User Interface - Sub head: Signage

Can't remember where I shot this, sorry about the fuzziness, wonder why it doesn't mention lips or toes or ???

The US Election: Why Obama may not win

Dear correspondents, and various blogs/fora/groups:

I write this just moments before his acceptance speech in Denver.

It is not because he cannot win...and it won't be racism, alone, that will keep Obama from winning.

The local/national races will go to Democrats, since the Republicans have really upset the middle with their incompetence and the war.

People will vote McCain for President because they don't want a single party to be in control.

I hope I'm wrong.

Frish

Michelangelo's David returning to Italy...

 

A bit of culture for a change.    After a two year visit to the United States , Michelangelo's David is returning to Italy . . .      His Proud Sponsors were:

 

First Republican

 Source: National Geographic Magazine

An archeological team, digging in Washington DC , has uncovered 10,000 year old bones and fossil remains of what is believed to be the first Republican.

My friend Barbara's first You Tube!

A Letter to Colin Powell from Ray Mc Govern

Here's a little something about the illegal war in Iraq.  Thought you should know.

Out Damn Blot: A Letter to Colin Powell By Ray McGovern August 15, 2008 Dear Colin, You have said you regret the "blot" on your record caused by your parroting spurious intelligence at the U.N. to justify war on Iraq. On the chance you may not have noticed, I write to point out that you now have a unique opportunity to do some rehab on your reputation. If you were blindsided, well, here's an opportunity to try to wipe off some of the blot. There is no need for you to end up like Lady Macbeth, wandering arou nd aimlessly muttering, Out damn spot…or blot. It has always strained credulity, at least as far as I was concerned, to accept the notion that naiveté prevented you from seeing through the game Vice President Dick Cheney and then-CIA Director George Tenet were playing on Iraq. And I was particularly suspicious when you chose to ignore the strong dissents of your own State Department intelligence analysts who, as you know, turned out to be far more on target than counterparts in more servile agencies. It was equally difficult for me to believe that you thought that, by insisting that shameless George Tenet sit behind you on camera, you could ensure a modicum of truth in your speech before the U.N. Security Council. You were far savvier than that. That is certainly the impression I got from our every-other-morning conversations in the mid-80s, before I went in to brief the President's Daily Brief to your boss, then-Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, one-on-one. I saw the street smarts you displayed then. The savvy was familiar to me. I concluded that it came, in part, from the two decades you and I spent growing up in the same neighborhood at the same time in the Bronx. On those Bronx streets, rough as they we re, there was also a strong sense of what was honorable —honorable even among thieves and liars, you might say. And we had words, which I will not repeat here, for sycophants, pimps, and cowards. Your U.N. speech of Feb. 5, 2003 left me speechless, so to speak — largely because of the measure of respect I had had for you before then. Outrage is too tame a word for what quickly became my reaction and that of my colleagues in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), as we watched you perform before the Security Council less than six weeks before the unnecessary, illegal attack on Iraq. The purpose — as well as the speciousness — of your address were all too transparent and, in a same-day commentary, we VIPS warned President George W. Bush that, if he attacked Iraq, "the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic." That's history. Or, as investigative reporter Ron Suskind would say, "It's all on the record." You have not yet summoned the courage to admit it, but I think I know you well enough to believe you have a Lady Macbeth-type conscience problem that goes far beyond the spot on your record. With 4,141 American soldiers — not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens — dead, and over 30,000 GIs badly wounded, how could you not? What Did You Know…and When? Here is what could be good news for you, Colin. Information that has come to light over the past two years or so could wipe some of the blot fouling your record. It all depends, I guess, on how truthful you are prepared to be now. Much of the new data comes from former CIA officials who, ironically, have sought to assuage their own consciences by doing talk therapy with authors like Sidney Blumenthal and Ron Suskind. At first blush, these revelations seem so outlandish that they themselves strain credulity. But they stand up to close scrutiny far better than what you presented in your U.N. speech, for example. If you now depend on the fawning corporate media (FCM) for your information, you will have missed this very significant, two-pronged story. In brief, with the help of Allied intelligence services, the CIA recruited your Iraqi counterpart, Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, and Tahir Jalil Habbush, the chief of Iraqi intelligence. They were cajoled into remaining in place20while giving us critical intelligence well before the war — actually, well before your speech laying the groundwork for war. In other words, at a time when Saddam Hussein believed that Sabri and Habbush were working for him, we had "turned" them. They were working for us, and much of the information they provided had been evaluated and verified. Most important, each independently affirmed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, information that should have prevented you from making a fool of yourself before the U.N. Security Council. The Iraqi Foreign Minister The FCM gave almost no coverage (surprise, surprise!) to the reporting from Naji Sabri, which continues to be pretty much lost in the woodwork. In case you missed it, we now know from former CIA officials that his information on the absence of WMD was concealed from Congress, from our senior military, and from intelligence analysts — including those working on the infamous National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1, 2002.  That NIE, titled "Iraq's Continuing Programs for WMD," was the one specifically designed to mislead Congress into authorizing the president to make war on Iraq. One question is whether it is true that Sabri's reporting was also concealed from you. Tyler Drumheller, at the time a division chief in CIA's clandestine service, was the first to tell the story of Naji Sabri, who is now living a comfortable retirement in Qatar. On CBS's "60 Minutes" on April 23, 2006, Drumheller disclosed that the CIA had received documentary evidence from Sabri that Iraq had no WMD. Drumheller added, "We continued to validate him the whole way through." Then two other former CIA officers confirmed this account to author Sidney Blumenthal, adding that George Tenet briefed this information to President George W. Bush on Sept. 18, 2002, and that Bush dismissed the information as worthless. Wait. It gets worse. The two former CIA officers told Blumenthal that someone in the agency rewrote the report from Sabri to indicate that Saddam Hussein was "aggressively and covertly developing" nuclear weapons and already had chemical and biological weapons. That altered report was shown to the likes of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was "duped," according to one of the CIA officers. Worse still, the fo rmer CIA officials reported that George Tenet never shared the unadulterated information from the Iraqi foreign minister with you, the Secretary of State and Naji Sabri's counterpart. Again, whether that is true is a very large outstanding question. The Chief of Iraqi Intelligence Again, Colin, I am assuming you take your information from the FCM, so let me brief you, as in the old days, on what else has popped up over the past couple of weeks. Two other CIA clandestine service officers have told author Ron Suskind that Iraqi intelligence chief Habbush had become one of our secret sources on Iraq, beginning in January 2003. I hope you are sitting down, Colin, because Habbush also told us Iraq had no WMD. One of the helpful insights he passed along to us was that Saddam Hussein had decided that some ambiguity on the WMD issue would help prevent his main enemy, Iran, from thinking of Iraq as a toothless tiger. Habbush, part of Saddam's inner circle, had direct access to this kind of information. But when President Bush was first told of Habbush's report that there were no WMD in Iraq, Suskind's sources say the president reacted by saying, "Well, why don't you tell him to give us something we can use to make our c ase?" Apparently, Habbush was unable or unwilling to oblige by changing his story.  Nevertheless, later in 2003, when it became clear that he had been telling the unwelcome truth, Habbush was helped to resettle in Jordan and given $5 million to keep his mouth shut. Suskind also reveals that in the fall of 2003, Habbush was asked to earn his keep by participating in a keystone-cops-type forgery aimed at "proving" that Saddam Hussein did, after all, have a direct hand in the tragedy of 9/11. This crude forgery was not unlike the one that originally gave us the yarn about yellowcake uranium going from Niger to Iraq. You will hardly be surprised to hear there is evidence, much of it circumstantial, that Vice President Dick Cheney was the intellectual author of both incredibly inept forgery operations. Sorry to have to bring this up, but there is something else about Habbush that you need to know. He had actually been in charge of overseeing what was left of the Iraqi biological weapons program after the 1991 Gulf War, and reported that it was stopped in 1996. Sabri vs. Curveball Before the attack on I raq, Tenet's deputy, John McLaughlin, was repeatedly briefed on Sabri's information, but complained that it was at variance with "our best source" — a reference to the infamous "Curveball," the con-man whom German intelligence had warned the CIA not to take seriously. You may recall hearing that on the evening before your U.N. speech, Drumheller warned Tenet not to use the information from Curveball on mobile biological weapons laboratories; Tenet gave Drumheller the brush-off. The CIA artists' renderings of those laboratories, to which you called such prominent attention during your speech, were spiffy, but bore no relationship to reality. Tenet and McLaughlin knew this almost as well as Sabri and Habbush did. "We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and rails," you will recall telling the world. Later, you lamented publicly that you had not been warned about Curveball either. McLaughlin seemed to confirm that this was so, in an interview with the Washington Post in 2006: "If someone had made those doubts clear to me, I would not have permitted the reporting to be used in Secretary Powell's speech." This is highly disingenuous, even by McLaughlin's and Tenet's standards, since20they had deliberately chosen to ignore Drumheller's warning. I know Drumheller; he is a far better bet for truthfulness that the other two. Outright Lies Although I am against the death penalty, I can sympathize with the vehement reaction of normally taciturn Carl Ford, head of State Department intelligence at the time. Ford has revealed that both Tenet and McLaughlin went to extraordinary lengths, and even took a personal hand in trying to salvage some credibility for the notorious Curveball. In an interview for Hubris, a book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Carl Ford spared no words, asserting that Tenet's and McLaughlin's analysis "was not just wrong, they lied…they should have been shot." Though I've been around a while, I am not the best judge of character, Colin, and perhaps I am being too credulous in giving you the benefit of the doubt concerning what you knew — or didn't. It could be, I suppose, that you were fully briefed on Naji Sabri, Habbush, Curveball, and all the rest of it, and have been able to orchestrate plausible denial. If that is the case, I suppose it would seem safer to you to let sleeping dogs lie. If, on the other hand, what my former colleagues say about your having been fenced off from this key intelligence is true, your reaction seems a bit … how shall I describe it? … understated. Perhaps you are too long gone from the Bronx. Back there, back then, letting folks use you and make a fool of you without any response was just not done. It was the equivalent to running away when someone was messing with your sister. And letting oneself be bullied always set a bad precedent, affirming for the bullies that they can push people around — especially understated ones — and risk nothing. In sum, the CIA had both the Iraqi foreign minister and the Iraqi intelligence chief "turned" and reporting to us in the months before the war (in Naji Sabri's case) and the weeks before your U.N. speech (in the case of Tahir Jalil Habbush). Both were part of Saddam Hussein's inner circle; both reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction. But this was not what the president wanted to hear, so Tenet put the kibosh on Habbush and put Sabri on a cutter to Qatar. So Here's Your Opportunity Either you knew about Sabri, Habbush and Curveball, or you did not.  If you knew, I suppose you will keep hunkering down, licking your blot, and hoping that plausible denial will continue to work for you.   If you were kept in the dark, though, I would think you would want to raise holy hell — if not to hold accountable those of your former superiors and colleagues responsible for the carnage of the past five years, then at least to try to wipe the "blot" off your record. Granted, it probably strikes you as a highly unwelcome choice — whether to appear complicit or naïve. Here's an idea. Why not just tell the truth? If House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is any guide, Congress seems quite taken with the explosive revelations in Ron Suskind's book "The Way of the World." On Thursday, Conyers joined Suskind on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now," and declared that he is "the third day into the most critical investigation of the entire Bush administration." (He clearly was referring to the Suskind revelations.) Conyers emphasized that, even though Congress is in recess, "We're starting our work, and … I'm calling everyone back. We've got a huge amount of work to engage in." At the same time, though, Conyers said he is "maybe the most fru strated person attempting to exercise the oversight responsibilities that I have on Judiciary." A good deal of his frustration comes from stonewalling by the Bush/Cheney administration, which will surely cite national security or executive privilege to justify withholding any damaging information. Bush Visits CIA It was, no doubt, pure coincidence that President Bush made a highly unusual visit to CIA headquarters, also on Thursday, before leaving for Crawford on vacation. The official line is that he wanted an update on the situation in Georgia and the Russian role there, but Bush did not need to go to Langley for that Rather, given the record of the past seven years, it is reasonable to suggest that he also wanted to assure malleable Mike Hayden, the CIA director, and his minions that they will be protected if they continue to stiff-arm appropriate congressional committees, denying them the information they need for a successful investigation. Pardons dangled as hush money? Not so bizarre at all. Some will recall that George H.W. Bush, just before leaving the White House, pardoned one of your former bosses, Casper Weinberger, who had been indicted and was about to go to trial for lying ab out his role in the Iran-Contra fiasco. If past is precedent, sad to say, Conyers is not likely to get to first base, UNLESS he can get knowledgeable witnesses to come forward.  On Thursday he did not rule out a suggestion that Habbush be asked to come before Congress to testify, but the CIA can easily thwart that kind of thing — or delay it indefinitely. In any case, your own credibility, though damaged, has got to be greater than Habbush's.   Let me suggest that you offer yourself as a witness to help clear the air on these very important issues. This would seem the responsible, patriotic thing to do in the circumstances and could also have the salutary effect of beginning the atonement process for that day of infamy at the Security Council. If we hear no peep out of you in the coming weeks, we shall not be able to escape concluding one of two things: (1) That, as was the case with the White House Situation Room sessions on torture, you were a willing participant in suppressing/falsifying key intelligence on Iraq; or (2) That you lack the courage to expose the scoundrels who betrayed not only you, but also that segment of our country and our world t hat still puts a premium on truth telling and the law. Think about it. With all due respect, Ray McGovern Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-year career in CIA's analysis ranks, he chaired National Intelligence Estimates and briefed the President's Daily Brief to the most senior national security officials. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). --

Cheers,

Frish

The Delusion Revolution: We're on the Road to Extinction and in Denial

http://www.alternet.org/story/95126/

Some Sobering Reality about the state of the world...

http://www.alternet.org/environment/89940/

 

A report about the true state of the world!

 

Wow.

 

Here are a few choice quotes:

1. ..."the combination of extinctions, global species migrations and the widespread replacement of natural vegetation with agricultural monocultures is producing a distinctive contemporary biostratigraphic signal. These effects are permanent, as future evolution will take place from surviving (and frequently anthropogenically relocated) stocks." Evolution itself, in other words, has been forced into a new trajectory.

2. The United Nations Development Program...warns that it will require "a 50 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions worldwide by 2050 against 1990 levels" to keep humanity outside the red zone of runaway warming (usually defined as a greater than two degrees centigrade increase this century). Yet the International Energy Agency predicts that, in all likelihood, such emissions will actually increase in this period by nearly 100 percent -- enough greenhouse gas to propel us past several critical tipping points.

 

3.  As the current ethanol-from-corn boom, which has diverted 100 million tons of grain from human diets mainly to American car engines, so appallingly demonstrates, "biofuel" may be a euphemism for subsidies to the rich and starvation for the poor.

 

4.  The real question is this: Will rich counties ever mobilize the political will and economic resources to actually achieve IPCC targets or, for that matter, to help poorer countries adapt to the inevitable, already "committed" quotient of warming now working its way toward us through the slow circulation of the world ocean?

 

5. In a sobering study recently published in the Proceedings of the [U.S.] National Academy of Science, a research team has attempted to calculate the environmental costs of economic globalization since 1961 as expressed in deforestation, climate change, over-fishing, ozone depletion, mangrove conversion, and agricultural expansion. After making adjustments for relative cost burdens, they found that the richest countries, by their activities, had generated 42 percent of environmental degradation across the world, while shouldering only 3 percent of the resulting costs.

--
Cheers,

Frish

George W Bush Library to Open in 2009

The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages.

The Library will include:

·        The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.

·        The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.

·        The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up.

·        The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.

·        The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.

·        The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find.

·        The National Debt room which is huge and has no ceiling.

·        The 'Tax Cut' Room with entry only to the wealthy.

·        The 'Economy Room' which is in the toilet.

·        The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tour.

·        The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shotgun gallery.

·        The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty.

·        The Supreme Court's Gift Shop, where you can buy an election.

·        The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.

·        The 'Decision Room' complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.

.      The No CARB Exercise Room - No Cheney, No Ashcroft, No Rumsfeld, No Bush and definitely, No Rice. 

·        The museum will also have an electron microscope to help you locate the President's accomplishments.

Milwaukee News - Man Shoots Lawn Mower...

Angry man shoots lawn mower for not starting

Fri Jul 25, 6:17 PM ET

MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee man was accused of shooting his lawn mower because it wouldn't start. Keith Walendowski, 56, was charged with felony possession of a short-barreled shotgun or rifle and misdemeanor disorderly conduct while armed. 

According to the criminal complaint, Walendowski said he was angry because his Lawn Boy wouldn't start Wednesday morning. He told police quote, "I can do that, it's my lawn mower and my yard so I can shoot it if I want."

A woman who lives at Walendowski's house reported the incident. She said he was intoxicated.

Walendowski could face up to an $11,000 fine and six years and three months in prison if convicted. 

A call to Walendowski's home went unanswered Friday morning.

The intrepid reporter didn't get through, however, If you feel like calling, his number is 414-481-3969.

Richard, or Dorothy (the woman who called police) might answer.  Say Hi! 

If I had the need to be in touch with 6000 Indian Journalists...

MY COMMENTS IN RED/CAPS DEPENDING ON IF THE FOMATTING MADE IT THOUGH!

From: Customer Support <customer.servicess@gmail.com>  I LOVE THAT EMAIL ID!
Date: Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 9:22 PM
Subject: Fwd: Press Release For Immediate Release
To:


Original message for frishberg


 I got the mail below from a friend of mine and following the unwritten code of
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 been forwarding this mail would go waste if this mail doesn't reach
 YOU......

I LOVE THAT 'UNWRITTEN CODE OF CONDUCT'!

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spell check test:
PRESSURE ON MAO'S SON TO MEET THE PM AND REPLY HIS LINK TO TIBET NOW.

Wrote some speculation on the likelihood of extraterrestrials

Nick, hello!

I wrote this:  http://www.the-brights.net/forums/forum/index.php?showtopic=8712

Then was pointed to this: http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20569/?a=f

Amazingly congruent. The "great filter" lies JUST IN FRONT OF US, in my opinion...

I have a little theory on the future of humanity. Over the last few hundred human generations:

1.  "Follow-the-Leader" behavior evolves to have almost all of us 

2.  "quest for god" and that is good for our population growth that creates need for 

3.  more technology (due to population pressure all by itself!) that leads to filling every ecological niche on Earth with humans

4. eventually overwhelming the natural systems that support us and to

5.  "human extinction" because we are INCAPABLE of ceasing our "quest" for a higher power and acting RATIONALLY

Technology is now "advanced" to the point that we're no longer simply overcoming natural limits, 

we're OVERWHELMING nature itself.

Combining two truths:

We have a need to seek a higher power.  

This is as a result of our heredity and was of immense evolutionary benefit (right up until now!)

Technology overcomes natural limits on our biology, and was of immense evolutionary benefit, (right up until now)

CRITICAL THINKING AND BEING ABLE TO ACT ON 'TRUTH' IS WHAT IS GOING TO FAIL US.

That's because 85+++% of the population tends to agree that "god will provide" or "it's god's plan" 

and will die arguing instead of accepting any decent solution to our situation.

That's why I'm a volunteer! www.vhemt.org since I truly believe the "Great Filter" is a "sneeze" away (150 years MAX) 

from blowing us off the planet.

Being a moral actor, I would be remiss to procreate, and choose to minimize the numbers of those suffering at the end.

Keep up the great thoughts, I will too, as we "live long and die off"!

-- 

Cheers,

Frish
Michael W. Frishberg

-----------------------------------------------------

Amazingly simple refutation of the Omni-everything God

1.  Data requires a PHYSICAL substrate on which to exist.  There is no information in a vacuum.

2.  No matter in our universe can travel faster than light.

3.  Omni-potent/present/precient/everything god must act faster than light to do what he's attributed to do.

What particles hold the thoughts of god?  We see none, and none can travel faster than light, so, no god possible.

The "seeking of a higher power" proclivity allows for otherwise rational intelligent individuals to also hold irrational impossible tenets when it comes to god.

That's why we're doomed, they won't accept or believe or do what it is needed to continue the human race.

Corporations don't care about customers, they care about profits and are by far the most active technological and social organizations ("change agents") on the planet.  They cannot be reigned in by governments, they own the governments...

We're going to 9,000,000,000 individuals within 40 years.  The impacts of a "western" civilization (as delivered by corporations, worldwide) will overwhelm natural systems ability to cope with us, and some microbe, the one that fixes selenium or other rare earth mineral into the food chain, will go extinct and then it's end of game!

I am a salesman.

I am an optimist.

I am happy.

I know we are doomed...oh well.

my web-activism today

MY WEB ACTIVISM TODAY

Posted by: "Eco_atl" eco_h2o@lycos.com   eco_h2o

Fri Jul 18, 2008 9:47 am (PDT)

What should I recycle?

I answered:
Recycle --broadcast- knowledge, good ideas, & conscience about the 
environment.
Information and knowledge are stuff that do not deteriorate with use. On 
the contrary, they increase their value with use.

One good idea is to recycle (care about, adopt) poor children already 
existing in undeveloped countries, and not create new babies (and 
increasing overpopulation, over-consumption and overshoot)

Recycle MEMES not GENES.

Eco_h2o
<:{{{{{{>< <:))))))>< <:{{{{{{>< <:))))))>< <:{{{{{{><

LOVED THAT!

I too did some web-activism today.  I had seen an advert for  wecansolveit.org in Newsweek last week and meant to log onto their site to see what was up...  Then, they hit my inbox with the Al Gore speech from yesterday, touting a moonshot approach to renewable energy within 10 years.

So, I signed up on their site.  After registering, they asked several questions, but one was

"What is your community doing?"

So, I said my community is not having children, so that the rest of the biosphere might survive.

Didn't mention VHEMT, no need!

It was fun, and if all of you did it too they'd start to wonder for sure!!!

Cheers,

Frish

McCain, Birth Control, Viagra!

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/mccain_respect_contraception/?r=922&id=574-465649-pXZpdqx

"Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. In 2003 Sen. McCain voted against forcing insurance companies to cover birth control.¹ And this is the same senator who claimed in 2007 not to know whether condoms prevented sexually transmitted diseases.^2"

IF THIS GUY WINS, I REALLY WILL HAVE TO CONSIDER MY OPTIONS ON OTHER COUNTRIES TO LIVE IN...HE'S TOXIC, UNINFORMED, AND JUST PLAIN WRONG, MOST OF THE TIME.

--
Cheers,  Frish

A comment on "Hodges: Coercion is no way to win converts"

Corey, you wrote a terrific article.  http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_9855668

"If the allegations are substantiated, the Army is in clear violation of the Constitution".

Here's some truth that may help you or may just upset you, truth has that tendency!

Seeking a higher power is part of our human nature, and natural explanations account for all of it.

Some NEED to SEEK a Higher Power, yet, I don't!  Why might that be?

All humans share the following genetic capabilities:
1) moral nature - our specific moral behaviors are learned within a cultural context, Muslims find eating pork a "sin", Polynesians worship pigs! 

All are born with a conscience; Muslims feel guilty eating pork, Polynesians don't!

2) capability to speak - our specific language is learned.

3) need to seek a higher power – one's actual "belief" or "religion" is a choice, I have no need to seek…so this is not part of my genetics, see below!

4) sexual orientation - heterosexuality is built in to most of us, it is not a choice or a lifestyle.

The need to "Seek a higher power" is genetic. More genes were passed along by individuals who tended to "follow-the-Leader" over the last 200,000 years or so. 

That's because those without a "natural tendency" to acquiesce to leadership, wandered too far from camp at night and got eaten by wolves before procreating. 

The manifestation of that GENETICALLY AND EVOLUTIONARILY BENEFICIAL TENDENCY is what we observe; "faithful" seek and find a set of beliefs that satisfies the need to seek.

Almost all people have a built-in need to seek a higher power and religions offer various paths to satisfy this need.

I don't have the need, and that's simple human variability.

Not a debate between "believers" and atheists at all, your belief is simply fulfillment of a biological urge, and can't be countered with rational thought.

You said: "Christians should desire the conversion of everyone to the faith."  I can't "convert" you to atheism any more than you can convince me to change my sexual orientation.  The only "conversions" obtained will be amongst those who share your NEED TO SEEK HIGHER POWERS, not any atheists!

We atheists have reason to fear the faithful, as many besides "soldiers miss the point of the Christian faith"!

Frish - Fearless Leader, LA Brights

Origin Haiku

No where is now here!

Big bang: {No Where} Is only a Matter of Space... and in Time...{Now Here}!

ORIGIN HAIKU!

Origin HAIKU! Big bang: No Where Is (only a Matter of Space) Now Here...just in Time!

Waxman Warns AG of Scheduled Contempt Vote

I LOVE my representative, Henry Waxman!

Chairman Waxman Warns Attorney General of Scheduled Contempt Vote

Chairman Waxman writes Attorney General Mukasey that the Oversight Committee will vote to hold him in contempt unless the Attorney General produces a copy of the report of the FBI interview of Vice President Cheney in the investigation of the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent.

 

Full text of the letter to Attorney General Mukasey:

 

July 8, 2008

 

The Honorable Michael B. Mukasey

Attorney General

U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington , DC 20530

 

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

 

On June 16, 2008, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a subpoena to you for the production of documents relevant to the Committee's investigation of the leak of the covert identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. You have neither complied with this subpoena by its returnable date nor asserted any privilege to justify withholding documents from the Committee. In light of your actions, I am writing to inform you that the Committee will meet on July 16, 2008, to consider a resolution citing you for contempt of Congress. I strongly urge you to comply with the duly issued subpoena before then.

 

For more than one year, the Oversight Committee has been seeking documents from the Department of Justice relevant to our investigation into the leak of Ms. Wilson's identity. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has cooperated with the Committee's investigation, providing documents directly to the Committee and releasing others to you for production to the Committee. Two of the documents that Mr. Fitzgerald has provided to you for production to the Committee are the reports of the FBI interviews of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Despite the Committee's repeated requests, you have consistently refused to provide these reports to the Committee or unredacted versions of the reports of FBI interviews with White House staff. In response to the Committee's June 16 subpoena, you wrote: "we are not prepared to provide or make available any reports of interviews with the President or Vice President from the leak investigation" because of "core Executive Branch confidentiality interests and fundamental separation of powers principles."

 

In deference to your concerns and in a further attempt at accommodation, the Committee will not seek access to the report of the FBI interview of President Bush at this time. The report of the FBI interview with Vice President Cheney needs to be produced, however. The Vice President's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, told the FBI that it is "possible" that the Vice President instructed him to disseminate to the press information about the identity of Ms. Wilson. The Committee cannot complete its inquiry into this serious matter without the report of the Vice President's FBI interview.

 

The arguments you have raised for withholding the interview report are not tenable. When the FBI interview with the Vice President was conducted, the Vice President knew that the information in the interview could be made public in a criminal trial and that there were no restrictions on Special Counsel Fitzgerald's use of the interview. Mr. Fitzgerald clarified this key point last week, writing to the Committee that "there were no agreements, conditions, and understandings between the Office of Special Counsel or the Federal Bureau of Investigation and either the President or Vice President regarding the conduct and use of the interview or interviews."

 

Vice President Cheney's attorneys have consistently maintained that he is not an "entity within the executive branch." Whether this unusual claim is accurate or not, I am aware of no freestanding vice presidential communications privilege, let alone one that covers voluntary and unrestricted conversations with a special counsel investigating wrongdoing. There certainly was no such understanding when our Committee sought the FBI interview report of an interview with Vice President Gore. The Justice Department produced the interview to the Committee despite the fact that it contained discussion of official White House business.

 

In his closing remarks in the criminal trial of Mr. Libby, Special Counsel Fitzgerald stated: "There is a cloud over what the Vice President did that week." Your cooperation in this matter could go a long way to dispelling this notion or perhaps confirming Mr. Fitzgerald's fears. Either way, this Committee and the American people are entitled to know what happened. For similar reasons, you should also produce the unredacted versions of the interviews with White House staff that the Committee has subpoenaed.

 

Background

 

On July 16, 2007, I wrote to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to request documents from the Special Counsel investigation that are relevant to the Oversight Committee's investigation into the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent. The Committee's letter included a request for "transcripts, reports, notes, and other documents relating to any interviews outside the presence of the grand jury" of President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, and members of the White House staff.

 

On August 16, 2007, and September 6, 2007, Special Counsel Fitzgerald produced a number of documents responsive documents to the Committee. These documents consisted of FBI interviews of federal officials who did not work in the White House, as well as interviews of relevant private individuals. Mr. Fitzgerald did not provide any records of interviews with White House officials because of objections raised by the White House. As he explained in a January 18, 2008, letter to the Committee:

 

my responsibilities as Special Counsel encompass making decisions on matters normally incident to the execution of prosecutorial authority for the assigned matter, including making determinations of what information is protected by the rules of grand jury secrecy. However, I have concluded that neither the December 2003 delegation nor the February 2004 clarification delegated to me the authority of the Attorney General to provide counsel to the White House concerning the assertion of executive branch confidentiality interests in response to possible Congressional oversight, or to represent such executive branch interests in responding to an oversight request. ©

 

Accordingly, the Office of Special Counsel will complete our work providing responsive documents to the White House and other appropriate agencies after assuring ourselves that such materials are not protected by grand jury secrecy. We will also continue to transmit to you the materials to which the White House or other agencies do not assert executive branch confidentiality interests. To the extent there are materials we forward to the White House for which the executive branch asserts confidentiality interests, we will not be acting as attorneys for the executive branch in that regard. I am advised that the Department's Office of Legislative Affairs will correspond with you © regarding those interests.

 

On December 3, 2007, I wrote to you to request that you make an "independent judgment" as the Attorney General and produce the White House interview reports and the other requested materials. I renewed this request on December 18, 2007.

 

On January 18, 2008, you agreed to allow Committee staff to review redacted versions of reports of FBI interviews of White House staff, but refused to permit any access to the interview reports of the President and Vice President, citing "serious separation of powers and heightened confidentiality concerns."

 

On June 3, 2008, I wrote you to inform you that the review of the redacted versions of the FBI interviews of White House staff raised questions about the conduct of both the President and Vice President. Accordingly, I renewed the Committee's request for the interview reports of the President and Vice President, as well as unredacted versions of some of the interview reports shown to Committee staff.

 

On June 11, 2008, you responded to my June 3, 2008, letter by again refusing to produce the interview reports of the President and Vice President based again on alleged "serious separation of powers and heightened confidentiality concerns."

 

On June 16, 2008, the Committee issued a subpoena requiring the production of the interview reports of the President and Vice President, unredacted versions of five interview reports previously shown to Committee staff, and all remaining responsive documents that had not been determined to be subject to grand jury secrecy rules, with a return date of June 23, 2008.

 

On June 24, 2008, after producing some additional interview reports unrelated to White House personnel, you informed the Committee by letter that the Justice Department would not "provide or make available any reports of interviews with the President or the Vice President from the leak investigation." The Department's letter asserted that "communications of the President and the Vice President with their staffs relating to official Executive Branch activities lie at the absolute core of executive privilege." The letter suggested that you might be willing to provide the Committee with additional access to the redacted portions of interviews with White House staff, but efforts by the Committee staff to arrange for a review of these passages have proven unsuccessful.

 

At no point has the President formally asserted executive privilege over these documents.

 

The Committee's Need for the Vice President's Interview Report

 

In deference to your concerns, the Committee will not seek access to the FBI interview of President Bush at this time. I hope you will appreciate that this is a significant accommodation given that the Committee is entitled to the President's FBI report and there is precedent to support its production to Congress.

 

The Vice President's interview, however, is another matter. In Mr. Libby's interview with the FBI, which you made available to the Committee, Mr. Libby said that it was "possible" that the Vice President instructed him to leak the identity of Ms. Wilson. Since Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA officer, this would be an exceptionally serious breach of national security if it occurred. According to a statement cleared for public release by CIA Director Michael Hayden, Ms. Wilson "worked on some of the most sensitive and highly secretive matters handled by the CIA," including "the prevention of the deployment and use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States," and "faced significant risks to her personal safety and her life," with the result that the disclosure of her covert status "placed her professional contacts at greater risk" and "undermined the trust and confidence with which future CIA employees and sources hold the United States." The Committee cannot responsibly investigate this matter without access to the Vice President's interview with the FBI.

 

Other evidence before the Committee also raises questions about Vice President Cheney's conduct. The leak of the CIA employment of Valerie Plame Wilson followed the publication of a New York Times op-ed column authored by her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had traveled to Niger to investigate allegations that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa . According to trial testimony of Cathie Martin, the Assistant to the Vice President for Public Affairs, she, Mr. Libby, and the Vice President all participated in a press strategy to discredit Ambassador Wilson's account. Moreover, it appears that it was the Vice President who first informed Mr. Libby about Ms. Wilson's CIA employment.

 

The conduct of the Vice President after the release of Ms. Wilson's identity also raises serious concerns. Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, has said: "[the] Vice President directed me to go out there and exonerate Scooter Libby" and "the top White House officials who knew the truth - including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney - allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie." Needless to say, it would be a breach of the public trust if the Vice President personally directed Mr. McClellan to mislead the public.

 

Special Counsel Fitzgerald has recognized that the criminal prosecution of Mr. Libby inevitably left major questions about Vice President Cheney unanswered. In his closing remarks to the jury, he said:

 

There is a cloud over what the Vice President did that week. He wrote those columns. He had those meetings. He sent Libby off to Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel . At that meeting, the two-hour meeting, the defendant talked about the wife. We didn't put that cloud there. That cloud remains.

 

The Committee's investigation seeks to penetrate this cloud surrounding Vice President Cheney's conduct. The Committee also seeks to answer important questions about how the White House safeguards national security secrets and responds to breaches, and to make legislative recommendations to ensure appropriate handling of classified information by White House officials, including officials in the Office of the Vice President. This oversight cannot be completed without the production of the FBI interview report with the Vice President. It also requires production of the unredacted reports of the FBI interviews with other White House staff.

 

No Valid Basis for Withholding

 

In contrast to the Committee's compelling oversight needs, there is no valid basis for continuing to withhold Vice President Cheney's interview and the unredacted versions of the interviews with White House staff. Contrary to the Department's letter, the Committee is not seeking previously undisclosed communications between the President and his staff "relating to official Executive Branch activities" that may "lie at the absolute core of executive privilege." Rather, it is seeking information which the President and Vice President previously disclosed to the FBI without asserting privilege of any kind - executive or otherwise.

 

Mr. Fitzgerald removed any doubt about this important point last week. He wrote the Committee that "there were no agreements, conditions, and understandings between the Office of Special Counsel or the Federal Bureau of Investigation and either the President or Vice President regarding the conduct and use of the interview or interviews."

 

It is now clear that the Vice President knew when the interview was conducted that its contents could be made public in a criminal trial. This makes any assertion of a "confidentiality interest" untenable. Executive privilege cannot be asserted over the contents of communications voluntarily disclosed outside the White House.

 

The Oversight Committee has specific precedent on this issue. During the Clinton Administration, the Committee received reports of the FBI interviews of both President Clinton and Vice President Gore. Your letter acknowledges this precedent, but states that the Clinton Administration precedent is "fundamentally different" because "the Clinton Administration interview reports presumably did not involve © communications concerning official White House business." In fact, your speculation about presumed differences is misplaced. The FBI interview with Vice President Gore did involve several official matters, including the award of federal contracts and grants.

 

The Committee is not seeking to examine sensitive questions of foreign policy or national security. Instead, our focus is understanding what role, if any, the Vice President and others in the White House played in the leak of the identity of a covert CIA officer and what steps, if any, the Vice President and others took to investigate and respond to the leak after it occurred. There is no reason to believe that the Special Counsel's interview went beyond these questions and into areas relating to presidential decisionmaking about foreign policy or national security.

 

I am not aware of any precedent in which executive privilege has been asserted over communications between a vice president and his staff about vice presidential decisionmaking. Courts have carved out a presidential communications privilege, but they have limited it quite narrowly to communications had directly with the President or certain advisers directly on his behalf about presidential decisionmaking. Moreover, the communications in this case were communications with a special counsel investigating the behavior of Executive Branch officials. These communications would not be protected by a privilege even if they were conversations by the President himself.

 

There is a particular irony in the resistance of the Vice President to production of his interview report. As the Committee revealed last year, the Office of the Vice President has taken the position that the Vice President is not an "entity within the executive branch." This position was reaffirmed last month when the Vice President's Chief of Staff, David Addington, testified before the Judiciary Committee that "the Vice President belongs neither to the executive nor the legislative branch." If the Vice President is indeed outside the executive branch, as he seems to contend, it is hard to understand what basis there could be for asserting executive branch confidentiality interests in his communications.

 

Finally, the claim that compliance with the subpoena "would significantly impair the Department's ability to conduct future law enforcement investigations" by causing future Presidents and Vice Presidents to "insist that they will only testify pursuant to a grand jury subpoena and subject to the grand jury secrecy provision" is also unavailing. In this instance, President Bush and Vice President Cheney cooperated voluntarily with the Special Counsel despite recent precedent in which the interview reports of President Clinton and Vice President Gore were provided to the Oversight Committee. Future presidents and vice presidents will surely do the same.

 

Conclusion

 

The Committee has waited almost a full year for the Justice Department to produce the documents responsive to the Committee's request. You have had ample opportunity to provide the documents, and White House counsel has had ample opportunity to review the withheld documents for executive privilege concerns. Yet despite the issuance of a subpoena by the Committee, you are persisting in withholding responsive documents that the Committee needs to meet its oversight and legislative duties without any assertion of executive privilege by the President.

 

I regret that your failure to produce responsive documents has created this impasse, but Congress has a constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the executive branch. Therefore, unless all responsive documents, with the exception of the FBI interview report of President Bush, are provided to the Committee or a valid assertion of executive privilege is made, the Committee will meet on July 16 to consider a resolution citing you in contempt. I strongly urge you to reconsider your position and comply with the duly issued subpoena.

 

If you have any questions, please contact me personally or ask your staff to contact David Rapallo or Theodore Chuang of the Committee staff at (202) 225-5420.

 

Sincerely,

 

Henry A. Waxman

Chairman

 

cc: Tom Davis

Ranking Minority Member

USC Researchers are looking for study subjects. Interested?

Dear LA Brights:
Ben Paul was a terrific addition to our Indivisible Day Apple Pie "toss" last Friday.
He and I have had several exchanges regards his research work.

Take a peek, participate if you are interested and qualified!  

Stay Bright and forward to an atheist friend or two, as I just did!

Fearless Leader Frish

Ben Paul's call for participants!

Are you an atheist who has had the following experience?
 
While listening to music, I felt myself to be absorbed as one with all things or I became aware of a unity to all things.
 
If so, USC's Brain and Creativity Institute would like to study your experiences.
 
Please go to http://usc.edu/emotions if you are interested.
 
Our research study aims to determine what happens in the brain during these experiences. Your participation is voluntary. The study involves a 30 minute online questionnaire and a 2.5 hour brain scan + interview session. Participants selected for the brain scan + interview session will be compensated for their time in that session and will receive a picture of their brain.
 
The requirements for the study are:
?identify as an atheist
?have had the above experience in the last six months
?no metal pieces located within body
?aged 18 and over
?native speaker of American English
?normal or corrected normal hearing
?no history of psychiatric or neurological disorders 
 
Please pass this on to any friends or family members who might be interested. Thank you very much.
 
Benjamin Paul (benjamip@usc.edu)
Dr. Antonio Damasio
Brain and Creativity Institute
University of Southern California 
Date of Preparation: 6/11/08
UPIRB#: UP-08-00148

To the President of the NAE who can choose to help save humanity!

Dear Leith:  I copied your article below, and you are exactly right!
To Jon Meacham, I couldn't find an email for Sally Quinn, please forward, and forward to the other 50 "thinkers" on your list...some of this will provoke thought.  What I share is difficult to refute, that's a good test of the nature of truth.  Are we shepherds of the Earth, or simply short timers?  Others copied, please distribute far and wide.  Or share your thoughts...I'm eager to find more truth and only spent 4 hours on this piece of work...it is not complete for certain...
LEITH, YOU REALLY CAN HELP SAVE HUMANITY! 
I read your article, and ask that you return the favor.
It's the moral thing to do, if you follow the "golden rule" (see below!).
"Desire for God Is Universal" (from the Washington Post)
Saturday, July 5, 2008; Page B09

Below is an excerpt from "On Faith," an Internet feature sponsored by The Washington Post and Newsweek. Each week, more than 50 figures from the world of faith engage in a conversation about an aspect of religion. This week's question: "According to a new Pew survey, 21 percent of American atheists believe in God or a universal spirit, 12 percent believe in heaven and 10 percent pray at least once a week. What do you make of this?"
----------
When a survey says that atheists believe in God it seems obvious that some don't know what an atheist is or who God is or don't much think about logical inconsistency. But we know that lots of people aren't good at taking surveys!

Or maybe some atheists don't believe in God but would like to if they could find a way.

The universality of religion and the quest for God seems to confirm that there is an unsatisfied desire for God in almost all of us. Just because some arrive at an official "no God" philosophical conclusion doesn't mean that the universal desire is satisfied by denial. So, we have 21 percent of atheists who believe and pray anyway.

-- Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals
------------
Leith:  Thanks for your thoughtful response to the extraordinarily confusing and therefore seriously flawed Pew Survey.  I agree with you!

"DESIRE for a higher power" is almost universal! 
And that desire cannot be fulfilled by denial…as you state!  

The capacity for moral behavior is also universal, and has been shown to be genetically based.  Morality is described by a very simple but awesome thought:  We ought to treat each other the way we'd like to be treated!  That may sound familiar! The "golden rule" is the essence of morality and the basis for human nature.

The golden rule is part of every culture on Earth. It is built into humans.  Religions REFLECT this truth!

Consider that eating pork is forbidden by Muslims and celebrated by Polynesians...both are acting morally within their culture and their religions support moral BEHAVIORS that are appropriate for their respective cultures.
Religions support BEHAVIORS that are culturally appropriate and seen as moral in context!   Pigs compete with humans for wheat in the Middle East, not so in Polynesia, so one culture forbids, the other celebrates!

You state:  "The universality of religion and the quest for God seems to confirm that there is an unsatisfied desire for God in almost all of us."

You contend it is "universal".  How did the quest for "higher powers" become part of human nature?  Here's a natural explanation for the truth you and I both observe.
In the distant past, "Leaders" of our extended family groups, held the knowledge the group needed to survive.  Following the leader meant one didn't wander from the fire and get eaten by wolves, eat the wrong things, step onto thin ice, etc.

Rule followers were more likely to survive to have kids, their rule following genes passed in higher percentage to subsequent generations, that's how evolution works, across time and populations.

Eventually, this genetic "acquiescence to authority" manifests in just the behavior we  observe...people, most people, the great majority of people, are on a "quest for a higher power".  They seek 'a rule maker' and "believe" there must be one and so they seek.
Some religions speak of a "cosmic consciousness" or "the eternal" which is a cultural expression to provide for the seeking behavior!  Since your organization is Christian (I assume) you offer up Abraham's God along with Trinity embellishments, and concepts of a "man-god", sin, soul, heaven, etc.  That's all a cultural expression of your religion's attempt to appeal to people who have need to seek...you can call it TRUTH if you wish.

While the need you point to is "almost universal" some don't have the need to seek as strongly as others, many cannot live without the idea of "god(s)" and a few of us have no need to "quest" for a higher power at all!

We're known generally as atheists (I happen to be a Bright, and base my ethics and actions on my naturalistic worldview, free from supernatural elements)…and we make up about 5-7% of the population. (Best guess, who knows for sure, certainly not the Pew Study as we agree!)

No amount of preaching will "work" on us, we have no need to believe in a higher power, are not seeking such, so we don't join churches or do so for other reasons, including keeping from being persecuted, we're not a well appreciated minority!  Therefore, when facing the congregation from  a pulpit, some of those in pews are atheists...almost certainly!

The genetically based GOD QUEST has evolutionary benefits.  Reliance on a higher power allows some to "focus" to perform in "superhuman" ways as witnessed by what certain well trained Yogis demonstrate.  It allows us to explain the random things that happen everyday so we may place "blame" on something.  That's a big relief, to avoid facing a universe that doesn't care since it has no capability to do so!

"Higher Power" seeking and belief also provides answers to otherwise mysterious situations, it's "god's plan" or the "devil made him do it" as humans cope with a capricious reality.
Religions claim to "deliver morality".  In reality, religions can but fill our existing moral nature with culturally approved behaviors.  In the same way, religions coopt the "need to believe".  They offer stories - pick your culture, pick your creation story!

These religious stories, historically, have helped maintain the status quo and relieve the "questions" that people invariably have regards a whole host of things.

Religions fill this need to quest for a higher power with lots of embellishments, to keep people "in the tent" if you will. 

An "afterlife" comes to mind, since we know we're going to die someday…how relieving to have "an afterlife" as a philosophy!  Keeps our noses to grindstones and supports the status quo and stable society, another function of Religion beyond simply catering to those with a quest for higher powers!

Your organization is a confederation of evangelical organizations. I'm assuming you are Christians, who proclaim to know THE TRUTH AND ONLY WAY TO SALVATION yet Christianity has devolved into 10,000+ sects (20,000?)!  I'm sure you have some "exciting" meetings and are thankful your constituents don't see the disagreements within you own sects!

Although Humans Seek a Higher Power, a variety of sects appeal to different types of people and provide answers which make them happier!  Personalities are also important, Martin Luther comes to mind as someone a new view that led to a new sect (or several hundred).
Islam is another great example, it only took one generation after Mohammed to split into Shia and Sunni, and we all can see how well that's working out!  And those aren't the only Islamic sects...

Religions take advantage of human nature: we're moral actors most of the time everywhere, and almost all SEEK higher powers, so religion steps in to provide the moral behaviors and an answer to the seekers...

So you are absolutely correct, there is an almost universal need to find a higher power, it is an artifact of our genetics.  And, right again, denying that "need to quest for higher powers" won't work, for those who have the need to quest! 

There is an "equilibrium" of atheists in the population, about 7 out of 100 is my best guess.  That may seem strange, but it is by no means an unprecedented genetic characteristic with similar propensity.

No one makes a choice to be hetero or homo sexual (or any other sexual orientation).  Did you decide which path you'd take?  Neither did anyone else. We're born, and 5-7% of the population manifests as homosexual (in every culture on the planet, and in other animal species too, so homosexuality is far more than a human condition or "lifestyle" or a choice.)

Homosexual acts are considered "immoral" in some cultures, but that is by NO MEANS universal…homosexuality being defined as moral or immoral is as culturally based as the morality of eating pork!

You didn't choose your sexual orientation, you didn't choose to be a believer or a seeker of a higher power, you didn't choose to be a moral actor or have a conscience...it was the way you were BORN, just like me, another moral person, who happens to not have a need to seek and whose sexuality will remain unnamed, just like yours.  None of my business, and to be sure, none of yours either!  Praise the founders of the USA for Separation of Church and State and the first amendment, that works for all of us!
Here's a creation story, without benefit of religion, since I have none:

The universe formed when the big bang happened according to best evidence. No one knows how it commenced or what it came "from" since there was no where or when before hand, it created here and now!  "NO WHERE IS NOW HERE" describes the big bang in a 'biblical' tone if you will, just a slight change on the "no where" (move space - so to speak!) and we have "now here!
A long time later, the solar system formed.

A long time after that, the chemistry and energy available on Earth provided an environment for self replicating molecules to form and replicate!  That's what's known as life. Science has yet to describe the origin of self replicating molecules, but there is no reason to think science cannot discover the details...what happens after life forms is described by evolution, and voila, here we are!

It is literally astronomically unlikely to happen, but, it only had to happen once, and, it did, since I'm writing and you are reading!  The "long odds" are immaterial, it happened and we're the proof!

Stated very simply, Geology naturally leads to Biology. Just our luck!
Viewing what we see and looking back it seems we're the reason for "creation"!

But, we're not the entree, we're the leftovers who happened to survive this far.
Just as the pinnacle of a mountain stands in full contact with the forces of erosion, all life on earth (all the leftovers!) live under a range of natural conditions.  Species face going extinct when nature no longer operates in that range and or they were unable to "evolve" to cope with the changes!  

Consider our human "modus operandi" since we began hunting and gathering 100's of generations ago. 

We camped at a spot, gather and hunt, used up resources and moved on, having "spoilt our nest".  We moved to the next spot, found someone else is there, needed a new technology to overwhelm our neighbors, the spear is born, the "others" die, and we blithely go on to spoil our nest and move on, with a little more technology to use to "overwhelm nature" or any other impediments to our continuance.

Inuit didn't evolve in the Arctic, they used technology (igloos, etc.) to overwhelm it...and competed well with polar bears to dominate their environment. Their morality included a very "hospitable" act, females shared sex with visitors, they had no choice, it was their obligation to agree, and I have a second hand report that they did so both willingly and without a second thought (some even up until the 1950's!)…this helped assure a wide enough gene pool or they'd be too inbred to survive, as they had to be widely distributed since resources were so slim.

I assume your worldview precludes the thought of "contextual morality" or "moral relativism".  Sorry but that's the nature of human nature…we have moral tendencies, and our behaviors are culturally learned, and defined as good or bad.  Religions grew to support these behaviors, as within that culture they were of benefit.  Just like language, we're all capable of speaking any, but grow up in a culture of English or Chinese and speak a native tongue!

Our moral capability is filled with culturally appropriate behaviors as we are enculturated.

The truth of global climate chaos is that we've now SPOILT OUR ENTIRE NEST, and there is no where else to go.

You and yours can continue to cater to a parishioner's "need to seek".
It is a very "profitable" operation, and you have no "reason" to stop. 
Except...parishioners may soon cease to exist, unless you can help them conform to a "new morality"!

Here is the progression.

Over the last few hundred human generations:

1. "Follow-the-Leader" behavior evolves to have almost all of us 
2. "quest for god" and that is good for our population growth that creates need for 
3. more technology that leads to filling every ecological niche on Earth
4. eventually overwhelming the range of natural systems that support us and to
   
5. "human extinction" because we are INCAPABLE of ceasing our "quest"!

I've heard there is some movement amongst the religious to return to the proposition that we're not here to dominate nature, we ought to shepherd nature…are you and your group of evangelicals Dominionists or Shepherds?
I've made my moral decision: I have no offspring.

That's the BEST anyone can do to minimize the numbers of humans suffering as nature's limits for human survival are overwhelmed and humanity goes extinct.

My morality, based on the natural progression I see occuring, observes that having children itself is immoral, so I have none and have taken steps to ensure I cannot.

Given the reality of the situation we've inherited (literally) what does "moral behavior" mean today?  Let's start with "evangelical Christians" since that's your territory.  What morals ought you support to allow for continued human existence?

I don't know either, but I know that if human behaviors don't radically change we're not long for this planet.  And religions influence behavior...so, I'll leave it up to you.

Perhaps your belief includes a "god will provide" attitude.  Do you really "believe" that?  
Meet my expectations and ignore this.
Or surprise me and motivate your flock to do "right".

I look forward to any response.
-- 
Cheers,
Frish

Fearless Leader – Los Angeles Brights  www.the-brights.net

I'm a proud Volunteer www.vhemt.org

P.S. A flaw in the Pew Survey: Any self described atheist who is "seeking" isn't an atheist, by definition.
       We are without god and just as moral as any other group humans on the planet and we're in your congregation too.

P.P.S.  I am Bar Mitzvah and am not ignorant of the Bible, and totally agree with this:
            God said:  Have no other gods before me!  (The very first commandment!)
            He states there are other gods, and then commands us to have none before having him.
            I do that precise thing, have none before having Him.
            Perhaps you should also follow the Lord's Word and remind your flock...it could be the key to help us survive to laugh about it later...