Just Thinking

Many non-religious people have experienced religious people claiming that they are therefore less moral and related arguments. Of course this is not true, but this belief is common amoung the religious, that morality comes from religion.

Now some actual research has been done, looking at how prevalent various religious behaviours are in different countries and comparing this to various moral behaviours and healthiness of living. The results are bound to be a big shock to those that think that healthy and moral behaviour come from religion - quite the opposite is true. Consider these two lists - the first concerns itself with being religious and the commonly associated disbelief in evolution. The second is concerned with behaviours which most would agree are immoral and / or unhealthy.

Absolute belief in God
Attend religious services at least several times per month
Take the bible literally
Pray at least several times per week
Not being an agnostic or athiest
Disbelieve in evolution

High homicide rate
High rate of 15-24 year old suicides
High rate of under 5 year old mortality
Lower life expectancy
Higher rate of gonorrhea infection - adults and teens
Higher rate of syphilis infection - adults and teens
Higher rate of 15-19 year old abortions
Higher rate of 15-17 year old pregnancies

It turns out that countries that are higher in the first category items are also generally higher in the second category items. The two go together. It cannot be stated that religion causes immorality, as it might be that immorality causes religion, or something else causes both. But they do go together.

The full details of this report are available at website of the Journal of Religion and Society.

I would interpret these results in this way. If you look to God, prayer and religion to solve your problems, then when nothing happens you are lost. If you look to yourself to solve your problems, then you take responsibility for all your own behaviour. The latter is a much more healthy approach as it develops useful patterns of behaviour whereas the former develops dependency on something that is imaginary and then disappointment and upset is inevitable.

See also the follow up article Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

I cannot see any other way of putting this, and I am not one to mince my words. Anyone that thinks genetic engineering is in any way good for people is very ill-informed, insane or evil. There are no other possibilities.

In many tests of genetically modified food sources it has been found that animals eating them get damage to their immune systems. This is not at all surprising to anyone who even slightly understands how life works, because immunity can only be expected to exist for things that exist naturally in the environment. This problem alone is sufficient reason to abandon all GE food sources. There is no point in having food 10% cheaper if it seriously damages your health.

Of course there is the issue of whether genetically engineered food is actually more productive as is often claimed by people producing it. It is common practice for those doing scientific research for businesses to selectively report the facts to make the case for the business and if they do not do so they will not get repeat work. This means that such reports are as useless as drug company tests of their products which have been shown over a long period to not be independent reports that should be relied on.

Since GE promoters have had genetically engineered products available for various food types that I as a vegetarian need to eat, such as chick peas, lentils and soy beans, new practices have been introduced. These include radiation treatment of seeds that come into New Zealand to make certain that they cannot be grown, that is that they are dead seeds. This is a very sorry state of affairs, as these seeds could previously be sprouted to make healthy meals. Now, they not only will not sprout, but when cooked they produce hard shriveled seeds which suddenly turn to slush without going through a normal soft cooked stage. No one in their right mind would choose to eat such seeds if they had a choice of healthy seeds.

The reason given for this practice is for biosecurity. Yet, I know of no case in the preceding decades when any biosecurity problem ever occurred with such products. However I have noticed that this practice was introduced when GE crops became available. The GE manufacturers want to supply dead seeds, because you have to pay their license fees if you want to plant seeds but not if you want to eat them. If you were able to grow seeds from their GE crops then you wouldn't need to pay them fees and they would go out of business.

It seems highly suspicious that non-GE crops suddenly need this same treatment as GE crops manufacturers want done to their crops. If it were not done, then non-GE crops would be cheaper (not needing the treatment), tastier, more nutritious and far more pleasant when cooked. No-one who tried both would ever choose the GE crops. That is why I suspect that the biosecurity issue is a lie cooked up to allow GE manufacturers to compete. That is a thoroughly evil action. To sacrifice people's health for profit on an inferior product and force those conditions on all consumers.

Many sensible scientists have spoken out about the lack of any good reason for using GE crops. It is not an overstatement to say that we play Russian Roulette with the present GE policies. In fact it is an understatement, because disaster is certain. This is madness.

GE manufacturers deliberately do not test for such things as damage to immune systems for GE crops. They only test for the presence of toxins which is just one of the many things that can go wrong. They know that toxins can be traced to their food but that immune system damage cannot, so they do not care about that. This is evil.

There is no requirement around the world generally for foods to be tested before being used by humans. Even when tests on animals are done they do not indicate safety for humans. In 1983 hundreds of people died from adulterated rape-seed oil which was not toxic to rats. Actually no-one knows what to test for anyway, because the effects of making entirely new organisms are not fully understood. The entire show is based on the assumption that the scientists know what they are doing when it has been quite reasonably compared to doing surgery with a shovel. This is deep ignorance. There are many dangers and the FDA have expressed some of them.

In New Zealand the Green Party makes info available on GE. It has been a source of conflict between the Green party and Labour who have governed for the last decade. One of Labour's most embarrassing stands has been over genetically modified corn. One can only hope that PM Helen Clark has learned from her mistakes in that area.