CREATIONISM

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

www.creationism.org

www.creationism.org ARTICLES

Thought-provoking articles about our ancient history and the importance of our creation in God's own image and fall from grace. Each new false religion of the post-Flood period has sought to detract from our Creator and from our responsibilities in this life; evolution's effect is no different and it (macro-evolution) continues to lack any scientific substance. Pray about this! And study as needed, especially since the media continues to report this issue inaccurately. Please study the plethora of Biblical and scientific knowledge standing squarely against this spiritual deception. [English Introduction] ...for other language Introductions, see Left sidebar.


BOOKS ON-LINE

Over two dozen Creation Science books! Now available to read and study. Some of these quality titles are completely FREE for you to download and copy for any educational purpose.


MP3 Teaching On-line Section

A variety of Creation Science Answers Download for convenience and ease of play. MP3 is a popular audio format - for use at home, in school or the office, or while traveling.



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Creation Social Science & Humanities Society Quarterly Journal Archives

Over 300 articles - Research on all facets of Creation theory's impact in the social sciences: history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, linguistics, etc. Also many articles on scientific subjects and thought provoking editorials!


Answers To My Evolutionist Friends

I am writing a number of articles under the series title: Answers to my Evolutionist Friends. Help me weed out scientific errors.
One of my best brief evidences for creation is going out by email each month. Each one is very carefully written so you can use it in your evangelistic conversations or to forward to your friends, etc. To get them to you I need your email address! Please email it to me at: heinze@hevanet.com. Thank you! So far people are loving them, but if you don't like them just ask to be taken off the list. (Your email address will be kept confidential.)



Creation Resource Library

Hundreds of Creation Science videos available for FREE check-out. There is so much to learn - and even leading creationist speakers are still learning (often from each other!). Ellen will mail up to 3 videos at a time, requesting a prompt return. See web page section for details. This is an excellent service - and Ellen would love to hear from you and to help you learn more about Creation Science.


STUFF FOR KIDS!!!

Educational and fun learning materials for children of all ages! Children need to learn that they're not an evolutionary "accident" but that God created and loves them. Evolution in practice, historically speaking, always does the most damage to the weakest members of society. Why play fair? Why be honest? Because we were created for a purpose.


DRAGON IMAGES!

Lots of dragon/dinosaur images, included for educational purposes. Just look at these remains of pre-Flood dinosaur life mass buried only thousands of years ago, as verified by C14 dating. FREE to download and copy. 190 JPG images taken at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Their evolutionary texts included between the photos (with the usual "Rocks Dating Fossils" and "Fossils Dating Rocks" - circular reasoning!) along with a creationist interpretation of the fossil record, below all the free images.


SPACE - PLANET & STAR IMAGES

70 marvelous space images from NASA and other space agencies. These free images can be downloaded, copied, printed and re-distributed.


MOUNT ST. HELENS - 7 WONDERS MUSEUM

The 7 Wonders Creation Museum is an Information Center with Display Room and bookstore that demonstates how catastrophes rather than slow and gradual processes are primarily responsible for geological changes around the earth. At this museum, formations produced by Mount St. Helens during the '80's has become a key to better interpret the age of the earth and places like the Grand Canyon.


CREATION GEOLOGY IN RUSSIA - ARCTUR RESEARCH (IN RUSSIAN & ENGLISH)

The Lab is designed for investigations in geology and geochemistry on the base of mathematical modeling of geological processes. Since 1994, the Lab works are closely related to the studies on Flood sedimentology and elaboration of alternative methods of dating for geological events and objects.


CHRISTIAN CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND APOLOGETICS (MOSTLY IN RUSSIAN)

INTRODUCING the Truth to skeptics; STRENGTHENING the saints in their confidence in the Truth; EQUIPPING God's people to be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks the reason for their hope.


EVOLUTION 101 - 25 Lessons (IN ENGLISH)

Creation by God supports every one of the laws and principles of science, as cited in these lessons. Evolution violates every one of them. Every so-called scientific fact in support of the general theory of (macro-)evolution from atheistic and anti-theistic scientists is not testable-repeatable.

CENSORSHIP

Censorship of the Media Creating Insidious Chill on Free Expression on our Airwaves

by US Rep. Bernie Sanders

The following is a 2/16/2005 floor statement by Rep. Bernard Sanders in opposition to The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act 2005:

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I think we can all agree that we do not want our children exposed to obscenity on the public airwaves. That goes without saying.

As someone who last year voted in favor of similar legislation, I am increasingly alarmed by the culture of censorship that seems to be developing in this country, and I will not be voting for this bill today. This censorship is being conducted by the corporate owners of our increasingly consolidated, less diverse media. And it is being done by the government. This result is an insidious chill on free expression on our airwaves.

There are a lot of people in Congress who talk about freedom, freedom and freedom but, apparently, they do not really believe that the American people should have the "freedom" to make the choice about what they listen to on radio or watch on TV. There are a lot of people in Congress who talk about the intrusive role of "government regulators," but today they want government regulators to tell radio and TV stations what they can air. I disagree with that. A vote for this bill today will make America a less free society.

Mr. Speaker: I am not a conservative. But on this issue I find myself in strong agreement with Mr. Adam D. Thierer, the Director of Telecommunications studies at the Cato Institute - a very conservative think tank. And here is the very common sense, pro-freedom position that he brings forth:

"Those of use who are parents understand that raising a child in today's modern media marketplace is a daunting task at times. But that should not serve as an excuse for inviting Uncle Sam in to play the role of surrogate parent for us and the rest of the public without children.

"Even if lawmakers have the best interest of children in mind, I take great offense at the notion that government officials must do this job for me and every other American family.

"Censorship on an individual/parental level is a fundamental part of being a good parent. But censorship at a government level is an entirely different matter because it means a small handful of individuals get to decide what the whole nation is permitted to see, hear or think.

"I've always been particularly troubled by the fact that so many conservatives, who rightly preach the gospel of personal and parental responsibility about most economic issues, seemingly give up on this notion when it comes to cultural issues."

Mr. Speaker, the specter of censorship is growing in America today, and we have got to stand firmly in opposition to it. What America is about is not necessarily liking what you have to say or agreeing with you, but it is your right to say it. Today, it is Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction or Howard Stern's vulgarity. What will it be tomorrow?

Let me give just a couple of examples of increased censorship on the airwaves. In January of 2004, CBS refused to air a political advertisement during the Super Bowl by MoveOn.org that was critical of President Bush's role in creating the federal deficit. Last November, sixty-six ABC affiliates refused to air the brilliant World War II movie "Saving Private Ryan," starring Tom Hanks, for fear that they would be fined for airing programming containing profanity and graphic violence, even though ABC had aired the uncut movie in previous years. This ironically was a movie that showed the unbelievable sacrifices that American soldiers made on D-Day fighting for freedom against Hitler, but ABC affiliates around the country didn't feel free to show it. Last November, CBS and NBC refused to run a 30-second ad from the United Church of Christ because it suggested that gay couples were welcome to their Church. The networks felt that it was "too controversial" to air. And just last month, many PBS stations refused to air an episode of Postcards with Buster, a children's show, because Education Secretary Spellings objected to the show's content, which included Buster, an 8-year old bunny-rabbit, learning how to make maple syrup from a family with two mothers in Vermont.

Mr. Speaker, each of these examples represent a different aspect of the culture of censorship that is growing in America today. My fear is that the legislation we have before us today will only compound this problem and make a bad situation worse.

This legislation would impose vastly higher fines on broadcasters for so-called indecent material. But this legislation does not provide any relief from the vague standard of indecency that can be arbitrarily applied by the FCC. That means broadcasters, particularly small broadcasters, will have no choice but to engage in a very dangerous cycle of self-censorship to avoid a fine that could drive some of them into bankruptcy. Broadcasters are already doing it now. Imagine what will happen when a violation can bring a $500,000 fine. If this legislation is enacted, the real victim will be free expression and Americans' First Amendment rights.

In the past week I have sought out the views of broadcasters in my own state of Vermont and I have heard from many of them. Without exception they are extremely concerned about the effect this legislation will have on programming decisions.

Mr. Speaker, I am enclosing a copy of a statement by Mr. John King, President and CEO of Vermont Public Television.

Statement of Mr. John King, President and CEO of VT Public Television on H.R. 310:

Vermont Public Television, like other local broadcasters, does its best to serve the needs and interests of its local community. It's a great privilege and a great responsibility to have a broadcast license. While we acknowledge that there must be sanctions for broadcasters who misuse the public airwaves, we believe the sanctions proposed in HR 310 are extreme.

The FCC's proposals for increased fines for obscenity, indecency and profanity have already had a chilling effect on broadcasters nationally and locally, including Vermont Public Television. The legislation also makes lodging a complaint easier and puts the burden of proof on the station. Codifying these proposals into law will make the situation worse.

While many people might assume the new sanctions are aimed at commercial broadcasters, public broadcasters are feeling the effects every day. Public television's educational programming for children has always provided a safe haven. The same public television stations that take such care of their young viewers also respect the intelligence and discretion of their adult viewers to make the best viewing choices for themselves.

Vermont Public Television has always operated responsibly in our programming for adults. At times, our programs included adult language and situations appropriate to the informational or artistic purpose of a program. While there have always been prohibitions against gratuitous indecency, the FCC always took context into account. Now, it seems that context is no longer considered.

Much as we might like to invoke our First Amendment rights, we dare not risk the large fine that could come with a single violation. The $500,000 maximum fine could put a small station like VPT out of business.

Last year, when the FCC proposed increased fines and told broadcasters there was one word that would never be appropriate on the air, PBS and its member stations, including Vermont Public Television, began to make content choices so as not to run afoul of the new FCC restrictions.

PBS programmers began making edits to national programs being distributed to stations. An "American Experience" documentary on Emma Goldman was scrutinized for what might possibly look like a bare breast and edited, just to be sure. On "Antiques Roadshow," a nude poster was edited. This month, most PBS stations will air a drama from HBO called "Dirty War ." In the story, a woman showers to remove radiation. When the program airs on PBS, the shower scene will be edited.

Our programming director, and no doubt most local programmers, have become very cautious. Once the FCC starts telling broadcasters they must not use certain words or situations, programmers tend to avoid producing and airing programs with words and situations that might even come close to content that could be subject to fines.

At VPT, we produce many live local programs with panelists representing many points of view. We take calls from viewers live on the air. There has never been a problem with language, but the legislation's reference to using a "time delay blocking mechanism" makes us worry. We don't use a time delay. Are we subject to a fine if a panelist or a caller uses a word considered obscene, indecent or profane?

Our programming director says the FCC proposals have already made us rule out airing independent films on our "Reel Independent" program. Films by Vermont filmmakers that we would have aired in past years are not being accepted for broadcast now.
We cannot support HR 310 as it is written.

CELIBACY

Ambrosian!

Abstaining from sex for life is in, healthy, cool, it's the new way.
There's a new awareness on the horizon and abstinence is playing a big
role in it. If it's a choice you already have made, are thinking about making
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It's the healthy lifestyle for achieving youth and good health.

CARJACKING

Carjacking Facts

Robbery Prevention Advice
by Chris E McGoey, CPP, CSP, CAM
Carjacking is Robbery
Carjacking is the violent form of motor vehicle theft. It is a serious threat to our personal safety because the thief uses force and fear to rob our car from us. Sometimes the car owner or other occupants are kidnapped during a carjacking, and if lucky will be dropped off nearby unharmed. The worst case scenario occurs when you are transported to a secondary crime scene, which is usually more dangerous than the original confrontation. Those not so lucky victims have suffered other crimes like rape, aggravated assault, and even homicide.

Since the mid-1980s, carjacking has captured the attention of the media with reports of these sudden and violent attacks. Carjackers have unknowingly driven off with infants still in the backseat of the car, leaving behind a screaming and emotionally distressed parent. Other drivers have been violently pulled out of their seats and left lying on the road, terrified by what just occurred.

The crime of carjacking can be traumatic to our everyday lives because it creates fear in the common act of driving a car. Victims of carjacking have reported being unable to drive a car again while others required months of therapy. Others have become so hypersensitive, that embarrassing and dangerous situations have arisen in response to their fear when someone unwittingly approached their car on foot.

How Carjacking Got Started
Carjacking has always been around, especially in large metropolitan cities, we just rarely read about it. The crime of carjacking "took off" in the 1980s after the media published stories of bizarre situations and the violence associated with the crime. The media coined the phrase "carjacking" and the crime of auto theft took on a new identity. After a rush of publicity, other criminals "copied" the crime of carjacking. These copycat criminals must have said, "Hey, I can steal any vehicle I want without damaging it, I get the car keys, and I can rob the owner too. What a concept!"

Another reason carjacking got started is because of the sophistication and prevalence of new anti-theft devices and alarm systems. New car alarms and steering wheel locking systems made it tougher on the auto thief. Chip-integrated ignition switches, engine cutoff devices, and stolen vehicle locators are now more common in cars. Unfortunately for us, poorly motivated and unskilled car thieves have adapted by becoming more violent to get the cars they need and don't think twice about using force against us.

Sometimes criminals will carjack a vehicle for use in another crime like armed robbery or for a drive-by shooting. These carjackers prefer to have a set of car keys and not have a visibly smashed window or damaged ignition switch that can be easily spotted by the police. This class of car thief is the most dangerous because they are usually heavily armed and are not concerned with your welfare.

How Often Does Carjacking Occur
National carjacking statistics are not available. However, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)* made a telephone assessment of 221,000 households from 1992-1996 to gain an understanding of the extent of the carjacking problem. The biggest problem of tracking carjacking incidents is current police agency reporting practices. Most criminal codes have not adopted this new crime type nor do they track it statistically. Most police jurisdictions charge the crime of carjacking as a robbery since force or fear was used to steal the vehicle directly for the owner. Many police agencies record multiple charges like aggravated robbery, auto theft, assault, battery to one event but usually only the first charge (robbery) gets indexed and statistically tracked. Some jurisdictions charge the crime of carjacking as only an auto theft since a vehicle was stolen.

Since the crime of carjacking is not indexed in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, it is unlikely that we will soon see a national statistic on frequency that is generated from police reports. What we have to work with is the NCVS telephone survey as the source of our data.

From the study of 1992-1996, the NCVS learned that each year 49,000 carjackings and attempts occur in the United States. About half of the reported carjackings were failed attempts. Of the completed carjackings, 92% had weapons where only 75% were armed during the failed attempts. Unfortunately, this statistic tells us that carjackers must be armed to be taken seriously by victims. A handgun was the weapon of choice followed by a knife. Males were responsible for 97% of the carjackings and attempts and were usually carried out by either one or two perpetrators.

Where Does Carjacking Occur
Carjacking can occur anywhere, but is largely a big city problem like traditional auto theft. See my web site on auto theft facts for more information.

Carjacking occurs most often in a busy commercial area where cars are parked and when the owner is entering or exiting the parked vehicle. Most carjackings or attempts (65%) occur within five miles of the victim's home. The carjacker wants the keys readily available and the car door unlocked for a quick getaway. Carjackers tend to rob lone victims more often (92%), for obvious reasons. According to the NCVS, men were victimized more often than women, blacks more than whites; Hispanics, more than non-Hispanics; and divorced, separated, or never married more than married or widowed. This trend is not surprising given the fact that younger single males tend to take more chances and go to higher risk locations than do married persons. It is unclear whether household income or the value of the vehicle is a criterion in carjacking as the statistics are spread throughout the income levels. However the $35,000 to $50,000 income range had a slightly higher carjack victim frequency.

Surprisingly, the NCVS study indicates that 64% of the daytime carjackings were actually completed, while less than half of those at night were completed. This may be reflective of who is being victimized and who is out at night. About 62% of all carjacking victims took some form of action to defend themselves or their property. Victims were injured about 20% of the time in completed carjackings and about 16% during attempts. Although the statistics aren't clear, each year about 27 homicides are reported related to auto theft. Also interesting is that 100% of the completed carjack victims called the police, whereas only 57% called to report an attempt carjacking. This variable in reporting is probably related to the desire to get their property back and for insurance purposes.

Popular carjacking locations are parking lots, shopping centers, gas stations, car washes, convenience stores, ATMs, hotels, valet parking, fast-food drive-thru, and outside of retail stores. Close proximity to a freeway onramp is a desirable escape factor from the carjackers prospective. A risky, but popular location for the carjacker is a roadway intersection with a stoplight. A carjacker will jump out of another vehicle, pull open your unlocked drivers’ door, and force you to get out. The type of carjacking allows for a quick escape but increases their risk of being followed by other drivers armed with cell phones. There have been incidents where well-meaning citizens got into a high-speed chase following carjackers and ended up being victims themselves.

The "Bump" and Carjack
Another copycat scheme used by carjackers is to bump your car from behind to get you to pull over and stop. We have all been trained to always stop following an auto accident to exchange license and insurance information. What a perfect scenario for a carjacker!

The carjacker, and his accomplice, will follow the intended victim to a suitable location with good escape routes and few witnesses. The carjacker will crash into the back of your vehicle at low speed and "bump" you with enough force to make you believe a traffic accident had just occurred. Beware of the Good Samaritan. Typically, the drivers of both vehicles pull over, stop, and get out discussing the damage. At this point the carjacker robs you of your vehicle, its’ contents, and drives away. The carjacker's car gets driven away by the accomplice. Hopefully you won't be injured during the exchange.

What Should You Do?
Carjacking of parked vehicles depends on the car owner being inattentive to their surroundings. Carjackers, like street robbers, prefer the element of surprise. Most victims say they never saw the carjacker until they appeared at their car door. To reduce your risk of being carjacked, I have listed some common sense steps below:

•Always park in well-lighted areas, if you plan to arrive/leave after dark
•Don't park in isolated or visually obstructed areas near walls or heavy foliage
•Use valet parking or an attended garage, if you're a woman driving alone
•As you walk to your car be alert to suspicious persons sitting in cars
•Ask for a security escort if you are alone at a shopping center
•Watch out for young males loitering in the area (handing out flyers, etc)
•If someone tries to approach, change direction or run to a busy store
•Follow your instincts if they tell you to walk/run away to a busy place
•As you approach your vehicle, look under, around, and inside your car
•If safe, open the door, enter quickly, and lock the doors
•Don't be a target by turning your back while loading packages into the car
•Make it your habit to always start your car and drive away immediately
•Teach and practice with your children to enter and exit the car quickly
•In the city, always drive with your car doors locked and windows rolled up
•When stopped in traffic, leave room ahead to maneuver and escape, if necessary
•If you are bumped in traffic, by young males, be suspicious of the accident
•Beware of the Good Samaritan who offers to repair your car or a flat tire. It's okay to get help, just be alert
•Wave to follow, and drive to a gas station or busy place before getting out
•If you are ever confronted by an armed carjacker don’t resist
•Give up your keys or money if demanded without resistance
•Don’t argue, fight or chase the robber. You can be seriously injured
•Never agree to be kidnapped. Drop the cars keys and run and scream for help
•If you are forced to drive, consider crashing your car near a busy intersection to attract attention so bystanders can come to your aid and call the police
•Call the police immediately to report the crime and provide detailed information
*National Crime Victimization Survey
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) - 1999

For More Information
•Auto Theft Facts
•Top 25 Stolen Cars
•Parking Lot Security Tips
•Auto Theft -- Top 10 Theft Cities
•Auto Theft -- Top 10 Port & Border Theft Cities

Death Penalty

Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty

Capital punishment, also dubbed the "death penalty," is the pre-meditated and planned taking of a human life by a government in response to a crime committed by that legally convicted person.
Passions in the US are sharply divided, and equally strong among both supporters and protesters of the death penalty.

Arguing against capital punishment, Amnesty International believes that "The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It violates the right to life...It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. There can never be any justification for torture or for cruel treatment."

Arguing for capital punishment, the Clark County, Indiana Prosecuting Attorney writes that "...there are some defendants who have earned the ultimate punishment our society has to offer by committing murder with aggravating circumstances present. I believe life is sacred. It cheapens the life of an innocent murder victim to say that society has no right to keep the murderer from ever killing again. In my view, society has not only the right, but the duty to act in self defense to protect the innocent."

And Catholic Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, writes "...the death penalty diminishes all of us, increases disrespect for human life, and offers the tragic illusion that we can teach that killing is wrong by killing."

Death Penalty in the U.S.

The death penalty has not always been practiced in the U.S. although ReligiousTolerance.org states that in the U.S., "about 13,000 people have been legally executed since colonial times."

The Depression era 1930s, which saw a historic peak in executions, was followed by a dramatic decrease in the 1950s and 1960s. No executions occurred in the US between 1967 to 1976.

In 1972, the Supreme Court effectively nullified the death penalty, and converted the death sentences of hundreds of death row inmates to life in prison.

In 1976, another Supreme Court ruling found capital punishment to be Constitutional. From 1976 through June 3, 2009, 1,167 people have been executed in the U.S.


Latest Developments
The vast majority of democratic countries in Europe and Latin America have abolished capital punishment over the last fifty years, but United States, most democracies in Asia, and almost all totalitarian governments retain it.
Crimes that carry the death penalty vary greatly worldwide from treason and murder to theft. In militaries around the world, courts-martial have sentenced capital punishments also for cowardice, desertion, insubordination and mutiny.

Per Amnesty International's 2008 death penalty annual report, "at least 2,390 people were known to have been executed in 25 countries and at least 8,864 people were sentenced to death in 52 countries around the world:"

Executions in 2008, by Country

China - 1,718
Iran - 346
Saudi Arabia - 102
United States - 37
Pakistan - 36
Iraq - 34
Vietnam - 19
Afghanistan - 17
North Korea - 15
All others - 66
Source - Amnesty International
As of October 2009, capital punishment in the US is officially sanctioned by 34 states, as well as by the federal government. Each state with legalized capital punishment has different laws regarding its methods, age limits and crimes which qualify.
From 1976 through October 2009, 1,177 felons were executed in the U.S., distributed among the states as follows:


Executions from 1976 - Oct 2009, by State

Texas - 442 (38%)
Virginia - 103
Oklahoma - 91
Florida - 68
Missouri - 67
Georgia - 46
Alabama - 44
North Carolina - 43
South Carolina - 42
Ohio - 32
Louisiana - 27
Arkansas - 27
All others - 149
Source: Wikipedia
States and U.S. territories with no current death penalty statute are Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands. New Jersey repealed the death penalty in 2007, and New Mexico in 2009.


Background
The case of Stanley "Tookie" Williams illustrates the moral complexities of the death penalty.
Mr. Williams, an author and Nobel Peace and Literature Prizes nominee who was put to death on December 13, 2005 by lethal injection by the state of California, brought capital punishment back into prominent public debate.

Mr. Williams was convicted of four murders committed in 1979, and sentenced to death. Williams professed innocence of these crimes. He was also co-founder of the Crips, a deadly and powerful Los Angeles-based street gang responsible for hundreds of murders.

About five years after incarceration, Mr. Williams underwent a religious conversion and, as a result, authored many books and programs to promote peace and to fight gangs and gang violence. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize and four times for the Nobel Literature Prize.

Mr. Williams' was a self-admitted life of crime and violence, followed by genuine redemption and a life of uniquely and unusually good works.

The circumstantial evidence against Williams left little doubt that he committed the four murders, despite last-minute claims by supporters. There also existed no doubt that Mr. Williams posed no further threat to society, and would contribute considerable good.


The case of Stanley "Tookie" Williams forced public reflection on the purpose of the death penalty:

Is the purpose of the death penalty to remove from society someone who would cause more harm?
Is the purpose to remove from society someone who is incapable of rehabilitation?
Is the purpose of the death penalty to deter others from committing murder?
Is the purpose of the death penalty to punish the criminal?
Is the purpose of the death penalty to take retribution on behalf of the victim? Share your thoughts: Should Stanley "Tookie" Williams have been executed by the state of California?

Lord Shaftesbury [Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury]

Lord Shaftesbury [Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury]

First published Wed Mar 13, 2002; substantive revision Thu Oct 12, 2006
Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, lived from 1671 to 1713. He was one of the most important philosophers of his day, and exerted an enormous influence throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on British and European discussions of morality, aesthetics, and religion.
Shaftesbury's philosophy combined a powerfully teleological approach, according to which all things are part of a harmonious cosmic order, with sharp observations of human nature (see section 2 below). Shaftesbury is often credited with originating the moral sense theory, although his own views of virtue are a mixture of rationalism and sentimentalism (section 3). While he argued that virtue leads to happiness (section 4), Shaftesbury was a fierce opponent of psychological and ethical egoism (section 5) and of the egoistic social contract theory of Hobbes (section 6). Shaftesbury advanced a view of aesthetic judgment that was non-egoistic and objectivist, in that he thought that correct aesthetic judgment was disinterested and reflected accurately the harmonious cosmic order (section 7). Shaftesbury's belief in an harmonious cosmic order also dominated his view of religion, which was based on the idea that the universe clearly exhibits signs of perfect divine design (section 8). According to Shaftesbury, the ultimate end of religion, as well as of virtue, beauty, and philosophical understanding (all of which are turn out to be one and the same thing), is to identify completely with the universal system of which one is a part.
1. Shaftesbury's Life and Works
2. Shaftesbury's View of Human Nature: Teleology and Observation
3. Shaftesbury's View of Virtue: Moral Sentimentalism and Moral Rationalism
4. Virtue and Happiness
5. Attacks on Egoism
6. Attacks on Social Contract Theory and Defense of Political Liberty
7. Aesthetics
8. Religion
Bibliography
Shaftesbury's Works
Secondary Literature
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries
1. Shaftesbury's Life and Works
Shaftesbury lived from 1671 to 1713. His grandfather, the first Earl of Shaftesbury, oversaw Shaftesbury's early upbringing, and put John Locke in charge of his education. Shaftesbury would eventually come to disagree with many aspects of Locke's philosophy (such as the latter's empiricism, his social contract theory, and what Shaftesbury perceived to be his egoism), but Locke was clearly a crucially important influence on Shaftesbury's philosophical development, and the two remained friends until Locke's death.
Shaftesbury served in Parliament and the House of Lords, but ill health curtailed his political career when he was 30 years old. From then on, he concentrated his energies on his philosophical and literary writings.
The first work Shaftesbury published was an edited collection of sermons by Benjamin Whichcote, which came out in 1698. Shaftesbury wrote an unsigned preface to the sermons in which he praised Whichcote's belief in the goodness of human beings and urged his readers to use Whichcote's “good nature” as an antidote to the poisonous egoism of Hobbes and the pessimistic supralapsarianism of the Calvinists.
In 1699, John Toland published an early version of Shaftesbury's Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit (IVM). But Shaftesbury renounced this version of the Virtue or Merit, claiming that it was produced without his authorization.
Most of the works for which Shaftesbury is famous were written between 1705-1710. It was during this period that he rewrote the Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit and completed versions of A Letter concerning Enthusiasm (LCE), Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour (SC), The Moralists (M) and Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author (SA).
In 1711, he collected his mature works into a single volume and added to them extensive notes and commentary, naming the book Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (C). He revised the Characteristics over the course of the next two years, up until his death in 1713. A revised edition came out in 1714.
The Characteristics is a remarkable volume. It covers a great many topics, ranging freely over morality, art, politics, religion, aesthetics, culture and politeness, and it is written in many different styles, including epistles, soliloquies, dialogues and treatises. The overarching goal of the book, as Klein has put it in his very helpful introduction, is to make its readers “effective participants in the world” (C viii). Shaftesbury saw the Characteristics as an exercise in practical (and not merely speculative) philosophy — as a work that would make people both happier and more virtuous. (See M part 1, section 1.)
The Characteristics was extremely popular in Britain and Europe throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was a book that was closely studied by numerous philosophers and artists, as well as widely read by educated people in general.
In addition to the Characteristics, there are two other posthumous collections of Shaftesbury's writings: the Second Characteristics, which is concerned chiefly with the visual arts, and Shaftesbury's philosophical notebooks, which Rand collected in The Life, Unpublished Letters and Philosophical Regimen of Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury (LUP). The notebooks are particularly interesting, as they offer a view of Shaftesbury's private ruminations and his profound commitment to elements of Stoicism.
2. Shaftesbury's View of Human Nature: Teleology and Observation
Shaftesbury's view of human nature was both teleological and observation-based. Indeed, he believed that teleology and observation must go hand-in-hand — that accurate observation of human psychology requires a teleological conception of humanity, and that one needs to observe human beings to learn about the human telos. He was very critical of philosophers who examined human beings without placing their findings within a teleological context, comparing them to someone who examines the individual parts of a watch without taking into account the purpose for which the watch was designed: just as the latter person will never come to a proper understanding of the watch, Shaftesbury argued, so too the former will never come to a proper understanding of human nature. Shaftesbury thought that Descartes and Locke were guilty of this narrow, non-teleological type of philosophizing. (See SA part 2, section 1; IVM book 1, part 2, section 1; M part 2, section 4.)
3. Shaftesbury's View of Virtue: Moral Sentimentalism and Moral Rationalism
Shaftesbury, like most teleologically-minded philosophers, held that the end or telos of human nature is virtue, and much of his writing is devoted to an explication of his conception of virtue. The account of virtue Shaftesbury proposes has often been taken to be the origin of moral sentimentalism, which Hutcheson and Hume would later develop. But while there are parts of Shaftesbury's account of virtue that are undeniably sentimentalist, there are also rationalist elements that defy the sentimentalist label.
To understand Shaftesbury's account of virtue, we must first examine his account of goodness. Something is good, according to Shaftesbury, if it contributes to the “existence or well-being” of the system of which it is a part (C 168). Every animal, for instance, is a part of its species. So a particular animal, say a tiger, is a good member of its species — it's a good tiger — if it contributes to the well-being of the tiger species as a whole. There is also “a system of all animals,” which consists of the “order” or “economy” of all the different animal species (C 169). So a good animal is one that contributes to the well-being of “animal affairs” in general (Ibid). The system of all animals, moreover, works with the system “of vegetables and all other things in this inferior world” to constitute “one system of a globe or earth” (Ibid). So something is a good earthly thing if it contributes to the existence of earthly things in general. And the system of this earth is itself part of a “universal system” or “a system of all things” (Ibid). So to be “wholly and really” good a thing must contribute to the existence of the universe as a whole (Ibid). This progression of ever-larger systems is a bit dazzling, and we might wonder how we can ever know (or even make sense of) whether something is contributing to the well-being of the universe as a whole. But Shaftesbury avoids this problem by discussing in detail only that which makes “a sensible creature” a good member of its species — by focusing on whether an individual creature is promoting the well-being of its species (C 169). Perhaps Shaftesbury believed that a creature that contributes to the well-being of its species will also always contribute to the well-being of the universe as a whole, in which case being a good member of one's species would be equivalent to being “wholly and really” good. (See IVM book 1, part 2, section 1)
Shaftesbury goes on to say that the goodness or evilness of a sensible creature is based on the creature's motives, and not simply on the results of the creature's actions (C169). And he then makes a crucial claim: every motive to action involves affection or passion (C 173, 177-79, 193). Reason alone, Shaftesbury maintains, cannot motivate. This claim clearly anticipates some of the most influential anti-rationalist arguments of Hutcheson and Hume. (See IVM book 1, part 2, section 3; IVM book 1, part 2, section 4; IVM book 1, part 3, section 1; IVM book 2, part 1, section 1.)
Also crucial is the distinction Shaftesbury draws between goodness and virtue. Goodness is something that is within the reach of all sensible creatures, not only humans but also non-human animals, such as tigers. This is because a creature is good if its affections promote the well-being of the system of which it is a part, and non-human animals are just as capable of possessing this type of affection as humans. “Virtue or merit,” on the other hand, is within the reach of “man only” (C 172). And that is because virtue or merit is tied to a special kind of affection that only humans possess. This special kind of affection is a second-order affection, an affection that has as its object another affection. We humans experience these second-order affections because we, unlike non-human animals, are conscious of our own passions. Not only do we possess passions, but we also reflect on or become aware of the passions we have. And when we reflect on our own passions, we develop feelings about them. Imagine, for instance, you feel the desire to help a person in distress. In addition to simply feeling that desire, you may also become aware that you are feeling that desire. And when you become aware of that, you may experience a positive feeling (or “liking”) towards your desire to help. Or imagine you feel the desire to harm a person who has bested you in a fair competition. In addition to simply feeling the desire to harm, you may also become aware that you are feeling that desire. And when you become aware of that, you may experience a negative feeling (or “dislike”) towards your desire to harm. These are the kinds of phenomena Shaftesbury has in mind when he says that “the affections of pity, kindness, gratitude and their contraries, being brought into the mind by reflection, become objects. So that, by means of this reflected sense, there arises another kind of affection towards those very affections themselves, which have been already felt, and are now become the subject of a new liking or dislike” (C 172). (See IVM book 1, part 2, section 3.)
Shaftesbury calls this capacity to feel second-order affections the “sense of right and wrong” or the “moral sense” (C 179-80). The moral sense is that which produces in us feelings of “like” or “dislike” for our own (first-order) affections. When the moral sense is operating properly, it produces positive feelings towards affections that promote the well-being of humanity and negative feelings towards affections that detract from the well-being of humanity. The second-order feelings that the moral sense produces can themselves motivate one to action. And people are virtuous if they act from those second-order feelings. In contrast, non-human animals, because they lack the powers of reflection necessary for consciousness of their own affections, do not possess a moral sense. So non-human animals are incapable of achieving virtue (C 175). (See IVM book 1, part 2, section 3.)
Also in line with sentimentalist moral theory is Shaftesbury's discussion of how a person can come to lose his or her sense of right and wrong. He argues (in a manner that anticipates Hume) that because our sense of morality is a sentiment, it can be opposed only by another sentiment, and not by reason or belief. “Sense of right and wrong,” he writes, “therefore being as natural to us as natural affection itself, and being a first Principle in our constitution and make, there is no speculative opinion, persuasion or belief which is capable immediately or directly to exclude or destroy it… [T]his affection being an original one of earliest rise in the soul or affectionate part, nothing beside contrary affection, by frequent check and control, can operate upon it, so as either to diminish it in part, or destroy it in the whole” (C 179). (See IVM book 1, part 3, section 1.)
But while Shaftesbury claims that human moral judgment and human virtue essentially involve affection, he does not believe that all value depends on human affections. Goodness, which is the basis of morality and virtue, is an objective property, one that is independent of all human minds, and it is reason that can inform us of what that property consists. Goodness is real eternal and immutable, not something created by will, command, opinion, custom, or social contract. So even if every member of society were to approve of something harmful to humanity, it would still be vicious. For that which is destructive of the species can never be “virtue of any kind or in any sense but must remain still horrid depravity, notwithstanding any fashion, law, custom or religion which may be ill and vicious itself but can never alter the eternal measures and immutable independent nature of worth and virtue” (C 175). Fashion, law, custom, and religion can cause people to develop positive affections towards things harmful to humanity. But the development of such affections will never make such things right. The “eternal Measures” of right and wrong are not constituted by human affections. Right and wrong have an “immutable independent nature.” And we are virtuous just to the extent that our affections lead us to act in accord with these eternal and immutable moral truths. (See LCE section 4; SC part 1, section 6; SC part 2, section 1; SC part 3, section 1; SC part 3, section 2; SA part 3; IVM book 1, part 2, section 1; IVM book 1, part 3, section 2; M part 2, section 2; M part 2, section 3; M part 2, section 4.)
In Shaftesbury's account of virtue, then, reason and sentiment both play essential roles. A person is virtuous if and only if her actions flow from the properly functioning moral sentiments. And reason tells us that moral sentiments are functioning properly if and only if they promote the well-being of the species as a whole. Shaftesbury's “sense of right and wrong” is truly a sentiment, but it is a sentiment that accurately represents an objective reality — i.e., a reality that is independent of human sentiments.
4. Virtue and Happiness
Shaftesbury maintained that virtue promotes the good of all humankind. As he says, “To love the public, to study universal good, and to promote the interest of the whole world, as far as lies within our power, is surely the height of goodness” (C 20). Or as he puts it elsewhere, the virtuous person is the one who strives to develop an “equal, just and universal friendship” with all humankind (C 256). This view of the content of virtue — that to be virtuous is to promote the good of all humankind — fits well with Shaftesbury's teleological approach. For he believes that everything is designed to promote the good of the system of which it is a part. And he also believes that every human being is a part of the system that is the human species as a whole. It is natural for him to think, therefore, that every human being is designed to promote the good of the human species as a whole. (It is important to remember, however, that this view of a system and its parts explains only Shaftesbury's view of the content of goodness, which is something that non-humans can also attain. Virtue or merit, which humans alone can attain, involves not merely acting for the good of the system but performing such actions in a self-aware or reflective manner.) Shaftesbury also consistently maintains that in addition to promoting the good of humanity, virtue promotes the happiness of the virtuous person him or herself, and that vice harms not only humanity as a whole but also the vicious person. As Shaftesbury puts it, “virtue and interest may be found at last to agree” (C 167). Or as he says in the conclusion of the Inquiry, “And thus virtue is the good and vice the ill of everyone” (C 229-330). (See SC section 3; IVM book 2; M part 2).
This coincidence of virtue and happiness is just what Shaftesbury's teleological approach should lead us to expect. For teleological thinking generally involves the idea that the best life for a being is one that fulfills the being's natural end or purpose, and being virtuous is the end or purpose for which humans were designed. Shaftesbury corroborates this teleological connection between virtue and happiness by investigating the pleasures and pains of which human happiness and unhappiness consist. He begins this investigation by drawing a broad distinction between pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind. He next contends that a person's happiness depends more on mental pleasures than on bodily pleasures. And he then seeks to show that living virtuously is by far the best way to gain the crucially important mental pleasures. Shaftesbury bases much of his argument for the connection between virtue and happiness on the idea that the mental pleasures are within one's own control, insulated from the vicissitudes of “fortune, age, circumstances and humour” (C 334). As one of Shaftesbury's characters rhetorically asks, “How can we better praise the goodness of Providence than in this, ‘That it has placed our happiness and good in things we can bestow upon ourselves’?” (C 335). The importance Shaftesbury places on our control over our mental pleasures grows directly out of his appreciation for the Stoics. Indeed, it can be plausibly maintained that Stoicism is one of the strongest and most fundamental commitments of Shaftesbury's thought overall. (See SA part 3, section 2; IVM book 2; M part 3, section 3.)
5. Attacks on Egoism
But although Shaftesbury believed that being virtuous makes a person happy, it would be wrong to label him an egoist. In fact, he launched many attacks on both psychological egoism and ethical egoism, attacks that had as their main target Hobbes and which clearly anticipated the influential anti-egoist arguments in Butler, Hutcheson, and Hume.
Shaftesbury argues that psychological egoism does a simply terrible job of explaining the wide spectrum of observable activities humans engage in. He ridicules, for instance, egoistic interpretations of things as “civility, hospitality, humanity towards strangers or people in distress,” maintaining that it is much easier to explain such phenomena simply by positing real sociability and benevolence (C 55). He points out that humans are often motivated by “passion, humour, caprice, zeal, faction and a thousand other springs, which are counter to self-interest” (C 54) And he maintains that the only way psychological egoism can be plausibly maintained is at the expense of becoming tautologous. (See SC section 2; SC section 3; M part 2, section 1.)
Against ethical egoism, Shaftesbury argues that virtue can exist only if it's possible for people to be motivated by something other than self-interest. For persons’ virtue, according to Shaftesbury, consists not of the actions they perform but of the motives they have for performing them. And the motive with which we identify virtue is benevolence, not self-interest. Shaftesbury emphasizes this point by drawing attention to the difference between a knave and a saint. We judge the saint virtuous, he explains, because we think he is motivated by something other than the selfishness of the knave. And if we came to believe that the saint were motivated solely by self-interest, we would no longer judge him to be virtuous. As he puts it, “If the love of doing good be not of itself a good and right inclination, I know not how there can possibly be such a thing as goodness or virtue” (C 46). (See SC part 2, section 3, part 3; SC section 4, part 4, Section 1; SA part 1, section 2; IVM book 2, part 2, section 2; IVM book 2, part 2, section 4.)
Shaftesbury's belief that true virtue must flow from non-egoistic motives leads him to criticize sharply the emphasis many religious moralists place on reward and punishment in the afterlife. As one of his characters explains when summarizing the goal of the Inquiry, “[The author of the Inquiry] endeavors chiefly to establish virtue on principles by which he is able to argue with those who are not as yet induced to own a god or future state. If he cannot do thus much, he reckons he does nothing” (C 266). Shaftesbury eschews considerations of the afterlife in his case for virtue because he believes that persons who perform virtuous actions only because they desire reward and fear punishment have no real virtue in them at all. And persons who are constantly made to dwell on reward and punishment are likely to become overly concerned with their own “self-good and private interest,” which must “insensibly diminish the affections towards public good or the interest of society and introduce a certain narrowness of spirit” (C 184). So an emphasis on reward and punishment cannot make people more virtuous, and it may very well make them less so (C 45-46). (See SC part 3, section 3; IVM book 1, part 3, section 3; M part 3, section 3.)
Shaftesbury's anti-egoistic view also leads him to an interesting consideration of what we should say to someone who asks for a reason to be virtuous when he knows he will not be punished for vice, or, as Shaftesbury puts the question, “Why should a man be honest in the dark?” (C 58). At times Shaftesbury suggests that a person who asks this question is already lost to virtue — that someone who cares about virtue for its own sake won't need another reason to act virtuously, and that someone who needs another reason doesn't have what it takes to be truly virtuous in the first place. At other times, Shaftesbury suggests that we should be honest even in the dark (i.e., virtuous even when we will not be punished for vice) because such conduct is a necessary condition for having an identity or unified self at all (C 127). These suggestions of how to deal with the question “Why be moral?” are almost certainly antecedents of Hume's response to the sensible knave at the end of his Enquiry concerning Morals. (See SC part 3, section 4; SA part 3, section 1).
It is noteworthy that despite his anti-egoism, Shaftesbury goes to great lengths to show that the virtuous person will be happier than the vicious person (IVM book II). At one point, he justifies this procedure by contending that while it is best to act for entirely disinterested motives, we sometimes might have to rely on interested considerations to induce to morally correct action those people (including ourselves) who are not yet capable of achieving the heights of virtue. As he puts it, “[W]e ought all of us to aspire, so as to endeavour that the excellence of the object, not the reward or punishment, should be our motive, but … where, through the corruption of our nature, the former of these motives is found insufficient to excite to virtue, there the latter should be brought in aid and on no account be undervalued or neglected” (C 269). (See IVM book 2; M part 2, section 3.)
6. Attacks on Social Contract Theory and Defense of Political Liberty
Another point on which Hume was probably indebted to Shaftesbury was criticism of social contract theory. Shaftesbury argued that the selfish beings Hobbes described in his state of nature bear no resemblance to humans as they actually are. For naturally, Shaftesbury contended, humans are sociable. And society is thus humankind's natural condition. “In short, if generation be natural, if natural affection and the care and nurture of the offspring be natural, things standing as they do with man and the creature being of that form and constitution he now is, it follows that society must be also natural to him and that out of society and community he never did, nor ever can, subsist” (C 287). Shaftesbury also argued that if Hobbes's description of an amoral state of nature were correct, then it would be impossible for Hobbes ever to establish a duty to obey the laws of society. For if there had been no duty to keep one's promises in the state of nature, then the original contract could not have created a duty. And if the original contract did give rise to a duty, then there must have been a duty to keep one's promises even in the state of nature (C 51). Shaftesbury was not the first to criticize social contract theories in this way, but his version of this criticism is stated very clearly and was probably among the most influential. (See SC part 3, section 1; M part 3, section 4.)
Shaftesbury's positive political views emphasized the importance of liberty. He believed that totalitarianism made citizens less civil and increased the chances of violent conflict, while greater liberty made citizens more “polite” and peaceful. He thought, consequently, that government should grant its citizens broad freedom to publish what they wish and practice religion in the way they choose. (See SC passim; M part 2, Section 3.)
7. Aesthetics
Shaftesbury's aesthetic theory was one of the first and most influential produced by an English-speaking philosopher. Beauty, for Shaftesbury, is a kind of harmony, proportion, or order. There is a sense in which it can be said that Shaftesbury believed that beauty is mind-dependent, in that he thought beauty is dependent on the mind of God, the artist-creator of the universe. But it is clear that Shaftesbury also thought that beauty is independent of human minds. The human responses that are the origin of human judgments of beauty are not the origin of beauty itself. (See SC part 4, section 3; M part 3, Section 2.)
Shaftesbury held that all beauty can be placed in a three-part hierarchy. The lowest order of beauty belongs to “the dead forms” — physical things such as manmade works of art and natural objects (C 323). The second order of beauty belongs to human minds, or “the forms which form, that is, which have intelligence, action, and operation” (Ibid). The third order of beauty belongs to that “which forms not only such as we call mere forms but even the forms which form” (Ibid). This highest, most supreme and sovereign beauty, belongs to God, who has created everything in the world, including human minds. (See M part 1, section 3; M part 2, section 4; M part 3, section 2.)
Shaftesbury held that aesthetic appreciation is essentially disinterested. There has been some controversy about the sense in which Shaftesburean aesthetic judgment can be said to be disinterested. But it is clear enough that he thought that true aesthetic appreciation of an object (like the motivation underlying true moral conduct) is independent of any ideas of how the object might promote one's own interests. Establishing this non-egoistic position on aesthetic judgment would also be the main goal of Hutcheson in his Inquiry concerning Beauty. (See M part 3, section 2.)
Shaftesbury sometimes maintained that virtue is a species of beauty, or that virtue and beauty are “one and the same.” He suggested that the positive reaction we have when observing a moral action or character is the same as (or one example of) the positive reaction we have when observing the beauty of nature or works of art, and that the motive to act virtuously is the same as (or one example of) an artist's motive to create beauty. Shaftesbury also said that the virtuous person is one who attempts to make her life a thing of moral beauty in the same way that an artist tries to make beautiful works of art. (See SC part 4, section 3; SA part 3, Section 3; IVM book 1, part 2, section 3; M part 2, section 1; M part 3, section 2.)
It is not entirely clear whether Shaftesbury thought that our aesthetic judgments originated in sentiment or in reason alone. At certain points he suggested the former (C 172-3) and at other points he suggested the latter (C 330-332). It's possible that his views on this matter changed over time. However that may be, it's clear that Shaftesbury thought that our aesthetic judgments originated in a tendency that is instinctive or natural to all humans. He refrained from insisting on the “innateness” of this natural human tendency because he did not want to become entangled in the epistemological debate over innate ideas, although there can be little doubt that his own sympathies were with the anti-empiricist side of this debate. (See M part 3, section 2; LUP 404, 415)
But while Shaftesbury held that aesthetic judgment originated in an instinctive, natural human tendency, he also maintained that one needed training in order to make correct aesthetic judgments. A great deal of practice and study are needed in order to develop true discernment or “taste.” The judgment of an accomplished critic is thus likely to be more natural than the judgment of an uneducated rustic. (See SA part 1, section 3; SA part 2, section 2; SA part 2, section 3; M part 3, section 2; Miscellaneous Reflections (MR) 3.)
8. Religion
Shaftesbury believed that everything in the world was created by a morally perfect God and that the world God created is the best of all possible ones. Any evil we observe, according to Shaftesbury, is only apparent or subordinate, not real or ultimate. It's no surprise, therefore, that Leibniz said of Shaftesbury's work, “I found in it almost all of my Theodicy before it saw the light of day…. If I had seen this work before my Theodicy was published, I should have profited as I ought and should have borrowed its great passages.” (See LCE section 5; M part 1, sections 2; M part 1, section 3; M part 2, section 3; M part 2, section 4.)
Shaftesbury based his belief in the existence of God on the argument for design (although at one point, C 306, he suggests that it is possible to give an a priori argument for the existence of God as well). He emphasized what he took to be the systematic nature of the universe. Everything in the universe fits together and works in perfect order, he argued, and so we can only conclude that the universe was created by a perfectly ordered, rational mind. Later versions of the argument from design, such as Paley's, are much indebted to Shaftesbury, and Hume's attack on the argument in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion could have been aimed at Shaftesbury's Moralists just as easily as it could have been aimed at Butler's Analogy of Religion. (See M part 2, section 4; M part 2, section 5; M part 3, section 1.)
Shaftesbury's emphasis on the orderly functioning of the universe led him to reject the traditional Christian view of miracles. He certainly did not think that miracles were needed to prove the existence of God. And he probably did not think that a perfectly ordered, rational mind, such as God's, would countenance miracles at all, as they constituted a violation of the natural order. Shaftesbury was somewhat circumspect, however, about issuing an outright denial of the miracles reported in the Bible. (See M part 2, section 5.)
Shaftesbury was a proponent of natural religion. He denied that humans need supernatural revelation in order to discover and realize what constitutes true religion. And he claimed that the Scriptures are not self-verifying and that we ought to accept only those parts that can withstand rational scrutiny. (See LCE section 4; SA part 3, section 1; M part 2; M part 2, section 5.)
It is difficult to find anything distinctively Christian in Shaftesbury's religious views. His theology seems to have more in common with ancient Greek philosophy than with any specifically Christian teaching. Shaftesbury was also highly critical of what he took to be the pernicious moral influence of certain Christian sects (such as Calvinism and other kinds of Puritanism) that emphasized the depravity of human nature and the jealousy of God. He maintained that such religions were a worse moral influence than atheism, as the former corrupted humans’ moral sentiments while the latter neither helped nor harmed the cause of virtue. (See LCE section 4; LCE section 5; IVM book 1, part 3.)
Shaftesbury's natural religion had much in common with the views of the English Deists. But he differed from them in holding that the essence of religion is not merely dispassionate belief in a few rationally-established tenets but a feeling of expansive love for the universe as a whole. The truly religious frame of mind, for Shaftesbury, is that of reasonable enthusiasm. Shaftesbury took great pains to distinguish this kind of enthusiasm from false, non-rational enthusiasm, which leads to superstition, zealotry, fanaticism, and sectarian violence. Shaftesbury's reasonable enthusiasm is exemplified by Theocles, the hero of The Moralists, and it unites Shaftesbury's views of aesthetics, religion, and virtue. To truly appreciate the beauty of the world, for Shaftesbury, is to revere the world's Creator, which reverence also gives rise to love for all the Creator's creatures. (See LCE, passim; M part 1, section 3; M part 2, section 3; M part 3, section 2.)
Bibliography
Shaftesbury's Works
C
Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, edited by Lawrence E. Klein, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
LCE
Letter Concerning Enthusiasm (in C, pp. 4–28).
SC
Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour (in C, pp. 29–69).
SA
Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author (in C, pp. 70–162).
IVM
Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit (in C, pp. 163–230).
M
The Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody (in C, pp. 231–338).
MR
Miscellaneous Reflections (in C, pp. 339–483).
LUP
The Life, Unpublished Letters and Philosophical Regimen of Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, edited by Benjamin Rand, London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1900.
*
Second Characters or the Language of Forms by the Right Honourable Anthony, Early of Shaftesbury, edited by Benjamin Rand, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914; reprinted, New York: Greenwood Press, 1969.
*
Preface to Benjamin Whichcote, The Works, Volume III, New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1977.
Secondary Literature
Biography of Shaftesbury with extensive discussion of his thought as a whole:
Voitle, Robert, The Third Earl of Shaftesbury 1671-1713, Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1984.
Book length treatment of Shaftesbury's thought as a whole:
Grean, Stanley, Shaftesbury's Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1967.
Detailed discussions of many aspects of Shaftesbury's philosophy and its historical context:
Darwall, Stephen, The British Moralists and the Internal Ought: 1640-1740, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Schneewind, J. B., The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Gill, Michael B., The British Moralists on Human Nature and the Birth of Secular Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
On Shaftesbury's account of morality:
Grean, Stanley, “Self-Interest and Public Interest in Shaftesbury's Philosophy,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2 (1964): 37-46.
Gill, Michael B., “Shaftesbury's Two Accounts of the Reason to Be Virtuous,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 38/4 (2000): 529-548.
Trianosky, Gregory W., “On the Obligation to be Virtuous: Shaftesbury and the Question, Why be Moral?” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 16 (1978): 289-300.
On Shaftesbury's view of innate ideas:
Carey, Daniel, “Locke, Shaftesbury, and Innateness,” Locke Studies, 4 (2004): 13-45.
On Shaftesbury's religious views:
Bernstein, John A., “Shaftesbury's Reformation of the Reformation: Reflections on the Relation between Deism and Pauline Christianity,” Journal of Religious Ethics, 6 (1978): 257-278.
Toole, Robert, “Shaftesbury on God and His Relationships to the World,” International Studies in Philosophy, 8 (1976): 81-100.
On Shaftesbury's aesthetics:
Glauser, Richard, “Aesthetic Experience in Shaftesbury,” Proceedings of the Aristotelians Society, Supplement, 76 (2002): 25-54.
McAllister, James W., “Scientists' Aesthetic Judgments,” British Journal of Aesthetics, 31/4 (1991): 332-341.
Rind, Miles, “The Concept of Disinterestedness in Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 40 (2002): 67-87.
Townsend, Dabney, “Shaftesbury's Aesthetic Theory,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 41/2 (1982): 205-213.
On Shaftesbury's views of personal identity:
Winkler, Kenneth P., “‘All Is Revolution in Us’: Personal Identity in Shaftesbury and Hume,” Hume Studies, 26/1 (2000): 3-40.
Other Internet Resources
Earl of Shaftesbury entry by , in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (good general account of Shaftesbury's thought).
Deism, entry by Francis Aveling in the Catholic Encyclopedia, (on contains paragraphs and subsections on Shaftesbury's relationship to Deism).
Francis Hutcheson, first of two sections on Hutcheson in the entry "Scottish Philosophy in the 18th Century", by Alexander Broadie (University of Glasgow), in this encyclopedia.
Benjamin Whichcote, section on Whichcote in the entry "Cambridge Platonists", by Sarah Hutton (Middlesex University), in this encyclopedia.

The Huey P. Newton Foundation || The Orignal Black Panther Party

Vision

The original vision of the Black Panther Party was to serve the needs of the oppressed people in our communities and defend them against their oppressors. When the Party was initiated we knew that these goals would raise the consciousness of the people and motivate them to move more firmly for their total liberation. We also recognized that we live in a country which has become one of the most repressive governments in the world; repressive in communities all over the world. We did not expect such a repressive government to stand idly by while the Black Panther Party went forward to the goal of serving the people. We expected repression.
Jesus is the truth.

BLACK MUSLIMS

Black Muslims - Nation of Islam
June 2004 version

Malcolm X, subject of a popular movie, was a black Muslim who was gunned down by three black men after he left the Black Muslim movement. Most people have heard of this religion, but few really know the core of who they are and what they teach.


The Black Muslim movement was founded by Wallace Fard. Elijah Mohammed joined the movement in 1930, and assumed leadership after Fard’s mysterious disappearance in 1934. Almost all regular Muslims considered Black Muslims to be blasphemous heretics.


In recent years the Nation of Islam has decided to join mainstream Islam, which means "forgetting" their history and past. This paper shows what they used to believe.


Mohammed Was White


The Hadiths are recorded sayings and doings recorded of the prophet Mohammed. They are accepted almost as highly as the Quran by most Muslims, the longest and most highly regarded Hadith was collected by Al-Bukhari.


"He [the Prophet] uncovered his thigh and I saw the whiteness of the thigh of the Prophet."Bukhari vol.1:367 (p.224)


"Whenever the Prophet used to offer prayer he used to keep his arms away (from his body) so that the whiteness of his armpits was visible." Bukhari vol.1:771, (p.430). Bukhari vol.2:140, 141 (p.77,78) are both similar. See also Bukhari vol.1:63 and vol.2:122.


The Hadith quotes are from The Translation of the Meanings of Sahih Al-Bukhari by Muhammad Muhsin Khan.


Being red, yellow, black, or white does not make a person any better or worse. However the Black Muslim religion call all whites devils, and claims that Muhammad was black. Since he was white, the Black Muslim religion either lies, or one it claims to follow is a devil.


Mohammed ‘s Black Slaves


"Narrated ‘Umar: I came and behold, Allah’s Apostle [Mohammed] was staying on a Mashroba (balcony room) and a black slave of Allah’s Apostle was at the top of its stairs. I said to him, ‘(Tell the Prophet) that here is ‘Umar bin Al-Khattab (asking for permission to enter)." Bukhari vol.9 no.368.


"he [Mohammad] was staying in an upper room of his to which he ascended by a ladder, and a black slave of Allah’s Apostle [Mohammad] was (sitting) on the first step." Bukhari Hadith vol.6 no.435.


Mohammad even auctioned off a slave in Bukhari vol.3 no.711 p.427; vol.9 no.296.


Elijah Muhammad’s Words


from Message to the Black Man (1965):


"...You will agree with me that the whole Caucasian race is a race of devils." p.23

"The devils have tried to deceive the people all over the earth with Christianity; that is God the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Ghost - three Gods in one God - the resurrection of the Son and His return to judge the world." p.11


"The Bible is called a poison book by God Himself." p.94.

"...it is best that they throw the Bible in the waste pail, since they cannot understand it." p.90.


"The things of which I have spoken will come upon America and its people within the next 6 years." p.172 (not fulfilled over 30 years later)


"Allah came to us from the Holy City, Mecca, Arabia in 1930. He used the name Wallace D. Fard." p.16.


"I am the first man since the death of Yakub (4,000 years ago) commissioned by God directly. I say no more than Jesus said. He said that He came from God. I say that I am missioned by God." p.171.


In 1964 Malcolm X left Nation of Islam to found Muslim Mosque, Inc. Elijah Muhammad called him a traitor to be killed.


One likely reason for Malcolm X to leave is that Elijah Muhammad admitted to the rumors of the sexual goings on with his secretaries.


2/21/1965 three black men assassinated Malcolm X, then 39, in New York City.


2/26/1975 Elijah Muhammad died of a heart attack.


Dan Rather, in his autobiography The Camera Never Blinks, described Elijah Muhammad’s words succintly: "There is acid on his tongue."




Even more interesting than this is Elijah Muhammad’s view of reality on the next page.

Elijah Muhammad’s Teaching


from Message to the Black Man (1965);


One God but Polytheistic - 25,000 years. Bible and Quran written by 24 scientists - one scientist was appointed to be God. p.108

The black race created the heavens and the earth and created themselves. p.42.

The black race gave birth to a God named Yakub. p.110. He lived only 150 years. p.116


Yakub, a black scientist, created the white race 6,000 years ago. p.9


6,000 years ago the black race gave birth to Allah, He is the mightiest God since creation born after Yakub. p.111.


Orthodox Islam must bow to Black Islam (God’s choice) p.50. Arabs misunderstand the Holy Quran when they don’t accept me [Elijah Muhammad] as a prophet. p.250.


Moses used dynamite with a fuse to kill 300 of his followers. p.120. –An amazing miracle; dynamite was not invented for 2400 years!


Jesus is not God. p.9, 140


Black [Christian] preachers’ mouths are controlled by devils; there are a great hindrance to the truth of our people. p.18,47,84,89,96


Elijah Muhammad says the Bible is 2/3 prophecy. p.89. He says prophecies are a small percentage of the Bible on p.90.


The mountains were created by bombs from spaceships circling the earth. p.90


Wallace D. Fard is God [Allah]. p.1, 11, 27, 46, 52, 141, 155, 172, 237, 294.


Louis Farrakhan


Louis Farrakhan said, "We have long ago left the language of white devils behind. It was a language that was necessary for that time in our development." (John F. Davis, "Farrakhan Speaks," The Village Voice, 22 May 1984)


After splitting from W.D. Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad's son, Farrakhan took over the Nation of Islam.

But the famous black columnist Carl T. Rowan writes that Farrakhan "offers nothing more than religious bilge and racial hatred and is preying on the frustrations and rage of millions of black Americans."


"The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, I am here to declare, is risen. The Jesus you have been seeking and waiting for His return has been in your midst for 40 years, ‘but you knew not who He was.’"


Concerning Jewish people, Farrakhan said:

"Hitler was a very great man." 3/1984

"…the Zionist used the name of God and the Torah to shield their gutter religion." 7/1984

Yet Farrakhan denies he is anti-Semitic or anti-white. (Austin American Statesman 3/13/94 p.C5.) Is he trying to joke with his listeners?


Immediately after the uproar over Khalid Abdul Muhammad’s extremely racist speech, Farrakhan said, "I stand by the truths that he spoke." (Human Events 2/4/94 p.5). He suspended Muhammad only for the "manner in which the truths were presented."


Later Farrakhan said, "Muhammad needed to be more diplomatic but that he was a warrior, a fighter for his people." –like most racists.


Black Congressman Charles Rangel of Harlem says, "the hatred spewed by Louis Farrakhan is scurrilous and intolerable." Congressmen Owens (D.-NY) in a 10 page memo, and Reynolds (D.-Illinois) also stand against this.


A Summary and An Answer


Black Muslim leaders seem to say anything, even silly things, to get blacks to join their ignorance and look to whites as neither saviors nor even friends; only devils to hate. A large number of blacks, including Rangel, Rowan, Owens, and Reynolds, are not fooled.

Racism is wrong, regardless of who the target is, and regardless of who the evil racists are. Racism is a malicous evil, whether black, white, or other. If you fight evil with evil, and copy evil, then you will wake up to find you are not much different from them. Racism is stupid, and racism is evil. There is already enough stupidity and evil in the world. Seek what is wise and good.


In contrast to all this evil, the Bible in Galatians 3:28 says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."


God loves the world (not just some) (John 3:16) and is the One God and Father of all (Eph. 3:14;4:16). He wants us to love each other (1 John 4:19-20).


People with hatred of others do not know God. 1 John 3:10,15, 4:19-21. We are to help the oppressed. Proverbs 24:11-12; 29:7; 31:9; Isaiah 1:17; Jer 22:16; Ps 41:1)


As for interracial marriage, Moses married a black (Cushite) lady in Numbers 12. God did not rebuke Moses, but rebuked Miriam, who criticized Moses’ marriage. (Christians are to only marry Christians though, as 2 Cor. 6:14-18 and 1 Cor. 7:39 say).


For all, regardless of race or color, there is:

No other god. Exodus 20:3; 1 Timothy 1:17

No other Savior but Jesus. Acts 4:12; Php2:10-11

No other way but Jesus. John 14:6; 1 Tim 4:10

We must love others as ourselves. Mark 12:31

Jesus Christ came to this world as a ransom for all. Seek what is right, noble, and true;

Bankruptcy, Chapter 7, Chapter 13 – Free Law Resources – Nolo

Chapter 7 bankruptcy and Chapter 13 bankruptcy: what you need to know.

Questions

What exactly is bankruptcy? Will it wipe out all my debts?
What is the difference between Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy? Which one lets me keep my property?
Am I free to choose between Chapter 7 bankruptcy and Chapter 13 bankruptcy? Which type of bankruptcy should I use?
Answers
What exactly is bankruptcy? Will it wipe out all my debts?
Bankruptcy is a federal court process designed to help consumers and businesses eliminate their debts or repay them under the protection of the bankruptcy court. Bankruptcies can generally be described as "liquidation" (Chapter 7) or "reorganization" (Chapter 13). Under a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you ask the bankruptcy court to wipe out (discharge) the debts you owe. Under a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you file a plan with the bankruptcy court proposing how you will repay your creditors. You must repay some debts in full; others may be repaid only partially or not at all, depending on what you can afford. For more information, see What Is Bankruptcy?

When you file either kind of bankruptcy, a court order called an "automatic stay" goes into effect. The automatic stay prohibits most creditors from taking any action to collect the debts you owe them unless the bankruptcy court lifts the stay and lets the creditor proceed with collections. For more information, see How Bankruptcy Stops Your Creditors: The Automatic Stay.

Certain debts cannot be discharged in bankruptcy; you will continue to owe them just as if you had never filed for bankruptcy. These debts include back child support, alimony, and certain kinds of tax debts. Student loans will not be discharged unless you can show that repaying the debt would be an undue burden, which is a very tough standard to meet. And other types of debts might not be discharged if a creditor convinces the court that the debt should survive your bankruptcy. For more information, see What Bankruptcy Can and Cannot Do.

Back to top
What is the difference between Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy? Which one lets me keep my property?
In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you ask the bankruptcy court to discharge most of the debts you owe. In exchange for this discharge, the bankruptcy trustee can take any property you own that is not exempt from collection (see below), sell it, and distribute the proceeds to your creditors. For more information on Chapter 7, see A Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Overview .

In Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you file a repayment plan with the bankruptcy court to pay back all or a portion of your debts over time. The amount you'll have to repay depends on how much you earn, the amount and types of debt you owe, and how much property you own. For more information about Chapter 13, see An Overview of Chapter 13 Bankruptcy.

You lose no property in Chapter 13 bankruptcy, because you fund your repayment plan through your income. In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you select property you are eligible to keep from a list of state exemptions. Although state exemption laws differ, states typically allow you to keep these types of property in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy:

Equity in your home, called a homestead exemption. Under the Bankruptcy Code, you can exempt up to $20,200 of equity. Some states have no homestead exemption; others allow debtors to protect all or most of the equity in their home.
Insurance. You usually get to keep the cash value of your policies.
Retirement plans. Most retirement benefits are protected in bankruptcy.
Personal property. You'll be able to keep most household goods, furniture, furnishings, clothing (other than furs), appliances, books and musical instruments. You may be able to keep jewelry only worth up to $1,000 or so. Most states let you keep a vehicle as long as your equity doesn't exceed several thousand dollars. And many states give you a "wild card" amount of money -- often $1,000 or more -- that you can apply toward any property.
Public benefits. All public benefits, such as welfare, Social Security, and unemployment insurance, are fully protected.
Tools used on your job. You'll probably be able to keep up to a few thousand dollars worth of the tools used in your trade or profession.
Back to top
Am I free to choose between Chapter 7 bankruptcy and Chapter 13 bankruptcy? Which type of bankruptcy should I use?
If you meet the eligibility requirements for both types of bankruptcy, then you can choose the type of bankruptcy that makes the most sense for your situation. However, you may not have a choice.

Under the new bankruptcy law, filers whose incomes are higher than the median income for a family of their size in their state may not be allowed to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy if their disposable income, after subtracting certain allowed expenses and required debt payments, would allow them to pay back some portion of the unsecured debt over a five-year repayment period. (For more on this and other Chapter 7 eligibility requirements, see Chapter 7 Bankruptcy -- Who Can File?)

Also, if you have secured debts of more than $1,010,650 and unsecured debts of more than $336,900, for example, then you cannot use Chapter 13 bankruptcy. (For more on this and other Chapter 13 eligibility requirements, see Are You Eligible for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy?)

Most people who file for bankruptcy choose to use Chapter 7, if they meet the eligibility requirements; Chapter 7 is a popular choice because, unlike Chapter 13, it doesn't require filers to pay back any portion of their debts. For more reasons why you might want to file for Chapter 7, see When Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Is Better Than Chapter 13 Bankruptcy.

However, Chapter 13 might be a better choice, depending on your situation. For example, if you are behind on your mortgage and want to keep your house, you can include your missed payments in your Chapter 13 plan and repay them over time. In Chapter 7, you would have to make up the whole past due amount right away -- and you might lose your house, if your equity exceeds the exemption amount available to you. For more on situations when Chapter 13 makes sense, see Reasons to Use Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Instead of Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.

Considering bankruptcy?To get the facts and find out if bankruptcy could work for you, see The New Bankruptcy: Will It Work for You? by Stephen Elias (Nolo).

Baby Boom Generation --- The role of Baby Boom Generation in the history of the United States of America.

What is the Baby Boom generation?
Social Issues, 1946-1964

The term "Baby Boom" is used to identify a massive increase in births following World War II. Baby boomers are those people born worldwide between 1946 and 1964, the time frame most commonly used to define them. In 2005, that would have made them between 41 and 59 years old. There are about 76 million boomers in the U.S., representing about 29 percent of the population. In Canada, they are known as "Boomies;" six million reside there. In Britain, the boomer generation is known as "the bulge."

The Forties

How it got started. World War II ended in 1945. Most members of the armed forces came home en masse, numbering in the millions. To integrate millions of young veterans into the American economy, the 78th Congress passed the GI Bill of Rights on June 22, 1944. It was the most far-reaching item of veterans legislation passed in the nation's history. VA loans for homes and farms were made available to GIs at low interest rates, and low or no down payment. In addition, the GI Bill made higher education a reachable goal with low-interest loans.


Preceding the war was the era of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Children of that era were a generation hardened by poverty; millions were deprived of the security of a home and job. Then they fought the greatest war in human history, World War II.

The American Dream. A pent-up demand for achieving the American Dream was partly satisfied by the GI Bill. Reconnecting with families and loved ones, a large portion of returning GIs, backed by the GI Bill, married and started families, went back to school and bought their first homes. Jobs, especially in the northeast and on the coasts, were plentiful. In 1947, the GI Bill helped more than a million veterans to enroll in college. More than half the nation's World War II veterans, or 7,800,000 men and women, availed themselves of the GI Bill's provisions.


The move to the suburbs. With veterans benefits, including VA loans, the 20-somethings found suitable housing in the new tracts sprawling on the outskirts of America's cities. Documentaries on the topic indicate that the postwar suburban housing boom began in a suburban "planned community" called “Levittown,”* in New York and Pennsylvania. In fact, large-scale, planned communities and housing tracts were being built on the outskirts of all major American cities, especially in California.


It was common that the young wives of virtually entire suburban neighborhoods were pregnant at the same time. In short order, new schools had to be built. Farm and ranch land became seas of similar-looking homes without town centers, jobs, or city amenities. Eventually, many isolated suburban tracts, numbering in thousands of homes, did become legal communities, albeit on a different model from traditional communities with a core downtown business center. Interspersed throughout those new communities were "strip malls," businesses lined up in a row along roadsides, usually in common and architecturally uninspired buildings fronted by a large parking lot with little or no greenery.


Malls began to offer basic commodities, then became prime community meeting places, especially for the younger crowd. The famous quote, "There's no there there," uttered by Gertrude Stein about her birthplace, Oakland, California (a suburb of San Francisco), applies to most of America's suburbs — seemingly isolated, cultureless, boring tracts of sameness. Suburbs were relatively safe, and suitable for children, perhaps, but a breeding ground for discontentment and mischief among teenagers.


The Fifties


Years of innocence. The 1950s were, in some ways, years of innocence. The Saturday movie matinee was only 35 cents on the West Coast. The drive-in theater became part of the young-family social scene, primarily owing to cheap tickets. The main movie genres were established: melodramas, westerns, horror films, comedies, and action-adventure films. Musicals and science fiction movies were popular by the 1950s. Westerns were especially popular with families, and many were created specifically for adolescents. Popular kid shows most often followed a serial format, appearing in the afternoon on Saturdays. At times, matinees played in several installments per week. Popular heros were Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, and the Lone Ranger.


Early examples of the sci-fi genre featured male protagonists fighting for law and order in outer space. These early "space westerns" included Buck Rogers (ABC 1950-51), Captain Video and His Video Rangers (Dumont 1949-54), Flash Gordon (Syndicated 1953), Space Patrol (ABC 1951-52), and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (CBS/ABC/NBC 1950-52).


A generation reared with television. On April 7, 1927, Bell Telephone Labs and AT&T introduced the first public USA television demonstration. Pictures and sound were sent by wire from Washington, D.C., to New York City. A wireless demonstration also occurred 22 miles away, from Whippany, New Jersey, to New York City. The demonstration's main feature was a speech by Herbert Hoover, which originated in Washington, D.C., and was received on a two- by three-inch screen. Postwar television was still new in America, west of Chicago. Most shows were either live or were movies converted for TV — triggering a nationwide trend of theater closures that persists into the 21st century.
Popular kid TV shows were Buffalo Bob and Clarabelle, Captain Kangaroo, Lassie, and Leave it to Beaver. Other pastimes included malt shops, community swimming pools, and clubs. The most popular of the clubs were the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. By 1955, boomers were enjoying after-school sports at the junior-high level. The I Love Lucy show was unique — the longest continuously running show in television history, which continues to air daily. Now that's entertainment!


Innocence lost. Emulating wartime mothers, postwar American moms began to find jobs outside the home. Thus began an age of discontentment. Living in seemingly sterile neighborhoods devoid of urban diversions and the traditional extended family, many children were left to fend for themselves after school. They became known as "latchkey kids." Television became a surrogate parent.


Dr. Benjamin Spock had written a runaway, bestseller “how to” book in 1946, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, for a mere 25 cents. During Dr. Spock's long lifetime, his book was translated into 39 languages and sold more than 50 million copies, making it second in sales only to the Bible.


Dr. Spock also taught child development at Case-Western University and wrote additional books on the subject. The influence of those books on the parents and children of the Baby Boom Generation is difficult to overstate. Dr. Spock's philosophy was liberal in the sense that children reared as idealistic individuals would achieve happy and productive lives. Dr. Spock had always been a part of that generation's lives and continued to influence them in their college years, which happened to coincide with the the 1960s and 1970s.


As the Cold War heated up and American troops were sent to Vietnam, Spock became a vocal political activist, speaking out for disarmament and against the war in Southeast Asia. To Spock, that was just another way of defending the young people to whom he was so devoted. His political views made him unpopular in some circles and hurt the sales of his baby and child care book, but he persisted, convinced that politics was an essential part of pediatrics. He participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations well into his 80s and 90s, and ran for president on a third-party ticket in 1972, speaking out on issues concerning working families, children, and minorities.


During the Cold War Era, many families fatalistically built bomb shelters in their backyard. Youngsters were taught in school to “duck and cover” when air-raid sirens sounded, in preparation for a nuclear blast. The boomers were the first of all human generations to be reared under the real threat of Armageddon. Sometimes sirens were tested after school when mothers were not yet home from work — that was scary. In California, many children knew how to stand clear of the chimney and go to the nearest door frame for safety, during the occasional earthquake. That was scary as well. The suburbs were not the paradise many parents had imagined they would be.


The Sixties


Accelerating change. The 1960s was the decade that defined the boomers. The music, events, and social changes left a permanent imprint. Boomers born between '46 and '51 were young teenagers. Those individuals born during the peak boomer years, '52 to '57, were in their formative years during the Sixties. The televised pseudo-realities of Lassie, Leave It to Beaver, and the Nelson Family, portrayed innocence lost, then were replaced by the sad realities of the Cold War and the civil rights struggle, all to a rock 'n roll beat. So many changes occurred in the Sixties that an individual's age during the decade greatly affected how he or she turned out. The year 1961 was a great deal different from 1969.


The Sixties were turbulent, owing to the unrest of civil rights marches, “free love," rock music, drug experimentation, long hair and disheveled clothes, and the winds of war in Indochina. As an celebrity antiwar protester, Dr. Spock was again in the national limelight.


California was a magnet for disenfranchised dreamers, often called "hippies." They came in droves, many having dropped out of school; they came on the bus and train; they hitch-hiked from Everytown, USA. Such seminal rock 'n roll performers as Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, and Pink Floyd, resembled the mythical and fabled pied piper.


A Scott Mackenzie tune, sung by The Mamas and the Papas, lyrically advised: "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair." Harvard professor Timothy Leary's advice: "Turn on, Tune in, Drop out," delivered at a press conference in New York City in 1966, urged youth to create countercultural change through the use of psychedelic stimulants (especially the drug LSD), and by removing themselves from the prevailing society. The phrase was derided by conservative critics and most other adults.

And they came, idealistic, euphoric and hopeful, ragged and broke. Most were disillusioned by what they found, then returned to the communities they came from, or just moved on. A few sampled the rural life in communes or on farms, but most of those became disillusioned with the tough work. Nevertheless, the idealism of the Sixties and some alternative rural communities survive and thrive in the 21st century, thanks to aging boomers with enduring values.

The Seventies
Social dreams. Those born at the early end of the boomer continuum were in their early 20s by 1970. The deaths of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Beatle John Lennon, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.; the Vietnam War; moon pioneer Neil Armstrong, the Woodstock Festival, the Watergate scandal and President Nixon's resignation and pardon (by his successor, Gerald R. Ford), all left psychic footprints in boomers' heads.


As teens and young adults, many boomer activists pushed for new federal legislation to fulfill the old social dreams of the Bill of Rights and FDR. Chief among those thoroughly American social upheavals were the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements.

One federal response was Affirmative Action, the mandated encouragement of increased representation of women and minority-group members, especially in higher-education admittance and job-hiring practices. Proponents believed that a boost for women and minorities would help equalize access to the American Dream.

An argument against Affirmative Action was that preferences towards minorities and women produce “reverse discrimination," especially against white men — a punitive approach that was not inadvertent.

In the 1979 United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO-CLC v. Weber case, the Supreme Court ruled that the private sector could apply voluntary racial preference programs in hiring. Another Supreme Court landmark case supporting Affirmative Action was Grutter v. Bollinger (June 1993), in which Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the majority of justices upheld the constitutionality of the University of Michigan Law School's Affirmitive Action program, as long as each application was processed individually.


In both cases, conservatives accused the high court of endorsing reverse discrimination. Many argued that employers and schools that preferentially favored women and minorities were committing the same injustice against whites that the Jim Crow laws had committed against blacks.

The Eighties

Political sea change. The 1980s were the "payback" years. Many "twenty- something" and "thirty-something" adults who numbered among the earlier social-movement supporters, now swung to the political Right by supporting conservative President Ronald Reagan.

Boomers, in a reaction against the way Affirmative Action had been implemented, the Reagan administration cut funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department. Reagan believed that the government promoted reverse discrimination and stated that it should relax its efforts to reach employment equality on behalf of African Americans and other minority groups. He also felt that compensating African Americans and other minority groups for past discrimination with hiring quotas, numerical goals, and timetables, ought to be eliminated. As a result of those cuts, the EEOC filed 60 percent fewer cases by 1984 than it had at the beginning of the Reagan administration. In addition, cases against segregation in schools or housing, prepared by the Justice Department, virtually disappeared.

The 1980s also experienced the worst recession since the 1930s, and economic growth in the 1980s was lower than in the 1970s.


The personal computer. The Eighties were the decade of the personal computer (PC). While computer technology had matured parallel to the boomer generation, the PC differed from previous computerized settings in that it brought full control of the computer to the individual. PCs were then wired together (networked), which created a new standard for business and government knowledge access and communication. The new PCs attracted many boomers into the computer industry, which sparked another career opportunity for that group.


Divorce. The American divorce rate peaked at 50 percent in 1979; the new divorcees were mostly boomers. Boomers were getting back into dating. They wore polyester "leisure suits" to the discotheque, and smoked marijuana, while some graduated to cocaine and other more powerful drugs. Until early in the decade, for the boomer generation, dating and sexual intimacy had become synonymous across America, nowhere more than on the East and West coasts. New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles were magnets for singles and "alternative lifestyles."


At the other end, those born after 1959 have no direct recollection of the assassination of President Kennedy; they were not yet listening to rock music by the time the Beatles broke up. They were much more likely to use illegal drugs, often to great and disturbing excess. And they were never subjected to the military draft. Any attempt to lump together early and late boomers probably would not work. There is much that ties them together, but also much that separates them.


HIV/AIDS. Early and late boomers shared common ground on the topic of sexual activity beginning in the 1980s, through the first part of the 21st century. HIV/AIDS began to affect boomers in their sexual prime by a virus that remains latent for up to 10 years. The mysterious disease first began to ravage male homosexuals, whose sexual practices were outside the societal norm. The atmosphere of "free love" began to chill when it was realized there was no cure for a disease that began to kill thousands of people each year. In the absence of understanding about how the disease spread, fear prevailed, and it was perceived that unprotected intimacy had become an invitation to die. The response of people of all ages was to practice monogamy, abstinence, special precautions during intimacy, and even distrust of partners, past and present. The "free love" party was over.


The Nineties


Into the mainstream. The boomers were now trickling into the demographic mainstream; their age range was 26 to 44 at the decade's beginning. They were still sexually active, but much more cautious. HIV/AIDS infections continued to increase throughout the decade, but were no longer confined to marginal groups. The users of illegal drugs tended to reuse needles, some of which had been used by an HIV-infected person, thus spreading the virus beyond its original hosts to the general population. HIV/AIDS left a permanent impact on the boomer generation, forcing many of them toward a more traditional view of life.


2001 and beyond


Now middle-aged (37-55), the Baby Boom generation comprises the mainstream of American demographics. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are boomers, as are many in Congress and the judiciary. However, many of the most powerful people in America are still of boomers' parents' generation. Examples include U.S. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska and U.S. Senator William Byrd of Virginia.

Boomers represent 26.75 percent, or 77 million of the American population. As they move into the senior citizen age group, such government programs as Social Security will be more heavily impacted as that generations' expectations of government services become dominant in the American economy.

Senior citizens are noted for their interest in voting. In the 2000 presidential election, approximately 59 percent of baby boomers voted. Older boomers were more likely to vote than younger boomers by 69 to 56 percent. The 55-64 and 65-74 age groups produced the highest turnouts at 70.01 and 72.2 percent respectively.


In the Election of 2000 and the Election of 2004, seniors thought highly of President Bush. Fifty-five percent of voters 60 and over held a favorable opinion of him, while 54 percent of that group approved of his job performance. Tellingly, nearly all the key swing states broke according to seniors’ preferences. In Florida and Colorado, where Bush received support from a majority of seniors, he won. Conversely, in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Minnesota, where Bush failed to secure a majority of seniors, he lost.


Baby boomers enjoy a higher level of education than any generation before them. About 88.8 percent of boomers completed high school, and 28.5 percent hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Increasing every decade, life expectancy has changed substantially over the last century. In 1900, life expectancy at birth was 47.9 years for males and 50.7 for females. In 2003, life expectancy at birth was projected to be 74.8 years for males and 80.1 for females.


As boomers head for retirement, it is well to remember that most Americans who fit within the Baby Boomer designation have lived responsible lives: working, paying taxes, rearing their children. They just happen to be the ones who surfed on the crest of runaway change.



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*Levittowns are located in rural New York and Pennsylvania. Named after developer William J. Levitt, they were constructed with prefabricated units and mass production techniques, beginning in 1947.


Off-site search results for "Baby Boom Generation"...
Baby Boom History Summary
As the baby-boom generation matured in the 1970s and 1980s, many left behind their youthful rebellion and became what were called "yuppies" (see entry under 1980s—The Way We Lived in volume 5), slang for young urban professionalbaby-boom generation matured in the 1970s and 1980s, many left behind their youthful rebellion and became what were called "yuppies" (see entry under 1980s—The Way We Lived in volume 5), slang for young urban professionals. Although many ...
http://www.bookrags.com/history/popculture/baby-boom-bbbb-03/

Baby Boomers
... World War II, causing people to refer to this period as the "baby boom." Baby boomers became known for their rebelliousness. Coming of age in the 1950s and 1960s, during the heart of the Cold War, many of these people rejected the more ...
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1699

Mark Twain quotations - Babies
- The Babies speech 1879 A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother. - Letter to Annie Webster, 1876 Trading card "Funny Baby" from the Dave Thomson collection. Quotations Newspaper Articles Special Features Links Search ...http://www.twainquotes.com/Babies.html