get away with running an errand or commuting to work without being nabbed. In San Francisco, however, initial noncompliance turned to large-scale defiance when the city enacted a second mask ordinance in January 1919 as the epidemic spiked anew. Many decried what they viewed as an unconstitutional infringement of their civil liberties. On January 25, 1919, approximately 2,000 members of the “Anti-Mask League” packed the city’s old Dreamland Rink for a rally denouncing the mask ordinance and proposing ways to defeat it. Attendees included several prominent physicians and a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.It is difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of the masks used in 1918. Today, we have a growing body of evidence that well-constructed cloth face coverings are an effective tool in slowing the spread of COVID-19. It remains to be seen, however, whether Americans will maintain the widespread use of face masks as our current pandemic continues to unfold. Deeply entrenched ideals of individual freedom, the lack of cohesive messaging and leadership on mask wearing, and pervasive misinformation have proven to be major hindrances thus far, precisely when the crisis demands consensus and widespread compliance. This was certainly the case in many communities during the fall of 1918. That pandemic ultimately killed about 675,000 people in the U.S. Hopefully, history is not in the process of repeating itself today.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Airlines got travelers comfortable about flying again once before – but 9/11 and a virus are a lot different * What US medical supply chain can learn from the fashion industryThe University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine received funding from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a portion of its research on the 1918 influenza pandemic. J. Alexander Navarro was a member of that team of researchers.

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battybat-boss · 6 years ago

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Who Will Take a Stand Against Forced Vaccination and Fight for Medical Freedom in the U.S.?

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Zero Tolerance Vaccine Laws in America: Will You Defend Vaccine Freedom?

by Barbara Loe Fisher National Vaccine Information Center

Every July Americans celebrate the day in 1776 when we declared our independence from a monarchy and began to create a Constitutional Democratic Republic to secure liberty and justice for all. 1

Today, we are witnessing the erosion of core values that our constitutional democracy was founded upon.

One example is a public campaign led by the medical establishment to demonize and discriminate against anyone opposing zero tolerance vaccine laws that violate human rights in the name of public health. 2

The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was historic acknowledgement by the US government that government licensed and mandated childhood vaccines can and do cause injury and death. 3

Four billion dollars in federal compensation has been paid to thousands of vaccine victims over the past three decades. 4

The 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Jacobson v Massachusetts affirmed the authority of states to require healthy citizens to undergo smallpox vaccination during outbreaks of that deadly, high communicable disease.

However, the Court also warned that vaccine mandates should not be implemented in a way that is “cruel and inhuman to the last degree.” 56

Public Confidence in Vaccine Safety Declines, Public Debate Is Censored

Today, all children in America are being required to get dozens of doses of vaccines, 7 whether or not the disease is deadly or high communicable, whether or not there is a disease outbreak, and whether or not a child is biologically at higher risk for being harmed by vaccination. 8 9

This is an inconvenient truth that nobody developing, licensing, recommending, administering or voting to mandate a growing list of vaccines wants to talk about. So, as more Americans have become aware of vaccine risks and failures, the government, industry and medical trade have enlisted the cooperation of mainstream media to censor the public conversation. 10 11 12

It hasn't worked. Recent surveys reveal that 20 percent of Americans think vaccines may be unsafe and 45 percent are not sure. There has been almost a 10 percent decline in public confidence in vaccine safety over the past decade. 13

Medical Doctors Attack Anyone Questioning Vaccine Safety and Laws

Now the conversation about vaccination has taken an ugly turn. 14

Prominent medical doctors and professors at leading universities are publishing articles in academic journals and are being quoted in media reports attacking the intelligence, emotional and psychological stability, and moral values of anyone who dares to question vaccine safety or vaccine laws. 15 16 17 18 19

Men and women who become doctors are no more equal than anyone else in society and, yet, they are being given a free pass to track, profile, marginalize, coerce and call for segregation and criminal prosecution of fellow, citizens who disagree with them about vaccination. 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Constitutional Democracy Values Individual Life and LIberty

A constitutional democracy recognizes that the ultimate source of government authority is consent of the governed and that, although the majority rules, the natural rights of minorities are protected. 28

A constitutional democracy highly values the dignity and life of each individual. This core moral value is affirmed by laws that protect privacy, and freedom of thought, conscience and expression, and allow unsanctioned association between individuals without government coercion, which is the legal foundation for a civil and open society built on respect, tolerance and inclusion.

A constitutional democracy promotes fair and equal justice for all. So the authors of the Declaration of Independence rejected rule by an elitist ruling class of citizens who are considered to be more important and qualified to govern without the consent of those being governed. 29

The Bill of Rights in the US Constitution makes it clear that respect for the natural rights of individuals limits the power of the state. As Thomas Jefferson put it: “the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” 30

Why, then, are we allowing an elite aristocracy of doctors and professors to bully people who disagree with them about laws that disempower parents and place an unequal vaccine risk burden on vulnerable children in the name of the public health? 31

Two Laws in America Require Citizens to Risk Their Lives

There are only two laws that require American citizens to risk their lives. The first is a federal law, the military draft, which requires all healthy male adults to risk their lives in a war declared by the government to protect national security.

Adults objecting to a war for religious beliefs or conscience can obtain a conscientious objection exemption without being punished.32

The second is a state law requiring all healthy children to risk their lives in a war that doctors declared on microbes two centuries ago.

However, unlike adults who are not punished for following their conscience and refusing to fight in a war to protect national security, parents can be punished for following their conscience and refusing to risk their children's lives in a war to theoretically protect the public health. 3334

State sanctions include segregation and loss of the unvaccinated child's right to a school education or permitting pediatricians to deny medical care to children if their parents refuse one or more government recommended vaccinations. 35

Two different laws that require healthy Americans to risk injury or death: one conscripting adults in what government clearly defines as an emergency military action; and the other conscripting children in a mandatory vaccination program that is not defined as an emergency military action but is operated like one.

Vaccine Risks Not Being Shared Equally By All

How many Americans understand that when legislators vote for no exceptions vaccine laws like the one adopted in California in 2015, 36 they vote to enlist children as soldiers in a war in which vaccine risks are not being shared equally by all?

No two children are alike. Some children are genetically, biologically or environmentally more susceptible to being injured or killed by vaccines without warning. 37 38

To sweep this inconvenient truth under the rug so doctors don't have to think about their moral duty to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics have narrowed medical contraindications to vaccination so that now almost no health condition qualifies as a reason to grant a child a medical exemption. 39 40

Since Congress gave doctors a broad liability shield in 1987 similar to the one they gave to vaccine manufacturers in 1986 to protect them from most vaccine injury lawsuits, 41 doctors no longer have to worry about getting sued for being militant enforcers of vaccine policies and laws that punish children for the genes they were born with and leave too many of them disabled and chronically ill for the rest of their lives.

War On Microbes Conducted Like A Military Campaign

The medical establishment's war on microbes, which has no end in sight, has always been conducted like a military campaign. The Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) traces its history back to the US Marine Hospital Service, whose doctors had the power to segregate by quarantine and prevent immigrants sick with infectious diseases from disembarking from ships entering U.S. ports. 42

Today, doctors employed by the U.S. Public Health Service wear military style uniforms, are expected to follow orders, and are promoted through a rank system similar to that of the U.S. Navy. 43

Supervised by a Surgeon General, who is technically a three star Admiral reporting to a four star Assistant Secretary of Health, the US Public Health Service is described as “an elite team of more than 6,700 full time, well trained, highly qualified public health professionals.” These health soldiers, along with other federal and state government health officials, work to maintain the public health.

Zero Tolerance Vaccine Laws Lead to Tyranny

But there should be limits placed on the authority that public health officials and their physician colleagues exercise in a constitutional democracy. They should not be given unchecked power to order parents to play vaccine roulette with their children's lives and punish them for refusing to obey the order. 44

My father was a decorated World War II veteran, a career Army officer and military historian. History teaches us, he said, that military campaigns should only be used in true emergencies to protect national security because militarization of civilian institutions inevitably leads to an authoritarian government and tyranny.

So when I see doctors aggressively lobby for enforcement of zero tolerance, no mercy vaccine laws that fail to respect biodiversity and force parents to risk their children's lives in a war they cannot refuse to fight without being punished, I remember what he said.

I think about how there is no human right more fundamental than the freedom to think rationally and follow our conscience when making a decision about whether or not to risk our life or the life of our child for any reason.

Forced Vaccination Lobby Doubling Down in 2019

The forced vaccination lobby backed by industry and medical trade is already making plans to double down and target multiple states in 2019 for removal of religious and conscientious belief exemptions, while also placing further restrictions on medical exemptions to vaccination. 45

Will you stand up and defend vaccine freedom in America?

I hope you will. I hope you will join with the tens of thousands of Americans who are registered users of the NVIC Advocacy Portal, which is an online communications network at NVICAdvocacy.org.

We monitor, analyze and report on vaccine legislation pending in every state and make it easy for you to stay electronically connected with your own legislators so you can make your voice heard.

Become a vaccine freedom advocate in your state and stand shoulder to shoulder with other Americans who care about protecting the core moral values and civil liberties defined in the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.

It's your health. Your family. Your choice.

Read the full article at the National Vaccine Information Center.

Comment on this article at VaccineImpact.com.

References

1 National Archives. America's Founding Documents: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights.

2 Fisher BL. The Vaccine Culture War in America: Are You Ready? National Vaccine Information Center Mar. 8, 2015.

3 Public Law 99-660. Title III – National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. 42 USC 300aa. Nov. 14, 1986.

4 Health Resource Services Administration (HRSA). Vaccine Injury Compensation Data. June 4, 2018.

5 Jacobson v. Massachusetts. 197 U.S. 11(1905). Cornell University Law School.

6 Fisher BL. Forced Vaccination: The Tragic Legacy of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. National Vaccine Information Center Nov. 2, 2016.

7 NVIC. State Law and Vaccine Requirements. National Vaccine Information Center. 2018.

8 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Recommended Immunization Schedules for Persons Aged 0 Through 18 Years, United States, 2018.

9 Fisher BL. Blackmail and the Medical Vaccine Exemption. National Vaccine Information Center May 18, 2015.

10 Carroll AE. Not Up for Debate: The Science Behind Vaccination. New York Times Sept. 17, 2015.

11 Hodge JG, Campos-Outcalt D. Legally Limiting Lies About Vaccines. Jurist (University of Pittsburgh) Nov. 17, 2015.

12 Caplan A. Revoke the license of any doctor who opposes vaccination. Washington Post Feb. 6, 2015.

13 TVR Staff. Nearly 20 Percent of Americans Think Vaccines May Be Unsafe, 45 Percent Are Not Sure. The Vaccine Reaction June 18, 2018.

14 Fisher BL. Class and Race Profiling in the Vaccine Culture War. National Vaccine Information Center July 17, 2017.

15 Poland GA, Jacobson RM. The age-old struggle against the antivaccinationists. N Engl J Med 2011; 364(2): 97-99.

16 American Psychological Association. Belief in Conspiracy Theories Associated with Vaccine Skepticism.APA Press Release Feb. 1, 2018.

17 Hornsey MJ, Harris EA, Fielding KS. The Psychological Roots of Anti-Vaccine Attitudes: A 24-Nation Investigation. Health Psychology 2018; 37(4): 307-315.

18 Hendrix KS, Sturm LA et al. Ethics and Childhood Vaccination Policy in the United States. Am J Public Health 2016; 106(2): 273-278.

19 Fentiman LC. When it comes to vaccines, rich parents get away with child neglect. Washington Post May 10, 2017.

20 Fisher BL. Parents Deserve To Know More Than School Vaccination Rates. National Vaccine Information Center Sept. 8, 2015.

21 Smith PJ, Chu SY, Barker LE. Children Who Have Received No Vaccines: Who Are They and Where Do They Live? Pediatrics 2004; 114(1): 187-195.

22 Fagone J. Will this Doctor Hurt Your Baby? Philadelphia Magazine June 2009.

23 Bakalar N. Rich, White and Refusing Vaccinations. New York Times Dec. 24, 2015.

24 Danziger PD, Diamond R. The Vaccination Double Standard. Slate July 25, 2016.

25 Lipinski J. Endangering the Herd: The Case for Suing Parents Who Don't Vaccinate Their Kids or Criminally Charging Them. Slate Aug. 13, 2013.

26 Berezow A. Jail 'anti-vax” parents. USA Today Jan. 28, 2015.

27 Karlamangla S. California doctor critical of vaccines is punished for exempting 2-year-old boy from all childhood immunizations. Los Angeles Times June 29, 2018.

28 Center for Civic Education. Constitutional Democracy.

29 National Archives. America's Founding Documents: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights.

30 Jefferson T. Excerpt from First Presidential Inaugural Address (Mar. 4, 1801). Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello).

31 Fisher BL. Baylor's Doc Hotez Bullies Parents of Vaccine Injured Children. National Vaccine Information Center May 10, 2018

32 The National Peace Museum of Conscientious Objection and Anti-War Activism. The History of Conscientious Objection. 2006.

33 Fisher BL. The Moral Right to Conscientious, Philosophical and Personal Belief Exemption to Vaccination. National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Oral Presentation May 2, 1997.

34 National Vaccine Information Center. Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall.

35 NVIC. State Vaccine Legislation in America 2015-2017. National Vaccine Information Center Oct. 25, 2017.

36 Richardson D. The Fallout from SB277: What Happens Next? National Vaccine Information Center Aug. 5, 2015.

37 Institute of Medicine Committee to Review Adverse Effects of Vaccines. Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality. Evaluation of Biologic Mechanisms of Adverse Effects: Increased Susceptibility (p. 82). Washington, D.C. The National Academies Press 2012.

38 Health Resource Services Administration (HRSA). Vaccine Injury Compensation Data. June 4, 2018.

39 CDC. Vaccine Recommendations of the ACIP: Contraindications and Precautions. May 9, 2018.

40 American Academy of Pediatrics. Medical Versus Nonmedical Exemptions for Child Care and School Attendance. Pediatrics August 2016.

41 National Vaccine Information Center. NVIC Position Statement on the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. May 2018.

42 DHHS. History of the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service.

43 Collins C. The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps: Two Centuries and Counting. Defense Media Network Oct. 10, 2016.

44 Fisher BL. From Nuremberg to California: Why Informed Consent Matters in the 21st Century. National Vaccine Information Center Oct. 24, 2017.

45 Scutti S. Opting out of vaccines leaves these US 'hot spots' most vulnerable to outbreaks. CNN June 15, 2018.

Leaving a lucrative career as a nephrologist (kidney doctor), Dr. Suzanne Humphries is now free to actually help cure people. In this autobiography she explains why good doctors are constrained within the current corrupt medical system from practicing real, ethical medicine. FREE Shipping Available! Order here.

Medical Doctors Opposed to Forced Vaccinations – Should Their Views be Silenced?

eBook – Available for immediate download.

One of the biggest myths being propagated in the compliant mainstream media today is that doctors are either pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, and that the anti-vaccine doctors are all “quacks.”

However, nothing could be further from the truth in the vaccine debate. Doctors are not unified at all on their positions regarding “the science” of vaccines, nor are they unified in the position of removing informed consent to a medical procedure like vaccines.

The two most extreme positions are those doctors who are 100% against vaccines and do not administer them at all, and those doctors that believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective for ALL people, ALL the time, by force if necessary.

Very few doctors fall into either of these two extremist positions, and yet it is the extreme pro-vaccine position that is presented by the U.S. Government and mainstream media as being the dominant position of the medical field.

In between these two extreme views, however, is where the vast majority of doctors practicing today would probably categorize their position. Many doctors who consider themselves “pro-vaccine,” for example, do not believe that every single vaccine is appropriate for every single individual.

Many doctors recommend a “delayed” vaccine schedule for some patients, and not always the recommended one-size-fits-all CDC childhood schedule. Other doctors choose to recommend vaccines based on the actual science and merit of each vaccine, recommending some, while determining that others are not worth the risk for children, such as the suspect seasonal flu shot.

These doctors who do not hold extreme positions would be opposed to government-mandated vaccinations and the removal of all parental exemptions.

In this eBook, I am going to summarize the many doctors today who do not take the most extremist pro-vaccine position, which is probably not held by very many doctors at all, in spite of what the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government, and the mainstream media would like the public to believe.

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Medical Doctors Opposed to Forced Vaccinations – Should Their Views be Silenced?

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Dr. Andrew Moulden: Every Vaccine Produces Harm

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Canadian physician Dr. Andrew Moulden provided clear scientific evidence to prove that every dose of vaccine given to a child or an adult produces harm. The truth that he uncovered was rejected by the conventional medical system and the pharmaceutical industry. Nevertheless, his warning and his message to America remains as a solid legacy of the man who stood up against big pharma and their program to vaccinate every person on the Earth.

Dr. Moulden died unexpectedly in November of 2013 at age 49.

Because of the strong opposition from big pharma concerning Dr. Moulden's research, we became concerned that the name of this brilliant researcher and his life's work had nearly been deleted from the internet. His reputation was being disparaged, and his message of warning and hope was being distorted and buried without a tombstone. This book summarizes his teaching and is a must-read for everyone who wants to learn the “other-side” of the vaccine debate that the mainstream media routinely censors.

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sherristockman · 7 years ago

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Class and Race Profiling in the Vaccine Culture War none By Barbara Loe Fisher The Vaccine Culture War is heating up.1 Ground zero is America, Europe and other economically developed countries, where the pharmaceutical industrial complex is raising an iron fist to protect multibillion-dollar profits by disempowering the people.2,3,4,5,6,7,8 In America, professors and doctors in academia and government are profiling parents by class and race to shame and discredit those challenging vaccine orthodoxy. Elite members of the highest paid professions in our society are using academic journals and mainstream media to openly preach fear, hate, prejudice and discrimination against people who disagree with them about vaccination. Law Professor: Mothers of Unvaccinated Children Are Criminals “When it comes to vaccines, rich parents get away with child neglect,” the headline in The Washington Post proclaimed on May 10, 2017. The OpEd was written by Linda C. Fentiman, a Pace University law professor promoting criminal prosecution of mothers whose children are not vaccinated.9 She alleged that state legislatures are accommodating “wealthy” mothers by allowing exemptions in vaccine laws, while poor pregnant women have “faced charges of criminal child abuse” and imprisonment for “failing to deliver adequate nutrition or delivering drugs via their breast milk.” She suggested that ALL mothers who don’t vaccinate their children are criminals and should be punished — “regardless of socioeconomic status” — because vaccination is a “collective obligation” and “the science on the efficacy and safety of vaccines is clear.” Boston Herald: Hang People Talking Bad About Vaccines That “punish the mothers” OpEd was preceded by a May 8 Boston Herald editorial revealing just how far the persecution of people advocating for vaccine safety and informed consent has gone. The Boston Herald editorial staff called for the execution of individuals who exercise free speech about vaccine risks and failures. As in, it should be “a hanging offense” to inform parents (especially, to inform parents in “immigrant communities”) that vaccines carry an unpredictable risk of injury or death and often fail to work as advertised.10 Nobody should be surprised. Prejudice and discrimination against groups of people, whether because of the color of their skin, their gender, how they dress, what they eat, where they live, their religious beliefs, their cultural values and political opinions — or simply because they choose to stay healthy in a different way — is always a slippery slope once it is allowed to gain a foothold in society. MD, Professor, Vaccine Developer Calls for ‘Funeral’ of Vaccine Safety and Choice Advocacy In 2011, Dr. Gregory Poland, a University of Minnesota professor of medicine and vaccine developer at Mayo Clinic,11,12 profiled parents concerned about vaccine risks in the New England Journal of Medicine. He said, “Antivaccinationists tend toward complete distrust of government and manufacturers, conspiratorial thinking, denialism, low cognitive complexity in thinking patterns, reasoning flaws and a habit of substituting anecdotes for data.” Then he used a death image to invoke a thinly veiled threat. He asked, “What can we do to hasten the funeral of antivaccination campaigns?”13 CDC on Mothers: Who Are They and Where Do They Live? Trash talk has become the weapon of choice for a select group of professors and doctors using academic journals and mainstream media to humiliate and bully people who disagree with them about the science, policy, law and ethics of vaccination. In the 21st century, it has been going on in earnest since about 2004 when Centers for Disease Control (CDC) officials kicked off the Vaccine Culture War by asking this question in the Journal of Pediatrics: “Children Who Have Received No Vaccines: Who Are They and Where Do They Live?”14 The CDC study authors played with the words “undervaccinated” and “unvaccinated” so mothers could be profiled by class and race. They said: “Undervaccinated children tend to be black, to have a younger mother who was not married and did not have a college degree, to live in a household near the poverty level, and to live in a central city. Unvaccinated children tended to be white, to have a mother who was married and had a college degree, to live in a household with an annual income exceeding $75,000 and to have parents who expressed concerns regarding the safety of vaccines and indicated that medical doctors have little influence over vaccination decisions for their children.” There it was, the uncomfortable truth that it is college educated, financially stable middle class mothers independently evaluating the benefits and risks of vaccination rather than blindly trusting and relying on someone else to do their thinking for them. Although the CDC’s 2004 profiling study drew lines between mothers based on race and socio-economic class, there was no discussion of the distinct possibility that those lines would disappear if ALL mothers were financially stable, able to access full information about vaccination, and were truly free to make voluntary vaccine decisions without being punished for the decision they make. Your skin doesn’t have to be a certain color and you don’t have to belong to a certain socioeconomic class — or have a college degree — to figure out that you are not being told the whole truth about risks that doctors insist your child must take. All you have to do is vaccinate your healthy child and witness that child have symptoms of severe vaccine reactions and either die or become a totally different child physically, mentally and emotionally. Delegitimizing Vaccine Exemptions and Those Who Take or Give Them For more than a decade, professors at Johns Hopkins and Emory universities have published articles profiling parents making independent vaccine choices for their children for the purpose of creating a public narrative that delegitimizes vaccine exemptions and the human right to exercise freedom of thought, conscience, religious belief and informed consent to vaccine risk taking.15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24 In 2012 these esteemed professors also put the squeeze on pediatricians to discourage them from exercising professional judgment and conscience when giving children medical vaccine exemptions,25,26 directing them to strictly conform to narrow vaccine contraindications approved by the CDC, which exclude 99.99 percent of children from qualifying for a medical exemption.27,28,29 Since doctors cannot predict who will be harmed by vaccination,30,31 this kind of cruel utilitarian public health policy selects an unknown number of children, who are biologically vulnerable to being harmed by vaccines, for sacrifice. When doctors with big titles in government and academia put a target on the backs of parents and doctors opposing inhumane one-size-fits-all public health policies and laws, it gives a green light for legislators to do the same thing. In 2012, California pediatrician politician Richard Pan lobbied to eliminate the personal belief vaccine exemption for children to attend school. He told The Associated Press that, "In private schools, these are people who have money, who are upper middle-class, and they are going on the internet and seeing information and misinformation.”32,33 Educated Critical Thinkers Eating Organic, Leaning Holistic In 2013, the flames of prejudice were fanned by an online publication profiling parents in a San Francisco community and labeling them “vaccine deniers.”34 The parents were described as “wealthy, educated, liberal leaning” and often working in “technology, law and other white collar professions that demand critical thinking skills,” who put their children at risk by feeding them non-GMO organic food, taking them to holistic doctors, and paying $20,000 a year to send them to private schools where self-reliance, independence and critical thinking are taught. So, by 2015, the narrative about parents being stupid and crazy for questioning the safety of vaccines had morphed into one profiling parents by class and race. The New York Times had no problem running the headline, “Rich, White and Refusing Vaccinations.”35 2015 Measles in Disneyland Unleashes Media Hate Fest Attacking Parents and Civil Liberties And when a measles outbreak popped up in 2015 at Disneyland, it didn’t matter that only 2.5 percent of California children were attending kindergarten with a personal belief vaccine exemption.36 It was an opportunity for the pharmaceutical industrial complex to create a media hate fest that turned into a competition for who could suggest the most egregious violations of civil liberties and the nastiest kinds of punishment for parents declining to give their children every one of the 69 doses of 16 vaccines on the CDC’s poorly studied childhood vaccine schedule.37,38,39 An Arizona State University magazine editor wrote, “Shouldn’t we know where they live? Every single exemption request should be reviewed in a public meeting and approved by a public body (like a city council or school board). And if the exemption is approved, basic information — the parent’s name, address and the vaccinations declined — should be available on the internet via a publicly maintained registry.”40 Professors at major universities suggested the government should impose a tax on unvaccinated people,41 suspend free speech about vaccination,42 and deny elected representatives public office and strip doctors of their medical licenses if they talk bad about vaccines.43 A science writer urged Americans to turn on each other and conduct a “concerted campaign of person-to-person shaming and shunning.”44 A USA Today OpEd stated flatly: “Parents who do not vaccinate their children should go to jail.”45 By the end of 2015, the California legislature had narrowly voted to eliminate the personal belief vaccine exemption, while denying medical care to the children of parents making vaccine choices had become standard behavior in pediatric offices across the country.46,47 Professor and Vaccine Developer: ‘Snuff Out’ Vaccine Safety and Choice Advocates In 2016, the profiling of vaccine hesitant parents based on race and class had become so politically correct in America that two Michigan pediatricians felt comfortable describing them this way: “These parents almost always come from privilege, and they are almost never punished for their actions ... they are by and large white, educated and affluent.”48 By 2017, Peter Hotez, a Baylor University professor of medicine and vaccine developer,49,50 slapped the “high educational attainment and socioeconomic status” label on parents defending vaccine freedom of choice. In Scientific American magazine, he called on the U.S. government and G-20 nations to take steps to “snuff out” the “American anti-vaccine movement.”51 To “snuff out” means to “crush or kill.”52 It is no wonder the Boston Herald editorial staff did not hesitate to suggest that the hangman’s noose was the kind of punishment that these “white, educated and affluent” parents deserved.53 Apparently, you get a free pass to engage in race and class baiting if you have M.D., Ph.D. or J.D. written after your name and or bang the drum loudly for forced vaccination, suggesting that those who refuse to believe get a taste of the whip. History does reveal that it is much easier to wage a reign of terror when the gallows and guillotine in the public square are used to teach unbelievers a lesson. Clearly, the doctors and professors demanding that we roll up our children’s sleeves to prove we are willing to take one for the team are getting nervous. They know that more than 90 percent of American parents are asking pediatricians questions about vaccine safety and want to make voluntary vaccine decisions for their children.54 Professor and Vaccine Developer: Take Away Vaccine Exemptions Wealthy vaccine developers, like pediatrician and professor of vaccinology Dr. Paul Offit,55,56,57 are lobbying to eliminate all vaccine exemptions that have not been approved by doctors, so parents are legally prohibited from exercising freedom of thought and conscience when making health care decisions for their children.58,59,60 Offit believes that children can safely receive 10,000 vaccines at once61 and has contempt for parents who do not agree with him about that. He said, “They’re people who believe they can know anything and know as much as their doctor — if not more — by simply studying it, reading about it.”62 Wealthiest Profession in America: Medical Doctors Offit is a member of the highest paid profession in America — medical doctors63,64 — and he also belongs to an elite academic community where professors of medicine at some universities are paid $3 to $4 million per year,65 which is comparable to pharmaceutical company salaries. In 2011, the annual salary for an M.D. vice president at Merck was $6 million.66 There are about 750,000 medical doctors working in the U.S. and, although currently the top five medical specialties earn an average $400,000 to half a million dollars per year, the average annual income for most doctors is between $190,000 and $240,000, which is more than six times the U.S. median income of about $36,000 and four times the U.S. household median income of $56,000.67,68,69 There are about 33,000 medical doctors working for the federal government, and they are paid an average $206,000 per year.70 Full professors at colleges and universities are paid on average between $140,000 and $220,000,71,72 but some are paid millions.73 Give No Safe Harbor to Race and Class Baiting While doctors and professors certainly have the legal right to make a lot of money, it does not give them the moral right to dictate what other people in society can value, think, believe, say or do. Their vicious attacks on people who disagree with them about health and vaccination is an attack on basic human rights that protect all people, rich and poor, and of every race in every country, against tyranny. Class and race baiting has no place in the public conversation about vaccination and there should be no safe harbor for those who engage in it. Until laws are passed limiting the authority of medical doctors using the heel of boot of the state to violate human rights, the people’s health and freedom will be in danger. Learn more about vaccination and health within NVIC.org. It’s your health. Your family. Your choice.

#VitalityPath

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tattooed-alchemist · 8 years ago

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NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US. There is no political savior coming, no new national campaign for Hope and Change, no new version of a progressive Revolution, led by Bernie Sanders or anyone else. There are no more smooth-talking, charismatic, erudite Harvard law professors in Congress waiting in the wings for 2020, either. There are no respectable Democrats coming to sink the “Left” back into another political coma either, no one to alleviate the guilt “liberals” and fake-leftists feel about the current state of America. It is only us, citizens, not politicians, who can begin to co-create a livable future. We are who we are, as a nation. Let’s face it: we are all deplorables now. We allowed this to happen, Democrats and Republicans alike, aided and abetted it, we laughed as a neo-fascist demagogue skyrocketed through the polls, we feigned outrage, and we did not launch any significant form of resistance to Trump, or Clinton either. We allowed childishness, fear, hate, and narcissism to explode on social media, mainstream news, and mass culture, yet are somehow surprised when these features show up in our political milieu. We continue to allow the myth of American exceptionalism to pervade every nook and cranny of private and public life, yet are shocked at Trump’s personal hubris. We’ve allowed ourselves to believe that we should “Make America Great Again”, when the plight of the world’s poor continues to worsen. There are now eight people (six are Americans) with more wealth than half the world’s population. If one considers all of those in the developing world who die of starvation, drought, and preventable diseases each year due to lack of antibiotics, antivirals, and vaccines, it is clear that the rich West is guilty of genocide by inaction. It is the US federal government, working with NGOs and the UN, who should be at the forefront of planning and distributing medicine, open-source technology, and freely available patents and inventions to the world’s needy. Yet this can only work when we elect representatives with honor, virtue, courage, and a moral code. What we are left with in Washington are the leaches and sycophants of capitalism, devoted to a dying system of consumerism, a casino-like rigged economy propped up by bankers’ tricks, mineral and resource extraction, and fossil fuel use. Self-serving, without a conscience, our corrupt representatives, lobbyists, and corporate leaders must be sent a message: you are all alone. As much as possible, we as citizens must begin our own Boycott-Divest-Sanction movement against the transnational corporations. This doesn’t mean that we are abandoning our responsibilities, or being quietists: only that we recognize the culture of death, and refuse further involvement. In this sense, resistance is a dignified silence and non-involvement. Boycotting the international conglomerates will inflict damage on the economy, and will likely affect standards of living for large parts of the population. We must not overlook this fact, yet we cannot shy away from it either: only by a direct confrontation will the parasitic corporate powers be destroyed once and for all. The jobs are not returning, anyways. Unemployment will rise as automation and robotics absorb both blue and white collar work. Even Elon Musk is now speaking out in favor of a universal basic income. While the majority of Americans are hypnotized by our criminal duopoly, and continue to place faith in the spectacle of mass-media driven elections, the rest of us must begin to organize horizontal, parallel political structures. In doing so, more and more will abandon the illusion that our government is benevolent. This will forge new bonds between neighbors, friends, and communities: it is these new relationships and bridges we must build to weather us through the storms of the collapse of neoliberal capitalism and the ravages of global warming and ecosystem degradation. It is land and the right to grow our own food and water, to use renewable energy technologies for our homes, to use taxes for education and health initiatives, to provide for our families and community, which is urgently needed. Electronics and machines must be reevaluated as means to an end of a higher quality of life, not as self-justifying ends in themselves. Similarity, if “the medium is the message,” as Marshall McLuhan says, then we must reconsider whether our mass media is propagandizing and stupefying the public beyond our capabilities to react in a calm, rational, responsible manner. Maybe TV sound bites, twitter trolling, and alternate worldviews streaming on social media are not the best ways to promote public discourse, cooperation, and an amiable society. It must be admitted that for much of the world’s population, the experiment of modernity just hasn’t worked out as well as we’ve been led to believe. Billions still live in abject poverty, and millions in the West still suffer from false consciousness, alienating labor, spiritual malaise, anomie, and ennui. To combat such serious maladies, entire industries such as defense companies which use harmful mining and extraction techniques will have to be nationalized and used for good, such as farming equipment, efficient public transportation, and high-speed rail corridors. Companies that promote warfare and manufacture dangerous weapons will be forced to have workers seize the means of production and “turn their swords into plowshares”, or else they will have to be broken up. Public squares must be reclaimed as commons for all, and federal wilderness should be reevaluated to allow for autonomous land usage for First Nations, for responsible, sustainable practitioners of agroecology, and cities must become linked by greenbelts, as Lewis Mumford might have imagined them. At the same time, federal lands should not be allowed to be sold off to state or local entities: Republicans in Congress are prepared to do the unthinkable, by rewriting a technicality in a budget law to allow for the selling off of public landholdings. Oil, gas, and real estate magnates will no doubt be circling the waters and bribing state officials if federal land is parceled off to state governments. We have to begin now, in every town, to engage in one-on-one bonding, to heal the wounds we’ve inflicted on each other and the planet, to slow down our pace of life, to realize that we need not fear demagogues, if we organize and resist. It is this fear and anxiety about the future that has put the anti-science Republicans in Congress, and the same emotions have catapulted Trump into the White House. This can be overcome, only by acknowledging the reality of the situation. We don’t have much time, before the walls start to rise, the jobs start to dry up, the elderly begin to be neglected, and the rising numbers of homeless, needy, and refugees begin to overwhelm the capacity of our society to absorb the shocks. Reaching out a friendly hand to those closest to you, establishing solidarity with the world community, and providing for the less fortunate are no longer issues that Westerners can avoid, by frittering away hours in meaningless jobs or staring numbly at screens. There is still a possibility for the world’s population to collectively thrive and flourish, if our energies are harnessed to promote egalitarian democracy and global cooperation, and the West is willing to remove its rose-colored glasses, to see the world as it truly is.

#America #usa #people #reality

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scrawnydutchman · 8 years ago

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In Defense of Religion (and Spirituality in General)

It seems superfluous to outright state the obvious as a beginning of this post, but Religion has always been a taboo subject, especially in modern times. Many highly respected writers and social commentators, not the least of which being Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Penn Jillette and the late George Carlin, have contributed to shifting people’s perception of being faithful to what many other authors have penned as the rising age of Atheism. None of these men are the originators of course, there are many other philosophers from earlier times who could be considered responsible for that, first example coming to mind being Friedrich Nietzsche, famous for coining the phrase “God is dead and we have killed him.” Of course it doesn’t help that people are very polarized in our day and age, not just with faith but in politics as well. It just seems like we’re getting more and more divided all the time. Contrary to what we all believe however, this division isn’t a result of us being intolerant of just how different we are. In truth it’s a result of us being more alike then we would care to admit. Many like to attribute violent and extreme behavior to a corrupt or poorly established doctrine as a means to reinforce their own stance to themselves, but in my honest to God perception of the whole thing it just seems like everybody is suffering from the same hypocrisies and negative effects of confirmation bias and they fail to even realize it.

Now, as the reader has likely gathered from the title, this post will be coming to the defense of religion, but before doing so I want to make one thing perfectly clear; this is not meant to convert you. If you’re a proud Atheist or Muslim or Christian or Buddhist or whatever you identify with, I hope you find happiness and solace in the path you’ve chosen, and if not may you find it wherever else you look. What this post IS meant to do is address commonly made points for the fallacies within their logic, mainly points Anti-theists make against believing in God, so they’ll see a bit more of themselves in people they disagree with and perhaps have an easier time allowing people to be who they want to be. Because while I don’t want to push any opinion on which faith is true on you, the stance I DO uphold without shame is that any thought provoking discussion for the way the universe works is worth indulging, to engage with others and to consider things one may not have considered otherwise. The points I will address and counter are as follows:

1. Religion is overly violent and encourages prejudice and hatred.

2. Religion is non-progressive, holding back scientific research as well as social and political issues.

3. What reason to people have for believing in God anyway?

1A. I will concede that faith has an ugly history behind it. One need look no further then the Crusades, Galileo, and the recent ISIS attacks to confirm this. It’s unfortunate that people use their worldviews which ironically preach peace and kindness towards fellow man to such horrid ends as such. However, contrary to what many may believe, this justification of negative action doesn’t come from a refusal to rationalize. It actually comes from the opposite; rationalizing violent impulse through teachings of scripture to the point of practically having internal debate with one self to fulfill these actions without harming one’s conscience. Basically it’s researching not for the sake of learning the truth, but for the sake of proving that you are right. This is what’s known as confirmation bias: You’ll research so long as you can find the answers you’re looking for regardless of whether they’re credible or not, and then dismiss any counter evidence brought forward to you either entirely or you’ll provide some half hazard counter argument. It’s why there are people in the world who think vaccines cause Autism; they’ll keep digging until they find something that agrees with them.

Non religious based pieces of literature can provoke the same violent responses in unforeseeable ways too. The murderer of John Lennon claimed that the statement he was making in Lennon’s murder was J.D. Salingers Catcher In the Rye. Where in the book about an adolescent Holden Caulfield having a mental breakdown about the pressures of growing up condone murder? I have no idea. But surely because the novel compelled Mark Chapman to shoot John Lennon it ought to be banned so that nobody is ever influenced like that again, right? Is this information to be locked away forever because of an unfortunate tale it is tied with? Many have thought so, but I was still able to read it in high school and I turned out fine, if only a little opinionated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_David_Chapman

Some of the works of the founding fathers of Atheism and Nihilism have similar stories behind them. Enter the German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, previously noted for the phrase “God is dead and we have killed him” as a symbol for a rising age in which man no longer needs the alleged illusion of God to encourage righteous behavior. Beyond that, another famous theory of Nietzsche that has been carried on into our pop culture is the idea of the Ubermensch, roughly translated into English as the “Superman”. Essentially Nietzsche spoke of a superior man among men who was psychologically superior in many ways. One who took pride in his greatness, one that made great breakthroughs, one that will be misunderstood and thus held back against the masses and one that took living life to the fullest into his own hands. One such man would be a leader among a herd of naturally inferior people and make innovations propelling society forward. Some regimes of later centuries took this idea of a superman very seriously, but perhaps not in a way Nietzsche may have anticipated.

Nietzsche’s sister, Elizabeth, reedited his works so as to be integrated into Fascist Ideology. The Ubermensch essentially went from meaning one who was gifted and inherently great in ways not achievable by normal people, to meaning an entire race of superior people who had every right to bear all races below them in chains. This is how Nietzsche became something of a hero to the Third Reich.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuQzE2YYPNE (skip to 34:40)

Not only that, but he was also the personal hero of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who adopted Nietzsche’s mentality of the superman and applied it to his own protest against religious belief, as Denis Mack Smith describes, “ In Nietzsche he found justification for his crusade against the Christian virtues of humility, resignation, charity, and goodness”. Mussolini was gifted the complete works of Nietzsche on his 60th birthday by Adolf Hitler.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Religious_views section 7.1: Atheism and Anti-Clericalism.

I bring this all up merely to demonstrate that, while Atheism cannot be defined as a religion and is rather the absence of one, it is still built on a principle one must abide by in order to be considered an atheist; that being, the disbelief in God until he is undeniably been proven to exist. And it also has founding fathers that propel it into the mainstream with texts and documents influencing our current culture and it’s ideals such as Nietzsche. But as just discussed, such documentation can and has been reused to rationalize ill intent and hatred towards those who are different, not unlike how the Bible and the Quran have been interpreted.. So my question to atheists is:

If it isn’t considered fair to judge followers and readers of Nietzsche based on the actions of the Nazi’s or Mussolini or other negative examples of the lack of faith including Stalin, why then is it fair to judge all modern day Christians or Muslims based on the negative examples that they have?

Fact of the matter is, no ideology is perfect because no single person was ever perfect, Ubermensch or otherwise. Anyone can take a simple principle in belief and warp it for malicious intent. “These Christians are slowing down our progression with their bogus beliefs. We ought to ostracize them and take them down”. The truth is, some people are malicious and power hungry and will find whatever justification they need for their actions; it really doesn’t matter where that justification comes from. And it’s no real service to say “they aren’t real Christians” or “they aren’t real Feminists”. They aren’t products of misunderstanding the source, they are the embodiment of the sources fundamental flaws. Atheism is not immune to this phenomenon; the 20th century is proof of that. But that said, every ideology is capable of inhibiting positive examples to society as well. For every King Henry the 8th there’s an Oscar Romero, for every Benito Mussolini there’s a Stephen Hawking, for every Osama Bin Laden there’s a Muhammad Ali.

2A. Religion is also often credited for being non progressive. Holding back scientific advancement, denying what has been proven to be fact or at the very least more securely rooted in evidence then anything the church preaches, and holding back the civil rights of people such as Homosexuals on the merits of a book they are at no obligation to follow in the first place. Once again, I concede that faith has an ugly history. Galileo was unfairly prosecuted for proving the earth is not in fact in the center of the milky way, and many people are of the opinion that evolution is a fallacy, the earth is only a few thousand years old and it is even flat. But is it fair to say religion has made NO contributions to the advancement of science, therefore isn’t compatible with it? Not necessarily true.

For starters, let’s look at one of the most widely accepted theories for the beginning of the universe among Atheists and otherwise: The Big Bang. The theory that at one point there was nothing. All there ever was was a focal point of extremely high density and temperature from which the universe expanded and continued to expand. This theory was originated by Belgian scientist Georges Lemaitre, in what he referred to as a “Cosmic Egg”. He was a professor of physics, and astronomer . . .. and a roman catholic priest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhLQ_b3bKdI

Lemaitre’s theory has since then been expanded on and praised as a monumental innovation of modern science, even prompting Albert Einstein to say "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened." I find it very ironic how the modern view of religion is so often associated as anti-science when one of the most prominent theories of our time originated from a holy man.

There are other examples of highly influential religious scientists such as Copernicus, Roger Bacon, Pascal, just to name a few. But rather then go on that long tangent my only point was that while religion can unfortunately be used as a means to justify dismissal of what may be proven to be verifiable fact, therefore reaffirming confirmation bias, it’s not like one is incapable of indulging in scientific advancement as WELL as spirituality simultaneously. One does not necessarily have to compromise one for the other. The same goes for being an activist on social issues such as the rights of Homosexuals. Bishop Desmond Tutu has been a prominent activist for such issues for years, and was awarded several awards including the nobel peace prize in 1984

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu

One does not need to compromise his faith to be an advocate for rights and for advancement. In fact, I would argue that advancement can only truly happen by considering all possibilities and allowing people the opportunity to go about those possibilities how they choose. Which brings me to my final counter.

3A. So why even believe in God in the first place? I’ll allow any believer to answer for themselves, but as of this last point it’s going to solely be an opinion piece and nothing more. The way I see it is, there is a 50/50 chance God exists. Either he does or he doesn’t. So as long as this is the most we know, until further notice we might as well just choose which ever thesis suits us best. For myself, I’m fascinated and intrigued by nearly every world religion and philosophy I come across, namely Hinduism, because it promotes the idea of God being everywhere and coming to everyone with infinite manifestations, thus any pursuit for spirituality and higher understanding is a noble one (I don’t necessarily agree that’s 100 percent true in every case but I appreciate the open minded nature of it). I often research other faiths and take my favorite parts of them and apply them to my own life. Some call that cherry picking, which it is, but I don’t consider that a bad thing. Ultimately nobody on planet earth thinks exactly the same way. There are as many worldviews as there are people, and almost as many versions of God. The more we encourage open discussion and freedom to expression between each other, the closer we will become, the more enlightened we will be and, afterlife or no afterlife, we will have lived our time on earth to the very fullest.

I think of it as a giant game of roulette; only one round, you gotta bet all your chips. Everybody’s got their “lucky number” to which they abide by because of a long history of winning with that number, and while they may technically only have a 1 in 38 chance of winning just like everyone else . . . I can’t deny that’s still a chance. Myself, I prefer to divide my chips across the board and dabble in a little bit of everything, just to play the game safe. Whatever I get in return is good enough for me.

I was inspired to write this up not because I’m an expert, because in truth I’m not. I’ll admit I’m very biased myself. But if I can encourage open discussion, encouragement to understand and the contentment of people choosing what’s right for them, I’ll take the risk of embarrassing myself. My life has been touched very positively with religion. My mother is a devout catholic and she’s one of the strongest and most compassionate people I know in the whole world. My ex was a Buddhist who took it up during one of the hardest moments of her life and it helped her push through. There’s no way in hell I’m invalidating that. God or no God, afterlife or no afterlife, you can’t argue with results. So by all means; go out and hug a Muslim. Give a Christian a high five, take a Mormon out to lunch, meditate with a Buddhist, and be the nicest and most pleasant religious friend your atheist buddy ever had. If we do right by ourselves and we do right by each other, there would be no need for a heaven . . we’d already be there.

(Last line shamelessly ripped off from the Simpsons).

#Religion #faith #spirituality #science #atheism #social justice #tolerance

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