In my blog post entitled "What The World Needs Now.." Is More Than "Love, Sweet Love", I point out that the United States and the world has bought into short term thinking, and that deception, and corruption, are all around us. While greed, for lack of a better keyword, may be "charming and beautiful..", it forces people to make one small compromise after another. While all this is true, one might ask "Why?". Obviously, there are many reasons, but the one that comes to mind now, "Separation of Church & State", or "leaving God out of the equation", is based on a recent sermon at my Catholic Church last Sunday. The deacon talked about Madalyn Murray O'Hair, an American atheist, who was a "Separation Of Church & State" "activist". Bill Murray, her son, is a self-asserted "Born Again Christian", who now heads up the "The Religious Freedom Coalition".
"Separation of Church & State" has been taken too far, and in inappropriate directions, in my opinion. In Wikipedia's "Catholic Views" on "Advocacy" against it, it says: "The Catholic Church's 1983 Code of Canon law, while not laying down general rules about relations between Church and State, considers that a religious and moral education in harmony with the conscience of the pupils' parents is an integral part of education, and obliges Catholics to try to secure its inclusion: "Christ's faithful are to strive to secure that in the civil society the laws which regulate the formation of the young also provide a religious and moral education in the schools that is in accord with the conscience of the parents" (canon 799)".
So, when "Madalyn Murray O'Hair won her Supreme Court Decision back in 1963", Wikipedia says: "The Court voted 8-1 in Murray's favor, which effectively banned coercive prayer and Bible verse recitation at public schools in the United States." I think that that extreme decision which pleased only a small percentage of the entire population of the United States caused the generations that came after it (46 Years Ago!) to DISCOUNT in a HYPERBOLIC way, God. The media, business, and politicians are all influenced by, and are some of these people, as well as their parents who did not transfer the saying of prayers to their family homes at the beginning of each day.
In Wikipedia, the "HIstory" section of "Hyperbolic Discounting" says: "Notice that whether discounting future gains (of getting to Heaven) is logically correct or not, and at what rate such gains should be discounted, depends greatly on circumstances. Many examples exist in the financial world (and the spiritual world), for example, where it is logically reasonable to assume that there is an implicit risk that the reward (getting to Heaven) will not be available at the future date (lack of Belief, Faith & Hope), and furthermore that this risk increases with time." (the more you open yourself to sin, because of the omission of prayer to God, the higher the risk that you won't be ready at the moment of your death). The way I figure it, you're either moving towards God, or away from God. There is no "status quo", or spiritually staying where you are. The same goes for business. Companies are never stagnant. They are either growing or diminishing!
The "Activism" section about Madalyn Murray starts off by saying: "In 1960, Murray filed a lawsuit (Murray v. Curlett) against the Baltimore City Public School System in which she asserted that it was unconstitutional for her son, Bill Murray, to be required to participate in Bible readings at Baltimore public schools. In this litigation, she stated that her son's refusal to partake in the Bible readings had resulted in violence being directed against him by classmates, and that administrators overlooked it." It is my opinion that the Supreme court wrongly discounted "Freedom of Speech", and actually got into Censorship (the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor). In this case, Madalyn Murray was the "censor", or at least, a major influencer on the "censor".
So, while it was wrong for Bill Murray, her son, to have violence directed at him, two wrongs don't make a right! But, alas, I am not an attorney or a judge on the Supreme Court, and I don't know the details of the case. All I do know is that "THE MEDIA, BUSINESS, and POLITICIANS ALL NEED TO STOP the HYPERBOLIC DISCOUNTING of GOD! If you need some proof of that, just look at the stock market right now, which appears to reflect negativity, short term thinking, a lack of confidence by investors, as well as consumers, and an overall lack of Faith in God, as well as the future. Here is an article by Ivan Fail with speicific proof called "While the Cop’s Away, the Crooks Will Play" in the DCInsider.com. The author is more informed about Washington DC politics than I am, and I think he speaks for many people.
