Teaching others to substitute belief for knowledge and to support decisions with faith in that belief is unethical, immoral, unjust and evil. That teaching begets persons who remain as children; willing to let external sources make decisions for them. That prevents persons from building sufficient knowledge to support their own decisions. They remain pre-critical and vulnerable. Others are vulnerable to their faith based decisions and decisions made for them. Loose canons and led canons, at once, upon a highly divided earth.
No person, group, organization, corporation, government or world is privy to information from beyond, before or after this universe. No person, group, organization, corporation, government of world holds authority to speak for the creator of this universe.
The creator of this universe is a creating force acting of its own nature or a sentient entity or group deciding to create; then applying a creating force. With either creator, there is no difference for residents of this universe; nor is there any compellation. The creator of this universe is not yet knowable. A minded creator would be unethical, immoral and unjust to demand, of us, a decision regarding it without having knowledge of it.
I cannot yet learn anything of the creator. I can study the creation. I can learn something of the nature and intent of an absent creator of an ancient artifiact. I can learn something of the nature and intent of the absent creator of this universe. I study the artifact, I study the universe. I glean fact and insight. I report fact and insight to my peers. They replicate and or extend my study. They report fact and insight. This process builds a consensus that can be reported to all persons and recorded as knowledge.
In the building of knowledge, imagination and belief are used at the beginning and throughout the process. I imagine how an artifact was made and how it was used and what it was used for. Of different imaginings, I choose one to believe. I imagine what testing I can do to falsify my belief. I conduct that or those tests. I report my findings. Others use imagination and choose beliefs and conduct tests that can falsify my findings. I and my peers can, eventually, use imagination and belief and tests to verify accumulated reports. All of this work is reported to peers, a consensus is formed and recorded as knowledge.
Repeatedly, it has been learned that imagination facilitates the formation of beliefs. Repeatedly, it has been learned that belief is a vital tool in every quest for knowledge. Repeatedly it has been learned that no shortcut can be taken in the quest for knowledge. Repeatedly, it has been learned that belief cannot be substituted for knowledge. A great many embarrasing and sometimes painful, sometimes devastating lessons have been learned by substituting belief for knowledge. Faith is the active substitution of belief for knowledge. It has been learned that faith based decisions, in place of knowledge based decisions, cannot be ethical and cannot produce outcomes that are moral and just. Belief is not knowledge and no force of faith can create knowledge.
It has been learned that decision is power. Guided or not, all but decision is force. In this universe, no power exists but the power of decision. Every decision, by one individual, forms outbound potentials that, when executed with behavior, will impact other individuals as force. This creates responsibility for the act of forming and executing a decision.
Ethics are a frame upon which decision can be formed. Ethics are built of knowledge. Morality and justice are built upon knowledge received from others impacted by behavior applied to execute decision; knowledge based upon judgment of their experience of force.
It has been learned, repeatedly to certainty, that knowledge, sufficient to support, guide and control the power of decision must be acquired before the use of decision can be contemplated in the context of responsibility. It has been learned, repeatedly to certainty, that decision, based upon faith, is not supported, guided or controlled. In the context of responsibility, a faith based decision cannot be ethical and the behavior applied to execute it cannot be moral or just; there is no support for the decision nor guide or control for the behavior applied to execute it. Simply put; a faith based decision is unethical, immoral and unjust. To teach a person to make decisions, based upon faith, is an act of evil.
Having a sufficient base of knowledge, decisions regarding artifact and universe can be made ethical. Behavior applied to execute those decisions can be guided and controlled. Outcomes can be made moral and just. By making decisions that have the support of knowledge; knowledge can be acquired. Knowledge cannot be acquired from faith based decisions because knowledge did not form them nor guide nor control their execution. Upon receipt of knowledge from those who experience the force of a faith based decision, knowledge cannot be acquired because knowledge did not form or guide or cantrol the decision. There is no place to put that knowledge. The only thing that can be learned from making a faith based decision is not to make them.
From birth until death: a long series of decisions, formed with knowledge and executed with knowledge, ever increasing in responsibility, ever increasing the knowledge and capacity and skill and wisdom of the decision maker; an individual begins as a child and develops capacity and ability to become a socially franchised, self guiding adult. There are two conditions in which the decisions of others are made for the individual; childhood and slavery. The only way for an individual to leave either condition is to make decisions for themselves.
The development of a person requires first, the acquisition of knowledge sufficient to support, guide and control the power of decision and second, a series of knowledge based decisions made from first capacity and ability until death. A parent wanting their child to fully develop as the person the child wants to become will provide a protected environment in which the child can acquire knowledge and make decisions. A parent wanting their child to develop so fully will provide knowledge and help their child test that knowledge for validity and applicability in forming a decision and choosing a behavior to execute it. A parent wanting their child to fully develop will explain the responsibility inherent with the power of decision and encourage their child to accept and master that responsibility as the child makes more and more decisions and accepts ever increasing levels of responsibility. A parent wanting their child to develop fully as the person their child wants to become will help their child acquire every ability, capacity and skill to parent themselves.
It is that long series of making decisions, learning from them, correcting errors, covering the cost, and earning wisdom that will build ethics and morality and justice within a person and express those values to other persons. That long series of made decisions, ever increasing in responsibility, ever increasing the knowledge and skill sets and abilities and capacity of the decision maker can, and by decision, will enable a person to become and be that one unique, sovereign individual that only they can be, that one island of humanity among many.
The process of person development moves from childhood to individuation to independence to sovereignty. Each stage is characterized by the proportion of internal decisions made to manage daily activity and determine the future related with external decisions. Sovereignty being the salvation of the person from decisions made by others by making decisions of their own. Sovereignty being that stage where all decisions that manage daily activity and determine the future are made internally. Sovereignty being the stage at which all power, control and authority is held within the person and managed internally.
Decision is power. Knowledge is control. Authority is the sovereign self.
I am, I will, I want and knowledge are the foundation of decision.
Because, Faith and Fear are the foundation of evil.
From all of the foregoing, it is learned that no value can be attached to a person. All value is developed within the person. From all the foregoing, it is learned that ethics are formed of the experience of making decisions and that morality and justice become known through the execution of decisions. The only source of ethics is the practice of forming decisions. The only source of morality and justice is the practice of executing decisions.
It is a horrific fallacy that ethics, morality and justice can be attached from an external source. Other persons and the writing of other persons can be a helpful source of information to a developing person. That information can be tested for validity and applicability to decision making. With that testing, knowledge can be acquired. That knowledge can be added to the base of knowledge that person uses to form and execute decisions. Given that process, that knowledge now belongs to the developing person. It is now internal. Responsibility for the use of the enhanced base of knowledge can now be claimed.
By no means whatsoever can external information be attached to and claimed and responsibly used by a person. It remains external until tested for validity and applicability and upon that verification added to that person's knowledge base. External information cannot be attached and claimed nor used responsibly because that information is not yet knowledge and not yet qualified for addition to a person's base of knowledge. It is still owned by someone else. By falsly claiming and using untested external information to form or execute a decision, a person has attached themselves to the external source.
By the number and consequence of decisions influenced by attachment to an external source, a person has ceded power, control and authority to that source. They are, at that level, a child or a slave of that external source.
A parent or person or group or organization or corporation or government wanting to limit the development of a person will make decisions for them. A parent or person or group or organization or corporation or government wanting to manipulate that not yet developed or under developed person or population will use the imagination of their target person or population to prescribe beliefs and teach them to use those beliefs instead of knowledge to support decisions. Any of these external sources can teach that belief is a value and that faith in that belief is a virtue. Any of these external sources can provide imaginary rewards for the virtue of faith and imaginary punishments for failing the virtue of faith. The key to manipulation is adding a proscription against the acquisition of knowledge. That proscription can be imaginary and or real and it can be applied in many ways to include concealment of knowledge and destruction of evidence and threats of exclusion from a group or society. The way of manipulation can be shortly described as the hook, the crook and the do not look.
Why do humans still make faith based decisions?
The simple answer is that they have been taught to make them.
Across hundreds of generations there have been entrepreneurs* and corporations** and governments wanting to usurp the power, control, authority and sovereignty of persons. Many usurpers have come and gone and many exist. Billions of persons have been caught up by the hook, the crook and the do not look. Billions of persons have been prevented from developing fully. Billions of persons remain as children or slaves to external sources. Billions of persons influence and manipulate their children to accept the false value of beliefs and attach, to themselves, external sources. Generation after generation, the entrepreneurs and corporations and governments prey upon the children put vulnerable to them.
All of this manipulation and usurpation enabled by hook and crook and do not look passed down from generation to generation has prevented so many persons from developing fully that a majority of earth's population is comprised of not yet developed and under developed persons who remain vulnerable to the external sources wanting to manipulate them. The only enterprise that can save a person from usurpation and manipulation is education.
Yet the external predators, the entrepreneurs and corporations and governments have usurped the power, control, authority and sovereignty of so many billions of persons that they hold great power to continue to manipulate the under developed population and seduce or frighten more prey from newly developing generations. These entrepreneurs and corporations and governments often work together in manipuling populations to garner even more power to assure the achievement of self serving goals. They also work together to protect themselves from exposure by the light of evidence and knowledge.
Entrepreneurs and corporations and governments have divided species human into groups and corporations and governments and teach their clients*** to oppose, distrust, hate and war against other groups, corporations and governments. Some corporations want to dominate the world and work, incessantly, to place their clients into every political and hired position of government as a way to effectively manipulate that government.
With the population of earth so divided and with those divisions being taught and led to oppose and distrust and hate and war against other divisions, species human has little chance to continue its evolution. With so great a portion of populations being held as children and slaves and with newly developing generations being put vulnerable to being held as children and slaves; the human species is at greater risk of devolution than chance for evolution.
The only salvation for a person or planet is education. The single most important responsibility in having the power of decision is not to let anyone or anything else use it. The single most important responsibility in having the facility of imagination and the tool of belief is not to allow anyone else to use them. The single most important responsibility in having the ability to learn is to test every external source of information for validity and applicability to the power of decision.
The second most important responsibility in having the power of decision is to control it with knowledge. The only source of information available to any resident of this universe is the universe. The universe is written in all languages for all persons. The universe values each one of us equally and each one of us is part of this universe. The universe provides all the information we need to acquire a base of knowledge, within ourselves, sufficient to build ethics and guide behavior to produce outcomes which are moral and just. We have thoughts, feelings, memory, conscience and environmental senses. We operate bodies that obey our every command and work hard to meet our every demand. Nothing further is required. We have it all.
The universe makes it clear that each of us can become a sovereign being, a sovereign island of humanity among many. By heading down the wrong road over so many generations, it is quite easy to learn that teaching newly forming generations just two things will diminish the risk of devolution and increase the chance continuing the evolution of species human.
First, teach the responsible use of the power of decision.
Second, teach the absolute equality of each person.
I like to imagine a planet where every person is taught those two things and encouraged to develop fully into one unique and precious and sovereign island of humankind. I imagine how such a planet would benefit from the contributions of an undivided population of fully developed decision makers garnering knowledge from this universe.
I wish that planet was the one I now live on.
* by entrepreneurs I mean religion evangelists.
** by corporations I mean religions (but commercial corporations do some of the same and often capitalize on alignments with religions)
*** by clients I meaan the followers or believers who have surrendered their power, control, authority and sovereingty to a group or organization or corporation. All of these groups, organizations and corporations are sellers of false and imaginary products which they do not and cannot deliver. All of them use the hook, crook, do not look confidence scheme. Some of these groups and organizations are formed by entrepreneurs who are self serving and have no other motive. Some are corporations working with governments and are self serving but have motives more grand like dominating a great part of this planet or all of it.
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