728. Disadvantaged Religious People

728.   Disadvantaged Religious People

Something is wrong with people, who believe in the existence of a deity, whose existence can neither be proven nor disproved and who nevertheless allow this belief govern their life.   Depending on the point of view, these believers are either extremely stupid or have a partially dysfunctional brain.

The following study indicates, that taking the bible literally is a hindrance to successful higher education:

Social Context and College Completion in the United States:
The Role of Congregational Biblical Literalism

http://spx.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/01/0731121414559522.full.pdf?ijkey=kziE9jf5LEBody7&keytype=finite

"The proportion college graduates for individual biblical literalists (0.24) is about half that of their non-literalist counterparts (0.48)"

This difference compares religious people, who only differ in how much the take the bible literally.  I wonder about the difference between religious and nonreligious people.  

661. Comparing Disturbed Characters And Chimpanzees

661.  Comparing Disturbed Characters And Chimpanzees

I already mentioned George Simon before (entries 615, 618 and 629).  After having read his book 'In Sheep's Clothing' with unencumbered fascination, I just finished reading another of his books:  George Simon: Disturbed Characters.  

As far as he describes and analyses disturbed characters, it is also an excellent book.   But it seems that between the two books, he has relapsed into the grasp of religion.  He preaches submission under a god as an important ingredient of his suggested alternative to being a disturbed character.  This is annoying.  

I also disagree with his claim, that there is a free will, which gives people an option to either be a disturbed character or not.    

Two other books already mentioned are:
Martha Stout:  The Sociopath Next Door (entry 137)
Robert Hare:  Without Conscience (entry 160).         

All these books implicitly consider socially acceptable, considerate and responsible behavior as the baseline of what can be expected of all sane humans.   They have no answer, why and due to what reasons disturbed characters are deviant from such an baseline.

I doubt, that the qualities constituting this assumed baseline, are sufficiently frequent to justify this assumption.   With a realistic view at the amount of atrocities regularly forced by beings of the species homo sapiens upon suffering human victims, the ability to live by little or not harming others is only found in a minority.   Only they have the privilege of deserving to be called true humans.   Even they are not born like this but get there only after a long process of maturation and socialization. 

My explanation of disturbed characters is derived from looking at the power of instincts and at different levels of the evolution of cognition and rationality.

1. Human evolution as a process.  
 

Phase 1: 
There were early ancestors, who just like animals were automatically and fully driven by instinctive urges, which had evolved for optimizing procreation.  Due to lacking any mental capacities for comprehending the consequences of behavior, instinctive behaviors of animals are not at all impacted by any awareness for harming, hurting and suffering.  

Phase 2: 
The cognition started to evolve.   Rudimentary intelligence became a powerful tool supporting and serving instincts.   But instincts still continued to completely determine the entire behavior, including the overall goal of breeding.  
 

Phase 3:  
The unique human theory of mind evolved.   This capacity of anticipating or evaluating the effects of behavior upon others or upon the own person in the future with the additional help of a memory gives a unique option only to human.    The unique ability to act in defiance of instincts, to override momentary instinctive urges in favor of cognitively preferred alternative behavior is the decisive distinction between humans and animals.    This includes also the unique ability of humans to prefer and decide to not procreate as the result of a cognitive evaluation and perception of the own identity.    Only humans can be childfree by choice.   There are no childfree animals.  


2.  Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees and humans started to evolve separately about 6 million years ago.   Either the common ancestors had at this time already reached the threshold towards phase 2, or chimpanzees continued to evolve at a slower pace in the same direction as humans.   Today's chimpanzees are a good illustration of phase 2.  They show some amazing skills, which nevertheless always serve instinctive goals.  

In entry 648 I presented the chimpanzee Ayumu, who does better than humans on a task requiring fast perception and short term memory, as can be seen in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiDHXtM0VA
 

While Ayumu's abilities are amazing, they yet are only isolated and not connected to any higher cognitive control.  He only does the task, because he is immediately after every run rewarded with a treat.   He cannot apply his talents for any abstract or generalized goal.  

Solving the elaborated and complex task on the screen is not different from the more simple achievement of other chimpanzees using tools to get food as is shown here. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cp7_In7f88
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaEDeRJKN0s

But chimpanzees also kill and are aggressive.  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/baby-chimpanzee-killed-at_n_1629318.html

They are even cannibals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU1zUzXkTtw

Other amazing skills and behaviors have also been observed in chimpanzees, but they have never reached any ability as found in humans in phase 3.  Ultimately the chimpanzees are completely determined by instincts, and all their amazing capacities only support these instincts.    No cognition has evolved, which would enable them to act in defiance to instincts by consideration or empathy.


3.  The evolutionary level of disturbed characters

I think that the human evolution is in a state of transition.   The evolution of instincts has been established millions of years ago, while the cognitive evolution is still continuing.   I see the determination of the behavior as distributed along a bell curve between phase 2 animals at one end and phase 3 humans at the other.   The majority of people are somewhere in the middle.  They are acting by the combined impact of both subconscious instinctive urges and some cognitive control. 
 

Whenever persons, mostly men, commit atrocities of any kind like murdering, torturing, raping, cannibalism, slavery, they seem puzzling, when compared with what is required and expected from humans.   But if they were instead compared with animals, they would appear as healthy and sane chimpanzees. 

I consider severely character disturbed persons, including those labeled psychopaths and sociopaths, as beings, whose cognitive evolution has relapsed, failed or is delayed and retarded.    In spite of belonging genetically to the species homo sapiens, they are not less animals than are the chimpanzees.   Their cognition only suffices to serve their instincts and to enhance their being a hazard.  But their cognition is insignificant as a determinant of personal goals.    

Chimpanzees use skills to acquire food.  Disturbed characters have a more advanced cognitive knowledge about other human and their behavior, but they use this knowledge also only as a tool.   They succeed to get more than food, they also abuse woman, gain power or pursue other instinctive and selfish goals.   While chimpanzees just lack rationality, these disturbed characters are instead determined not only by instincts but also by irrational beliefs, which serve to excuse and allegedly justify the consequences of instinctive behavior.  

It is a very sad and unfortunate reality, that the survival of the human species depends on the worst and most devastating forces in people, their instincts.   
While the extreme disturbed characters are a hazardous minority, the same instincts are virulent to a lesser degree also in the subconscious mind of the majority of the non or less disturbed people.   This lesser degree of the impact of the same instincts leads to an unfortunate bias towards too much tolerance for and condoning of harming others.  Many damaging behaviors are thus considered as still in the scope of normality, in spite of the extreme suffering of the victims,   Their suffering is not recognized as an outrage, but as unavoidable collateral damage.   


4. Distinguishing animals from humans

It is an unfortunate fallacy, that the distinction between humans and animals has always been only drawn along the genetic borders between species. 

 
In the christian tradition, humans are believed to be special, because a god allegedly created them to be so, and thus, there is a thinking taboo to reconsider and recognize anyone as an animal, no matter how much he behaves as one. 
In recent times, some people are debating, if there is really any decisive distinction at all. 

But to my knowledge, nobody has ever suggested, that the quality of being human, let alone of being more or less human, is an individual trait of the level of the individual cognitive evolution..
   
I claim:  To be considered as human requires more than the genes of homo sapiens, it also requires sufficient cognitive control over the instincts.  

This has far reaching implications.  

The concept of a general human dignity and basic human rights can rationally only be valid for humans, it is a fallacy to automatically attribute and assign it to all members of the species homo sapiens.   When someone acts like an animal, he should be treated as one.   An animal with the liberty only suitable for humans is too much of a hazard.    

The home of chimpanzees is in the wild, but in the zoo or lab, they are for good reasons kept in cages.  
http://www.ippl.org/gibbon/a-tragedy-in-eden/

If extremely disturbed characters would be recognized as animals lacking the basic human capacity of cognitive control, then this could lead to realistic methods of dealing with them.  Once disturbed characters have done serious harm, they should be recognized as animals and treated the same as dangerous chimpanzees.   The need to be protected against becoming a victim is independent of the species of the animals, which are dangerous predators.

The innate predisposition for instinctive or cognitive determination is not carved in stone, but malleable by education and social influences.    Socialization can enhance the cognitive control over instincts, when there is something to enhance.   When there is no rationality and cognition as a constituent personality trait, then no upbringing can convert an animal into a human, no matter the genetic species.   

All children start as instinct driven beings, they need socialization to develop the capacity to use cognitive control, when this talent is innate.    
When a chimpanzee is raised like a child, as in the tragic case of Moe, this does not stop him from biting off someone's finger.  
(http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Chimpanzees-as-Pets-When-Something-Goes-Wrong).  
I doubt, that a completely instinct determined disturbed character could ever become more human than Moe, no matter the quality of education.   Such a child may not bite off fingers, but bully other kids instead, before committing worse atrocities as an adult.    

Any person is entitled to be given the benefit of the doubt to be human, until he behaves like an animal and thus demonstrates, that he is an animal.   Committing atrocities as an animal forfeits the privileges reserved to humans.  Treating and considering an animal nevertheless as if he were human is an unjustifiable slap into the face to his victim(s).  


4.  The brain

Brains scans have shown differences between the brains of psychopaths and those of non-psychopaths.  

"So, once again there’s some convincing evidence that the brains of psychopaths not only work very differently from those of non-psychopathic individuals, but also may even be ‘wired’ differently than most human brains."
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2013/05/06/abnormal-brain-psychopaths/

I wonder, what would be discovered, if the brains of psychopaths were compared with the brains of chimpanzees.

656. The Placebo Church

656.   The Placebo Church

In entry 441 I was expressing how a weird institution called Unitarian Universalist Church (UU) puzzled me, because it makes no rational sense.    They claim not to be a religion but they behave like one.  

In entry 589 I defined religion by also showing behaviors based upon irrational beliefs other than only the one in the existence of a deity.    These behaviors can be seen as rational methods of coping with irrational beliefs, while without such beliefs, the behaviors themselves are irrational.


In this sense the UU is a placebo religion.   

A person, who has by own experience or by reliable observation learned, that taking a painkiller brings relief from pain, can often experience the relief from pain by unknowingly taking a placebo, which is a pill without any chemical content.    It is a placebo by still looking like a pill, only the active ingredient is omitted.    

The christian religion has some psychological benefits for some people.  Their imaginary god's attributes help them to cope with human suffering.   The christian religion is especially attractive to victims finding an alleged sense in their sufferings and to perpetrators and evil doers finding alleged justification for harming others.   

• The belief in being rewarded by the alleged god in the alleged afterlife misrepresents senseless suffering as if it were a valid method to earn such a reward.
• The belief in an alleged god's alleged wisdom being beyond human comprehension attributes hidden reasons to suffering.
• The belief in an alleged god's alleged wisdom and rewarding in the alleged afterlife allows the perpetrators to harm others without a bad conscience.   They perceive the alleged god as the proxy, who is considered the one responsible for the harm. 
• The belief in an alleged god's alleged reward for forgiving is misused as the unjustified demand for being forgiven for unforgivable harm.  

The only active ingredient of any christian church is the god's impact upon the endurance of suffering and the inflicting of harm.   By being interwoven with the entire culture the christian religion has over its long history incorporated the additional supplying of many secular benefits.  As a result, many people completely lost all awareness for the differences between those benefits, which were due to the core of the religious beliefs, and those collateral and independent benefits, which were only added but not religious. 

This vague and indiscriminate notion of a church as being beneficial in a generalized and very special manner is the reason, why so many people experience it is possible to delete the god and create a placebo church, which still appears to be a church.    Just like the placebo pill looks like a pill.  

The placebo effect of a sugar pill is impossible for any person ignorant of the existence of painkillers, like some ingenious people in a remote area.   (Any similar effect would need other explanations like a general gullibility to suggestions and claims.) 

It is the same with the church.   Those, who have never experienced the christian religion as beneficial, are not prone to experience a placebo church as offering any benefits, which cannot be obtained elsewhere.   

But there is one decisive difference between taking a placebo pill and joining a placebo church:  

The placebo pill works, when the person does not know, that the pharmaceutical ingredient is lacking.   The placebo church is chosen for being the placebo, for having the god as the active ingredient eliminated.   

A person without pain needs neither a pharmaceutical nor a placebo painkiller.   The sugar in the pill can be obtained anywhere and in any form, the person without pain eats sugar when he wants to.   He does not make it look like a painkiller first.
I have never heard of anybody eating placebos, knowing that there is no medicine in them, only because of the sweet taste.   They rather eat real sweets. 

A person without religious needs does not need a church, neither one with a god nor a placebo church.  Such a person finds and enjoys the collateral benefits found in christian churches directly in secular alternative institutions.   He does not combine them to appear like a church.    

Self-labeled atheists in the UU are like people, who knowingly eat placebos for the taste instead of getting the real thing elsewhere.   

When a church already exists for those, who benefit from the delusion of the existence of a deity, then the additional use of such an institution for other benefits and also by non-religious persons can be rational.    

All the benefits offered by the UU are benefits available elsewhere, where each by itself can be experienced and enjoyed as secular.   Combining them as a placebo church is a deliberate bias.    Creating a placebo church for only non-religious benefits is irrational.   

I can think of only one explanation for this is a fallacy: 

It seems that there are two distinct types of self-labeled atheists.  

• Those who are independent thinkers, to whom the insight of the irrationality of religious beliefs has come as an unavoidable conclusion and consequence of thinking.   Atheism and feeling free from needing any religion is emotionally beneficisal for them, because it makes them feel good about themselves.  
• Those who have a strong need for the benefits of the delusion of the existence of a god, but who were so much disappointed by some event in their life, that they were unable to continue to believe.   They suffer from their persistent craving for their lost paradise of the delusion. A placebo church gives them the best relief for that craving.   
  As members of the UU they remain fence sitters, who look in the direction of atheism, but their behind is still entangled in christian religious needs.   
  The choice of an institution with the style of buildings and terminology as a placebo church accommodates the fence sitters' needs to remain in surroundings resembling their lost paradise.   
  

An example:  Somebody with sufficient knowledge in philosophy can either be the speaker giving a lecture in an auditorium or he can be the minister giving a sermon in a church with or without a god.   

They may even talk about the same topic, but there is a huge difference:
 

Independently thinking atheists attend the lecture.   They listen to information, which they afterwards reflect upon and which maybe influences their attitudes and their behavior.   But they actively process the information and choose what to make of it.

People, who prefer to attend services and to listen to sermons, do this in a more passive and submissive way.   Naming an event a service indicates, that there is a target, who is served by humble servants, who expect guidance and who are emotionally ready to be told what to do.   They do not choose or process, they attempt to follow, and rarely doubt the wisdom of someone with the halo of being called a minister.  

Becoming an atheist is only the first, but not sufficient step for rational people.   The logical next step is a rational reevaluation of all attitudes, values, opinions.   Whatever makes no sense without the christian belief, of which it had been derived, has to be reconsidered.

  
But the choice of a placebo church indicates the clinging to the values and world view of christianity and the wish to change nothing except having lost or deleted the god.

    

The following is a list of benefits as experienced and perceived by a member of the UU.   With his permission, I am quoting him literally. 

 
All these benefits do not need a church but can be obtained as good or better elsewhere.    My comments point to alternatives.  

1. fabulous live music of all kinds

No church is needed for life music.   There are many secular places offering concerts.    Anybody who wants to play in public, has a wide choice of places.  

2. liberal religious education, fellowship and musical training for children, making them aware of the great variety of religions and non-religious views

The place for education is the school.  Community colleges offer music lessons beyond the level of schools.  Pupils need to be taught scientific and skeptical thinking.   The place for information concerning religion are in history and social science lessons with sufficient mental distance.   They need to be taught, that religion is obsolete and enhances harming behavior.

Pupils also need to be taught interactive skills like communication, theory of mind, and a value system based upon rationality.   

3. fellowship and fun with people of liberal, non-religious and liberal religious views

People need fellowship with likeminded people.     Non-religious and liberal religious are contradictions.   Someone can either belief in a god or not.  This impedes fellowship.   There is a mental abyss between those, who belief in any god and those, who do not.   Something is weird when they join a placebo church instead of associating with their own kind.  

Liberal is a political term and has its place in a political party.  

4. promotion of enlightened values, including earth-friendly values among others, and tolerance for people of differing views.  

Tolerance for differing views (not different needs or tastes, unfortunate life situations or disabilities) is an indication of ignorance, stupidity and/or irrationality.   The careful evaluation of all views leads to the conclusion, which of them is rationally superior or is the only rational one.  From then on, differing views do not deserve tolerance.    Tolerance is the admittance of insufficient thinking.  
Rational non-religious people need secular non-religious and atheist groups, where religious people are excluded as a nuisance and annoyance.    Only fence-sitting atheists have tolerance for delusional believers.  
Enlightenment is the contrary of tolerated stupidity.   

5. social justice activities

This is the realm and task of political parties and task oriented pressure groups..

6. places where people can evolve their views as they are exposed to new or different ideas, not to mention help and healing in recovering from past indoctrination from dogmatic theology

This is the realm of secular psychological self-help, self-improvement and self-awareness groups and courses at community colleges.     The worst indoctrination is the delusion, that there are deities, afterlife, an immortal soul and such.   Any alleged help, which includes tolerating such insane beliefs would not be a real help, only a slight reduction of the damage. 

7. promotion of an open-minded approach to life in general

This is the realm and task of secular psychological self-help, self-improvement and self-awareness groups and of schools and all educational institutions.

8. non-religious weddings, child dedications, coming of age celebrations, and funeral services

All these celebrations are rituals based upon some interaction with a god.   A wedding means vows to a god, they are obsolete without a god.   People can best organize their celebrations according to their own individual needs.  

9. counseling and support for people going through difficult times

This is the task of qualified secular and rational psychologists.   A minister's kitchen psychology can do more damage than good.

10. community outreach supporting other organizations serving the most needy people in our communities and beyond

This is the realm and task of political parties and task oriented pressure groups.  They have to influence any country's government to fulfill its obligation to care and provide for the needy by getting sufficient tax from the rich.

11. a forum for the free expression of views which sometimes may run counter to those of the populous in general, e.g. opposition to war, oppression, etc.

This is the realm and task of political parties and of task oriented pressure groups.. 

12. an insitution where people can come together on a regular basis to meditate quietly and calmly on their lives and so on

This is the realm of secular psychological self-help, self-improvement and self-awareness groups and courses at community colleges and other educational institutions.    

13. a welcoming congregations accepting of people of different genders, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities, etc.

This is the common ground and every day situation of every functional group of people, who have joined it to pursue a hobby, sport, interest of any kind.  

14. all of these things and more available from one organization existing often like an island of liberality in the midst of a land of conservative religious people and their churches

It is pathetic to imitate, what one rejects.   Independent thinking atheists need a real alternative, not a placebo church.    

15. a denomination demonstrating a democratic way of functioning in the midst of many non-democratic, paternalistic institutions

A democratic way of functioning is the common ground of every functional group of people, who have joined it to pursue a hobby, sport, interest of any kind.  

There is no objective need for a placebo church to provide anything from this list.   A placebo church caters only for the need of people with a specific precondition.  

491. Intelligence And Education

491.  Intelligence And Education
For reasons of similarity and of being on the same level, I am looking for a man, who has a university or college degree.  While such a degree does not automatically mean someone is really intelligent and smart beyond having a good memory, and while the lack of the opportunity to study does not entirely impede someone from being intelligent, there is research connecting education with intelligence:

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/111226_education

"Does im­prov­ing your educa­t­ion al­so boost your in­tel­li­gence? Yes-to a great­er de­gree than widely un­der­stood, a new study sug­gests.
Brinch and Gal­lo­way ex­am­ined how men’s in­tel­li­gence test scores fared af­ter a com­pul­so­ry school­ing re­form in Nor­way that length­ened mid­dle school educa­t­ion by two years.
"The re­sults in­di­cat­ed that an ad­di­tion­al year of school­ing raised IQ by 3.7 points," "

469. Gender Roles, Instincts, Alleged Flaws And Inferiority

Gender Roles, Instincts, Alleged Flaws And Inferiority

This continues entry 468, where I mentioned the asymmetrical constellations of lacking reciprocity in the significance of another person.   The same allegation of flaws indicating inferiority is very often not considered or perceived as being the same but differing, when the target is either a woman or a man.   There are double standards concerning what treatment is pertinent and suitable for women but not for men.      

In the situation or disagreement with being treated as inferior by another man, a man often reacts to the insult with aggression and anger.   This is considered as only a man's appropriate reaction.  

When women are treated or considered as inferior by men, they are supposed and expected to react with acquiescence.  There is a general pattern of how easily men are prone to presume and accept a woman's inferiority without hesitation, doubt or further investigation, no matter, what the woman herself does, says, thinks or wants. 

This unfortunate pattern can be traced back to the combination of subconscious instinctive urges and more conscious gender roles serving those instincts. 

1.   Subconscious instincts

When a woman wants a companion for a relationship of two equal partners, this means for her the crucial and indispensable condition of mutual respect and appreciation.   It excludes alleging flaws, because this implies disrespect.   For such a woman, perceiving flaws or being considered flawed are indications of lacking equality and this impedes to get involved.   For her, it is equality or nothing.  
For many men, there are two levels, two alternative relationship concepts.   Even a man, who prefers to have an equal companion, does not automatically evaluate a woman as unsuitable, when he consciously perceives her as intellectually inferior, either by fact or allegation.   Instead, often instincts take control over him.   While he does not expect emotional and intellectual benefits from someone considered inferior, his instincts still react to physical attraction, and he continues to pursue her for the benefits from using her body as a utility.  

For any woman, who restricts her choice of whom to get involved with by her evaluation of being two equals, this leads to a tragic mismatch, whenever the man fails her expectations and instead degrades and devalues her as a utility due to her alleged flaws.  He subjectively feels as justified to use her as she feels justified to expect being perceived and treated as an equal partner.      

2.  Gender roles

Social gender roles represent the inclination and needs of the majority of the population.   These roles prescribe those behaviors, which are most successfully enabling this majority to live in accordance with their subconscious instincts.  This means that gender roles favor procreation.    
Gender roles therefore standardize behavior in favor of average people.   When applied to and forced upon people, who are different and not average, this is often very detrimental.   

Gender roles are installed into people's brains mostly during childhood and youth.   The gender roles still prevalent in my own generation here in Germany were based upon the asymmetry between the male breadwinner and the dependent housewife.  
These gender roles unfortunately confound innate inferiority and secondary inferiority caused by the lack of chances to develop the innate capacities, talents and skills.   
In those days men were on average better educated, better instructed, more skilled than women.   Therefore statistically, men and women more often than not found themselves in an asymmetrical situation of interaction, where the unfortunate women were intellectually inferior independent of their intelligence and their potentials.  
A woman wasting her life away as a housewife and mother was deprived of becoming an equal partner apt to participate in intellectual communication with a man, who was enabled and encouraged to cultivate his brain.  

By experiencing this circumstantial female inferiority, men were misled to generalize it to all women and to then treat them all indiscriminately as inferior, losing any perception to notice the exceptions.   Women were also brainwashed to expect all men as superior without even checking the reality of this myth.   Thus women omitted to correct the male prejudice and men got reinforced even more in their false belief in the general and innate female inferiority.  

Habituation and desensitization perpetuated this imbalanced situation.  Too many men continue to take women's inferiority and their acquiescence therewith for granted and natural, without consciously doubting this.  
In spite of the brainwashed average women's apparent or even real acquiescence, these gender roles are very harmful to those women, who are not average and not brainwashed.   The same attitudes and behavior, that are suitable or at least not harmful to average women, are often very hurting for egalitarian educated women.  

401. Monogamy And Intelligence - 2

Monogamy And Intelligence - 2

In entry 399, I have already quoted 

"Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist from the London School of Economics and Political Science, said the smarter a man is, the less likely he is to cheat on his partner."

Looking at it by considering the stimulation of the pleasure center in the brain (entries 388 and 389), this makes sense and can be easily explained.  

My age cohort here in Germany was about equally divided at the age of around 10 by their subsequent schooling in one of three groups.  
Group H:  About one third went to high education leading to university.
Group M:  About one third went to a middle level of education of ten years of schooling      
Group L:   About one third went to the lowest level of education of eight years of schooling

To show the contrast, I am comparing, what happens in the pleasure center of two prototypes, one is ManH from group H, and the other is ManL from group L.   

ManL leaves school at the age of 14.  He then either starts manual labor or learns a craft or trade.   In his short time of schooling, he learns basic skills, but it does not prepare him for the enjoyment of intellectual activities.   

He spends his leisure time with sports, drinking with his buddies, watching superficial stuff on TV.   He is inclined to compete with others to buy status symbols like a fancy car.   He may even work over time to be able to afford this, therefore he may also be too tired to ever be interested in anything intellectually challenging.    Lacking any intellectual accomplishments, for such a man his body and its instinctive use is his major source for self-esteem.   

In short, besides food, sexuality is the biggest stimulus for his pleasure center in his else rather dull life, because there is nothing else available.   Logically he easily gets infatuated with a woman and often he marries her, who is not any more educated than him.   She lives a different life interested in children, cooking, household and fashion.   

When the infatuation wears off, she turns to her offspring, the man starts to get less stimulation from being with her, and his instincts trigger his relapse into the promiscuous predator cheating whenever he has the occasion.     Alcohol may contribute to this.

ManH is very different, because he has some or many intellectual interests, that are at least as strong a stimulation for his pleasure center as are physical stimuli like food and sexual homeostation.   Therefore logically, any one of many possible stimuli is by far not as important, when there are many others to focus upon and compensate with.   When infatuation with his chosen companion wears off, ManH does not loose his most satisfying and major stimulation of his pleasure center, there is so much else to enjoy.    There are many shared cultural and intellectual activities, which are enough so that he can continue to be happily bonded in a monogamous relationship and not feel deprived of the thrill of the initial infatuation.   
I once heard a scientist talk about, how he could not even stop thinking about his research while being intimate with a woman.    Not knowing anything more about the circumstances, I cannot judge him, even though being the counterpart in this situation is certainly a reason for a woman to feel abused and humiliated.    But it is also a good sign, because it shows, that there are men, who can be more interested in intellectual joys than driven by instincts and they have no reason to cheat.   
Of course I prefer to find someone, whose preferred intellectual joys are those shared with a mindmate, and not his work excluding her.  
  
Therefore I am not only looking for an intelligent, educated and intellectual man to have enough shared interests to create intellectual intimacy, but also, because he can appreciate being with me for many reasons other than my body and he will be less prone to chase other women.

396. What If Romeo And Juliet Had Lived?

What If Romeo And Juliet Had Lived?
 
Scenario: A priest marries a girl of not yet 14 years of age with a boy only slightly older, without the knowledge of the parents.    Both have known each other for about a day.
Seen from today's perspective, it would be preposterous, except the consequences being too serious, so it is more an irresponsible madness. 
The priest should be adult and mature enough to know better than to marry two children, who are too immature to know the difference between loving a person and being infatuated by a body.    Probably the priest was stupid and immature himself.   Otherwise he would have chosen a more rational career than that of spreading a public delusion.

Yet this story is supposed to be the most romantic love story in literature, and countless people consider Romeo and Juliet as the prototype of a loving couple.   But it is only the tragic end, that did set their union and story apart as special.  

Had they survived, they would have ended like so many other couples with a similar social background of belonging to the nobility in the Italy of the 16th century.     There and also in the England of 1593 to 1596, when Skakespeare wrote the play, maturity seemed to be considered as the physical and educational fitness to fulfill very disparate gender roles.  

A boy's like Romeo's education focused primarily upon sportive fitness in every discipline serving his role as a fighting man, especially sword fencing, riding and being knowledgeable about horses, and secondary upon his role as a member of the ruling class.   
A girl's like Juliet's education focused upon preparing her for her role as an attractive possession of a man, a breeding womb and a refined organizer of a household.  
The only thing both genders of their class were taught was instruction to follow their religion, to dance, to sing, to play music and to write or recite poetry.   All of this was not enough to keep a couple interested in each other for a long time, if they were brought together merely by infatuation.  

Romeo was exiled to Mantova, where he could have received enough money from his parents to enable Juliet and himself the same luxury life as they had been used to in Verona.  But had Romeo taken Juliet to Mantova, the romance would not have lasted, their infatuation would have faded like it always does, if there is nothing deeper.   They would have drifted apart for having nothing to talk about, getting bored with each other's company.   When Julia got the first of a dozen children, she would have turned her affection and attention to the children, probably she would had grown obese too.  Romeo would have gone back to a world of leisure with his buddies and sooner or later would have cheated on Juliet with the servant girls.   

In entry 301, I commented on Shakespeare's other play: 'The Taming Of The Shrew'.    It is set in the same culture and time as Romeo and Juliet.   The jerk mistreating Kathrina had the typical attitude towards woman as had most men of his times, he was in addition also extremely cruel and inconsiderate.   But even a considerate and caring Romeo was certainly not able to consider Juliet as an equal partner.    On a more subtle level, Juliet and Romeo would have encountered similar conflicts as there were between Kathrina and Petruccio.  

289. France is a Very Progressive Country

France is a Very Progressive Country

I just read about this and I am very pleased.  

"A cross-party commission of French MPs have recommended criminalising all clients of sex workers, meaning anyone who buys sex from any kind of prostitute would face prison and a fine."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/13/france-illegal-pay-sex

"We must "look to the client, long overlooked but central player in prostitution" . Goal: "Make him aware of the implications of these actions." And then, to penalize him. Creating, by statute, tort sanctioning the use in prostitution of a sentence of six months in prison and 3000 euro fine. "

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8781225-prostitution-the-state-wants-to-charge-the-customer

That really made my day:   Finally another country is following the example of Sweden and establishes a law to influence the social norm towards the long overdue acknowledgment, that women's bodies are not commodities to be used and bought. 

The European Union is over regulating so much.   Why don't they make the law against the abuse of women valid for the entire European Union?   
Why is Germany such a backwards country, that here prostitution is considered a legal occupation in no way different from hairdressing or pedicure, paying taxes and social insurance contributions?    Not only that, but German women on unemployment benefit risk to loose their subsistence, if the job center sends them to work in a brothel and they refuse.   This is an outrage, even if the job is cleaning or book keeping.       

If they would not only pass that law in France, but also rigorously prosecute the clients and fine them, this would bring in a lot of money.   That money then could be used for a training program for young boys at school about the benefits of a monogamous relationship, installing in them so much respect for women, that it would never occur to them to abuse a woman's body for sex.    If enough clients get caught and are forced to pay, if all young boys are given the anti-promiscuity training, then France could become a real paradise for women.     There is an expression in German for a real good life, it is living like god in France.    But then, it would also be possible to live like a goddess in France.

Vive la France!   

267. A Fascinating Video

A Fascinating Video

I already have written entry 107 as a homage to James Randi.   Here is a video of a nearly three hours long lecture by Randi.     I really enjoyed watching it.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1259-video-from-trondheim-and-recent-press-coverage.html

68. Breeding Supplies Potential Time Bombs

Breeding Supplies Potential Time Bombs

In entry 66, I derived the word brat from BRood And peT, and in this sense I am bratfree.   That means my personal choice not to be a caretaker for any being, that requires being fed, sheltered and cleaned without the availability of the reward and benefit of mature and intellectual communication.   And I am looking for a bratfree mindmate.   Of course, my refusal to be a caretaker of brats is no refusal to care for a mindmate, when he gets sick and frail.   

But I am indifferent to other people's children.   They neither disturb nor attract me.    They are just a part of the social environment.   As a consequence of the overpopulation of the globe, people should breed as little as possible.

I am on some childfree forums, and some people there are militantly against children, and resent, that their taxes are used for the upbringing of children.    The latter is a dangerous attitude.   Breeders supply society with potential time bombs.    Without prevention, later on the juvenile delinquents and lifelong criminals could rob, mug, break in and even kill.  I could be the victim, as anybody else could be too.  
Once a breeder has done, what he could not refrain from, the society should do its best to make sure, that the raw material, called baby, will be converted into a valuable member of society, who will never do harm to others and take care of himself without taking advantage of others.  
It is much better to invest the tax money as early as possible into providing kindergarten facilities, good schools, social workers, education advice, rather then spending it later on prisons, correction institutions and a huge police force.   

40. The Importance of Teaching Emotional Intelligence

The Importance of Teaching Emotional Intelligence

Humans have evolved for a life in small groups of people, whom they all knew well as individuals.   People died young, procreation was unavoidable for survival, which also required a lot of hard work.    Social control was strong, hierarchies formed, undisputed rules were compulsory with little need for responsibility.   The difference between ingroup and outgroup was clearly defined.    There was a limited amount of mental stimulation in the environment, and people most probably were usually too tired to reflect too much.    
They had no need to read and write, and they had no need for emotional intelligence.  

In our modern complex societies, the skill of advanced emotional intelligence as a method how to interact with others is as vital as the skill to read and write.   It is time to stop expecting people to become mature and to function successfully in a complex environment, for which evolution has not prepared them.   They need to be prepared better.    Reaching maturity requires emotional intelligence, that they have no chance to learn as early in life as when it is needed.   

Children are taught to read and write at school.   Nobody teaches them emotional intelligence as a skill to become responsible human beings guided by their own moral judgement.  

Children are taught, what the parents, their deity and the law is going to punish and to reward them for.   As far as they ever develop emotional intelligence, they learn in slowly by trial and error, after having already made serious mistakes in basic, life determining decisions.    Children are taught to be aware of consequences of crossing a street without attention, before allowed to do so by themselves.    They are not taught the long term consequences of wrong decisions upon themselves.           

As far, as there is any support, it is only given, after some drastic mistake has already been made, whatever intervention it is, from anti-aggression training in puberty to psychotherapy for people, who are in trouble and pain.

There needs to be prevention.   
Emotional intelligence should be made a subject at school as important as reading, writing and calculation.   
If children from the first grade on were taught communications skills, empathy, introspection to know themselves, their values, needs and peculiarities, awareness and self control, then most of them would be enabled to make wise choices, rational decisions and fair deals with others.   

This could prevent a lot of bullying, juvenile delinquency, psychological dysfunction as a result of choosing an unsuitable mate, having children without wanting them or choosing a career that does not fit their needs.    It could enable people to be more aware, when they are in a detrimental situation, before they have gone sick from it.   It could prevent a lot of people damaging others by ignorance, even when they mean well.    It could prevent some people to become dangerous and teach people to recognize, who is dangerous, so that maybe some damage done by them could be avoided.  

There is nothing wrong with teaching pupils at school geography, chemistry, physics, biology, sports, music, art and so on, but these are subjects, that people can learn about elsewhere, when they are interested, they can study them at university.   But teaching such topics is futile, as long as too many of the pupils go truant, bully their class mates, become delinquent, substance addicted or pregnant during puberty.   
Teaching such subjects to pupils, who are not capable to become mature, is like the attempt to build a house by starting with the second floor but omitting the fundament and the ground floor.  

28. How To Keep the Prisons Empty

How To Keep the Prisons Empty

Life starts, when it can exist independently outside the womb.   Until then, an embryo is just a bunch of biological matter, and if not wanted, there is no rational difference between an embryo and a tumor as something to be removed.   

Having something unwantedly growing in the womb is not a justification to require, demand or coerce a person to raise it.

Given the availability of contraception, the availability of unlimited abortion during the first three months and the availability of a legal way of depositing unwanted children anonymously for adoption, it is justified to protect children from the moment of their birth on.    But these are the rational requirements to allow a woman to prevent the situation to have the raising of an unwanted child forced upon her.  

The deity delusion includes the fatal claim, that every life is very precious, because it is a gift of the deity.   If the life is unhappy or if it becomes a hazard to others is of no importance to the deity.    Rationally seen, considering a newborn as having the same value as an adult is a depreciation of the sacrifices of the caregivers.   

Statistics have clearly shown, that unwanted children are a high risk to become criminals, the population of jails consists in a high proportion of unwanted children.    They are at risk, if they are raised by unwilling caregivers, but also when they grow up in orphanages.   

Therefore, there should not be unwanted children.   Every unwanted child is one too many. The decision for or against an abortion is unfortunately distorted many times by the delusion of depriving the deity of her gift.   But rationally seen, an abortion does not make a change, it merely reinstates the baseline, which is the empty womb, just as it was before the pregnancy.   To get pregnant again, if a child is wanted later, is usually easier than to even get an abortion.    Without the deity delusion, an abortion could therefore be the standard procedure, not only, when the pregnancy is not wanted, but even, when there is any doubt.   Dealing with an unwanted child is so much more problematic then getting pregnant again.

Since there is the abortion pill, it is a simple way to do it, if the pill would be sold freely.    It is scandalous, that this pill is controlled under the financial and political power of those, whose own judgment is disabled by the deity delusion.

Thus, abortion is the first step in the prevention of crime.   

A newborn baby is only a form of raw material.    What converts it into an healthy, independent, decent citizen is the investment of time and money by the caregivers.   

There is no way to prevent people from producing more raw material than is good.  

But the focus of society should be on the quality of the children and not on the quantity, and that is the second step of prevention.

It is obvious that good education from early on in kindergarten and school is important, but this is not sufficient.   The focus should be on the parents.    There is a training and a licence required for nearly everything, driving is an example.    Driving lessons are to protect others from being injured by an unable driver.  

People, who want to raise children, should get some training too, instead of being allowed to raise children to become a hazard to others. 

The first step could be obligatory courses at high school, not only in how to handle babies, but also in communication and other aspects of education.    During pregnancy, there could be a course offered, which ends with a licence of basic parental training, which could then be accompanied by regular additional courses in accordance with the age of the child.  

Since nobody can stop people from breeding like rabbits, the only way to make them undergo parenting training, are some substantial incentives.    The incentive could be a monthly payments from the government and a reward, when the child reaches a given age, maybe 21, and has not become a criminal and a burden to society.  

That reward could be a sum for the child towards further education, starting a business, buying a house, and an additional sum to the retirement pay of the parents.    

The money saved on institutions for unwanted children, juvenile delinquents, jails and the damage done by the criminals would be sufficient to pay the parental training and incentives.   

23. Interdependence of Instincts

Interdependence of Instincts

The following thoughts are limited to mammals:

In the first posting, I listed three main instincts, that make a man a hazard to me, if any one of these instincts is stronger than rationality.   But those instincts are not independent.  

Both, the saksual (misspelling for the purpose to avoid to be found in filthy men's searches) instinct and the dominance instinct are a consequence of the procreation instinct, enabling success. 

I use the expression dominance instinct for the instinctive drive to fight for a high position in a hierarchy of power, because the power gives advantage in the competition for scarce resources.  

The urge to procreate is not limited to the mere survival of a species, but to produce a surplus of members as a part of the carnivorous food chain.   Mice breed, and a part of the population is eaten by foxes, foxes breed and a part is eaten by wolves.    Even humans in prehistoric times had reasons to breed surplus, because they were part of the diet of bears, lions and tigers. 

The result of progress in technology has led to the overpopulation of the earth.   Not only because of ecological reasons, but also, because some areas are not suitable for human settlement.   People are forced or compelled to live, where earthquakes, floods and tornadoes, extreme heat make live a hazard, so that the area is not really suitable for living in safety.    People slave away years of their live to build houses and then in a short moment all is destructed.   In California, an earthquake of a catastrophic magnitude is expected in the near future.   Wise people would move to safe places.   But considering the general overpopulation, there are not enough safe areas on this globe for all people.

Usually there are roughly as many males as females in any species.   But there is a discrepancy between the reproduction time of males, that is much shorter than that of females due to the duration of pregnancy.  

As a consequence, many animals like lions form groups, in which one male controls a harem of several females.  

But this is also practiced in some human societies.    I once read a book about traditional African villages and family life.   A compound starts with a hut for the man, and a hut for wife number one.   As soon as she has the first child, she is put on hold, the man marries a second wife, who gets her own hut, and she has his attentions, until she also has a child.   Depending on the man's financial power, he might get more wives.    When the child of a wife is old enough to be weened, she then again gets the macho's attentions, until she has another child.

The rule, that a man may have four wives, is even written into the coran.

Logically, when some males take control over the fertility of several females each, others are left without a mate.    While there can be environments, where there is sufficient food for every body without fighting for it, there are never as many fertile females as males want to have by the instinct for procreation. 

Thus a high instinct for procreation in a male leads only to breeding success, if there is also enough of a dominance instinct to acquire the fertile females.   

But then there is the another question.   When the procreation instinct is lower than rationality, can there still be a high dominance and saksual instinct, either both or one?   I think this is possible, when there is no attitude of a balance of giving and receiving, but the selfish strive for advantages.    Narcissists driven by the entitlement and grandiosity delusion could be examples.    This is another example, where delusions could be connected to instincts.  

Education, especially during the early years of course has some influence.    Religions in some form promise reward for breeding and punishment for not breeding especially by active prevention.    Lucky those, for whom education and the instinctive inclination were congruent, where those with a high procreation instinct were encouraged by their religion, and where those with a low procreation instinct were raised in a secular environment. 

But unlucky those, who have a low procreation instinct but are brainwashed into having offspring that they do not really want, especially women, who are tied down by an unwanted burden for many years.

In modern western societies, when contraception and abortion are available, many women have only one or maybe two children, some stay childfree, and some regret to have as many children as they have.     Before medicine had progressed so far, until a few hundred years ago, having children was all married women's fate, and while it was common to have more than a dozen children, it is very questionable, if the women wanted so many.  

The only way to avoid pregnancy was to fend their husbands off as much as possible. 

But if the man had to fight for gaining control over the woman and felt an urge to do so, then this means, that he was driven by a high procreation and high dominance instinct.    Logically, that if he has successfully gained dominance over other men, that he generalises his instinctive tendency and dominates also the females.   The male, who is driven by all three instincts and his target are females, could be called a macho by instinct.   

The macho, who had to fight hard to gain a position of power first by competing with other men to acquire a woman and then with her to gain control over her fertility wants his reward by getting as many offspring as bearers of his genes, else he would not have struggled.

But if the woman wants to have as few children as possible, it makes me wonder, why men by evolution have become stronger than women.   Maybe to be able to force dominance and procreation upon unwilling women?   I wonder, if there were smaller populations, if men were not stronger than women, if men could not force procreation upon women.

Maybe as a reaction to how machos use power over women, some women compensate their helpless feelings by the power over the children, maybe some even have children to have someone to have power over.  

Being a woman dominated by a man, who is stronger and driven by instincts has been a dire fate all through prehistory and history.

Being a woman with high rationality in a world, where most men are driven by macho instincts, she has a difficult situation to protect herself.

8. Miscellaneous

Risk-Taking

I do not want a hero, who risks his life. I do not want to worry about someone, who drives around on a motorcycle or climbs mountains. It is bad enough, that life expectancy for men is shorter than for women, but I prefer not to loose someone to his risky hobbies.

But I appreciate it very much, when a person has the courage to be sincere, speak the truth no matter the consequences, does no hide things.

Sports

I enjoy hiking, bicycling, swimming, and when I was younger, I have been skiing, ice skating and sailing. But this is for the fun of being active outdoors, I dislike to do any such thing to exhaustion. I like to find a partner for sharing such outdoor activities, and he might enjoy other sportive activities in moderation.

But if any sports fanatic, who defines his masculinity in shaping his body by working-out every day, is not really my intellectual mindmate. Also I expect enough of a cultural level so that any consumption of spectator sports, either in the stadium or on TV bores him as much as me.

Pictures

I never publish pictures. I am not a body to be chosen by my looks from a catalogue. After a few mails, when there is an understanding about basic compatibility, I will send picture by private email.

Formal Education

Intellectual communication and an profound exchange of thoughts is important to me. I like to discuss things on the basis of skepticism and a scientific approach. An equal partner in this is someone, who not only is intelligent, but has formed his intellect in at least a few years of university or college.

Someone without formal education could be a kind and caring companion, but if he has never heard of things like 'double blind' studies and such, then it could be very difficult to share a life based upon rational decisions.

When two partners have roughly the same level of formal education, they have a good chance to learn from each other.

I got the German equivalent of a MA.

Location

Someone compatible is difficult to find, therefore I am not restricting my search geographically. I only restrict it to having one language in common, that we both speak well enough to enable us profound communication.

With modern technical means of transport and communication, it is easier to overcome geographical distances than mental distances.

I am looking for someone, who would want to move in here with me, or as an alternative move together between two homes.

This is not an offer to sponsor men from third world countries to come to Germany for the papers.

Conformism

I am a non-conformist.    I am not an anti-conformist.   That means, I choose and decide based on my own value system and needs, based upon reasoning.   My choice is independent of how much or how little my choice is shared by others.   I am not influenced by the fact, if nobody, anybody or everybody happens to do the same.  

The Contents of the Glass

I have often heard the question, if a glass is half full or half empty.   There is a rational answer to it:  During the process of being filled, at one moment, it is half full.   During the process of being emptied, at one moment, it is half empty.