Scientists: Electrical Stimulation Of Human Brain Can Alter Beliefs

Researchers found the technique radically altered religious perceptions and prejudice.


[From article]

A bizarre experiment claims to be able to make Christians no longer believe in God and make Britons open their arms to migrants in experiments some may find a threat to their values.
Scientists looked at how the brain resolves abstract ideological problems.
Using a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), researchers safely shut down certain groups of neurones in the brains of volunteers.
TMS, which is used to treat depression, involves placing a large electromagnetic coil against the scalp which creates electric currents that stimulate nerve cells in the region of the brain involved in mood control.
The research, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, suggests our brains use the same basic mental pathways to solve practical problems such as following directions or ideological issues such as immigration and religion. Lead author Dr Colin Holbrook, form the the University of California at Los Angeles, said: "These findings are very striking, and consistent with the idea that brain mechanisms that evolved for relatively basic threat-response functions are re-purposed to also produce ideological reactions.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/611992/Scientists-experiment-magnets-immigrants-God-magnetic-waves

Scientists claim they can change your belief on immigrants and God – with MAGNETS
ATTITUDES towards God and immigrants can be changed by beaming magnetic waves into the brain, scientists have claimed.
By Selina Sykes
PUBLISHED: 10:47, Wed, Oct 14, 2015 | UPDATED: 12:25, Wed, Oct 14, 2015
EXPRESS.CO.UK

Americans Have Low Confidence in Government, Institutions

[From article]
"Americans' confidence in most major U.S. institutions remains below the historical average for each one," a Gallup spokesman said in a news release. Only the military, in which 72 percent of Americans express confidence, up from a historical average of 68 percent, and small business, with 67 percent confidence, up from 63, are currently rated higher than their historical norms. This is based on the percentage expressing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in these institutions, the Gallup spokesman said.
Only 8 percent have confidence in Congress, down by 16 points from a long-term average of 24 percent – the lowest of all institutions rated. The rating is about the same as last year's 7 percent, the lowest Gallup has ever measured for any institution.
[. . .]
The Gallup spokesman added: "From a broad perspective, Americans' confidence in all institutions over the last two years has been the lowest since Gallup began systematic updates of a larger set of institutions in 1993."

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/ken-walshs-washington/2015/06/17/americans-have-lost-confidence-in-everything

Americans Have Lost Confidence ... in Everything
It's not just Congress and the economy that have Americans concerned these days.
June 17, 2015 | 7:20 a.m. EDT
By Kenneth T. Walsh

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) Reveals White House Extortion Forcing African Christians To Abandon Beliefs For Protection From Muslim Terrorists

[From article]
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R.-Texas) said on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday that God may make the United States pay a price because, Gohmert said, the Obama administration has been telling people in Africa it will help them counter radical Islam but only if they abandon their Christian views on abortion and same-sex marriage.
“Only if you will violate your Christian beliefs will we be willing to come help you,” Gohmert said, summarizing his understanding of the administration’s view. “If there is a God as the Bible talks about, there will be a price to this Nation for acting in such a way.”
[. . .]
I was advised by some other Members of Congress who got back from a trip to East Africa, where they were told by leaders in East African nations the same thing that they are being told by the people in this administration: Oh, yeah, we will help you with radical Islam, but only if you change your laws to violate your strongly held Christian beliefs that same-sex marriage is wrong. And also, start providing abortions, also violating your strongly held religious beliefs.
Only if you will violate your Christian beliefs will we be willing to come help you. If there is a God as the Bible talks about, there will be a price to this Nation for acting in such a way.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cnsnewscom-staff/gohmert-if-theres-god-bible-talks-about-therell-be-price-nation-acting

Gohmert: ‘If There’s a God, As the Bible Talks About, There’ll be Price to This Nation For Acting in Such a Way’
By CNSNews.com Staff

June 5, 2015 | 2:39 PM EDT

What Motivates Military Fighters?

[From article]
Disgusted U.S. military officers say the 1,000 ISIS fighters who overran Ramadi were outnumbered by the defenders 10 to 1.
Why did the Iraqi army run? And what motivated the fighters of ISIS to attack a city whose defenders so vastly outnumbered them?
According to battle reports, the assault began when dozens of captured U.S. armored vehicles and trucks, laden with explosives, were driven by ISIS volunteers to blast huge holes in the defenders’ lines.
[. . .]
In Yemen, the Houthi rebels came down from the north to seize Sanaa, drive the president into exile, occupy Aden, and capture huge stockpiles of American weapons. The U.S.-backed army crumbled.
[. . .]
Tribe and faith. Those are the causes for which Middle Eastern men will fight. Sunni and Shiite fundamentalists will die for the faith. Persians and Arabs will fight to defend their lands, as will Kurds and Turks.
But who among the tribes of the Middle East will fight and die for the secular American values of democracy, diversity, pluralism, sexual freedom and marriage equality?
“Expel the Crusaders from our lands!” — there is a cause to die for.
[. . .]
Murderers and would-be murderers all. But according to a new Al-Jazeera poll, the warriors of the Islamic State have many Muslim admirers.
In Afghanistan, we have fought the Taliban for 13 years. Yet still they fight. And many fear the Afghan army we trained and armed at a cost of tens of billions will disintegrate when we go home.
[. . .]
But if the future belongs to those willing to fight and die for it, or to volunteer to become martyrs, the future of the Middle East would seem fated to be decided by Sunni tribesmen, Shiite militia, ISIS and al-Qaida, Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
In the Middle East, the time of the True Believers appears at hand.

http://buchanan.org/blog/secularists-vs-suicide-bombers-16081

Secularists vs. Suicide Bombers
Friday - May 29, 2015 at 12:42 am
By Patrick J. Buchanan

In Need of Consideration By Americans

[From article]

Prime Minister Manuel Vals lists four. “There is a fundamental difference between the freedom to be impertinent and anti-Semitism, racism, glorification of terrorist acts, and Holocaust denial, all of which are crimes, that justice should punish with the most severity.”
Vals’ list brings to mind another quote of Voltaire’s, “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”
Why did Vals not include slanders against Catholicism and Islam, the world’s largest religions, both of which have been repeatedly insulted by Charlie Hebdo? In the banlieues north of Paris, they wish to know.
Pope Francis himself said yesterday, “You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. … If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch.”

[. . .]

Who decides what is “anti-Semitism” and what is “racism”? In America, these terms are tossed around with abandon.
As for the “glorification of terrorist acts,” Israel’s Menachem Begin, the ANC’s Nelson Mandela, and the PLO’s Yasser Arafat were all credibly charged with acts of terrorism in their liberation struggles.
And all three won the Nobel Prize for Peace.

[. . .]

Who decides which historical events are off-limits for debate?

[. . .]

Across the Middle East, majorities favor the adoption of sharia law. Many support beheadings, stonings, the lash and amputations of limbs for lesser offenses.
What does these polls tell us?
First, if we insist that freedom of the press means standing behind the blasphemies of Charlie Hebdo, we should anticipate the hatred and hostility of majorities in the Islamic world to whom faith and family are everything — and our First Amendment is nothing.
Second, the idea that, by sending armies of Americans into that part of the world for a decade or two, we could convert these peoples, steeped in a 1,500-year-old faith, to share our embrace of religious, cultural and moral pluralism and secularism was utopian madness.
Third, as Islamic peoples grow in number and militancy, while the peoples of Europe age and pass on, and the migrants continue to come from the Maghreb and Middle East, Europe will have to adapt to Muslim demands or face endless civil and cultural conflict on the Old Continent.

[. . .]

President Hollande said, “You can murder men and women, but you can never kill their ideas.”
True. And anti-Islamism is an idea. As is the “radical Islam” against which France has declared war.
And which of the two ideas appears today to have more adherents willing not only to march for it on Sundays, but to die for it?

[Same as scene in  Godfather when Corleone and Hyman were stopped at a battle between police and Castro's revolutionaries. Hyman pointed out that Castro's men were willing to die for their cause. How many Americans are willing to die for anything? Many are unwilling to even talk about the issues.]

http://buchanan.org/blog/to-die-for-charlie-hebdo-15475

To Die for Charlie Hebdo?
Friday - January 16, 2015 at 1:17 am
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Tom Delay: Obama Cannot Be Trusted To Protect the Nation

Tom Delay

[From article]
In defending America against radical Islamic terrorism, Barack Obama cannot be trusted,” DeLay said.
“Barack Obama was raised a Muslim, and he claims he is a Christian, and I can’t say for sure whether he’s a Christian or not, but he has shown over the last few years that he has great sympathies with Islam,” DeLay explained.
[. . .]
“You add to mix that Barack Obama is incompetent, way over his head as president, and the whole combination produces a worldview that makes Obama detached and reluctant to take the type of the military action against ISIS that would be effective,” he said
[. . .]
“We have something like 6,000 foreign student visas where the Department of Homeland Security cannot find where the students are today,” DeLay commented. “It would be just the same letting Muslims come back into the country to learn how to be airline pilots. The Obama administration would probably just look the other way.”

http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/tom-delay-obama-paralyzed-by-muslim-sympathies/

TOM DELAY: OBAMA PARALYZED BY MUSLIM SYMPATHIES
ISIS failure attributed to religious background, ideology, incompetence
September 4, 2014
JEROME R. CORSI

Thomas Paine Freedom Fighter Then, Now Suspected Terrorist

Is he bipolar?

If Thomas Paine lived today and wrote as he did then, now, he would be on the No-Fly list and taking court ordered medication.  

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated." - Thomas Paine

TV News and Congress Have Lost Faith of Americans

[From article]
Only 18 percent of the Americans surveyed expressed either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in that news medium.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/gallup-public-confidence-tv-news-all-time-low

Gallup: Public Confidence in TV News at All-Time Low
June 19, 2014 - 1:15 PM
By Michael W. Chapman

* * *

[From article]
Americans' confidence in Congress has sunk to a new low. Seven percent of Americans say they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress as an American institution, down from the previous low of 10% in 2013. This confidence is starkly different from the 42% in 1973, the first year Gallup began asking the question.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/171710/public-faith-congress-falls-again-hits-historic-low.aspx

June 19, 2014
Public Faith in Congress Falls Again, Hits Historic Low
Of major U.S. institutions, Americans most confident in the military
by Rebecca Riffkin

Palin Defends Duck Dynasty TV Star's Religious Beliefs

[From article]
Sarah Palin says the suspension of one of the stars of the show “Duck Dynasty” over recent anti-gay comments he made is an attack on free speech.
Palin re-posted a picture of her meeting with the stars of the A&E show on her Facebook page Wednesday night, writing that “intolerants” were behind the suspension of the show’s patriarch, Phil Robertson.
“Free speech is an endangered species. Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us,” Palin wrote.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/sarah-palin-duck-dynasty-defense-101319.html?hp=r11

Sarah Palin defends 'Duck Dynasty' star
By TAL KOPAN

12/19/13 6:10 AM EST

Politico

Punishing Religious Beliefs

[From article]
It is even worse, of course, when it is the government that penalizes those who hold Biblical views. That should be anathema in America. While A&E exercised its rights, in a growing number of incidents, government has not respected the free-contract and free-speech rights of Americans.
[. . .]
These and other laws are creating a climate of intolerance and intimidation for citizens who believe that we are created male and female, that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and that sexual relations are properly reserved for marriage. These state and local laws are used to trump fundamental civil liberties such as freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/366791/penalizing-those-who-hold-biblical-views-marriage-ryan-t-anderson

Penalizing Those Who Hold Biblical Views of Marriage
By Ryan T. Anderson
December 19, 2013 4:07 PM

National Review

Harvard University Professor Laments Futility of Teaching

Harvard University Kennedy School of Government Professor Robert N. Stavins

Harvard Kennedy School professor Robert N. Stavins, said, “More information about the science is not going to change anyone’s minds[.]” Are there people who have many minds? What would Prof. Stavins argue about Galileo's sentiments about Copernicus?  

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/9/9/subpoena-hsph-data-committee/#

House Committee Issues Subpoenas Demanding Access to HSPH Study Data
By NIKITA KANSRA and SAMUEL Y. WEINSTOCK,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
September 9, 2013

Intelliegence and Politics?

This study may have some validity, but the report makes little sense. Conclusions are stated with no evidence connecting them to the study. One remarkable statement is: "Religion, the current theory goes, did not help people survive or reproduce necessarily, but goes along the lines of helping people to be paranoid, Kanazawa said. Assuming that, for example, a noise in the distance is a signal of a threat helped early humans to prepare in case of danger."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/liberals.atheists.sex.intelligence/

Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ

By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
February 26, 2010

Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes

Martin Luther King, Jr.


"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." - Martin Luther King Jr. August 28, 1963

"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live." - Martin Luther King Jr. June 23, 1963

"One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, and thusly, carrying our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence." - Martin Luther King Jr. April 1963