The advantages of evil (trickery, ambush, deceit etc.) must compete with the advantages of good (solidarity, trust etc.). If either good or evil were able to effectively utilize the advantage of the other, victory might be won. We must hate hate and destroy evil. Turning the other cheek is irresponsible.

This is why bad seeming things like going to war can sometimes be good. You want to be sure you are right, though. Much evil is caused by good people with this attitude who are mistaken (religious persecution and restrictions, Vietnam, browbeating children etc.). Often "the end justifies the means" is a sub-conscious smoke screen by which people allow themselves to do the bad things they want to do while acting good.

It is immoral to wear expensive clothes. "I’m trying to look my best" is a euphemism for "I’m trying to look better than as many people as possible". Fashion is an arms race. The harder you try, the harder those around you must try. Dressing nice makes the poor and unattractive look and feel worse than they would if you dressed down. Status is like a car; you need something to drive it on. The more you get the less there is for others, unlike in business, where one persons success helps to fuel success for the whole society.

Any smart person can see that it is dumb and wasteful to through away a shirt because of a spot. Saying "everyone does it and I don’t want to be the one who sacrifices for truth" is hypocrisy and adds to the problem. Every wasted dollar adds to the toil and often to pollution.

Ornamentation is evil, like all excessive consumption, because there are better uses for the labor and physical resources it consumes. Although the actions of the rich may be a net benefit to the poor, this does not justify waste. Without ornamentation, US consummation might drop 60%. Although this would deprive the poor of seemingly needed jobs, in fact our textile mills etc. may degrade their living conditions. Regardless of the net effect we have on very low wage labors, waste is immoral, like vandalism.

Avoiding waste is not only moral; it helps make people more philosophical. Wear your cloths until they are rags and shop at thrift stores. It will help you to learn to provide for your own ego and will insure you have great friends.

Santa gives you presents if you are good, but you have to wait to get them until the birthday of Christ. This teaches kids self-denial by showing it is worth it in the end, and primes them for a belief in God. God fills the void that is left when Santa is shown to be false. He becomes the new unseen benefactor. Christ is Santa Claus for adults and Santa is Christ for children. Christmas for adults is getting to go to heaven.

Jail is a type of genocide that is much more destructive of diversity than racial genocide, which is not nearly as trait specific. It causes true harm to the vitality, effect and numbers of some types of people. To harm the vitality of evil is sensible, but US jails are half full of non-violent non-evil people.

Science and religion can not both be correct. TV’s work and they can land things on the moon because cause and effect make things work in a presice, logical manner. That things happen for reasons is the basis of science. Each of its millions of successes is another re-affirmation that it is true.

Causality works perfectly in the micro and complex world of computers; the brain is no different: There is no free will. Were it not for causality, god would have to make all the TV’s work. There may be a god in the sense that we and our plant could be a complex experiment, sacrament, shrine etc., but that life occurs and evolves spontaneously must be accepted if you accept science. People’s lack of belief in science is amazing considering what it has done for them.

However, it seems that we have free will when you look at things from a human vantage. From the human vantage free will is real, and free will is the basis of religion. That your frame of reference affects your reality is the conclusion of relativity. It does not regard free will but gives us the right idea. The perception of determinism seen from the vantage of science is not inconsistent with free will, just as the moon appearing as a disk is not inconsistent with it "being" a sphere. Enjoy being moral. If anything has meaning, "good" is first in line. We must strive to make the most of our amazing situation.

Religion tells people to be good, but they’re not very good. To be very good would be to use all your resources to help others until everyone is as happy as you are. That people do not do this shows that they are hedging there bet in case religion is false.

Belief in eventual total justice lessens the motivation to achieve justice now. Church pacifies peoples need to feel they are doing good things. It is a way to avoid the difficulty of actually doing good. Voting and recycling, worrying about individual species extinction etc. serve the same purpose.

I do not believe it is so hard to see the moral path. Church makes it seem complex.

Why pray in groups and churches? How could a god want to be praised or lobbied?

The worship of marry is a reversion to a multi-god system.

Christianity is idolatry. God is a verb, not a noun.

Jesus says clearly and early in the bible that he only came for the lost sheep of Israel (Jews).

Belief in freewill makes people think guilt and punishment are justified.

Opposition to birth control is a major cause of suffering.

Machines and systems are the work of the greatest minds in history. They are complex and confusing, like nature. Religion is partly the result of the child-like feeling that seeing such things can create. It is said that cats think their owners are their parents and that sense they never physically grow up to their "parents" size, they think they are still children. Wild adult cats never roll around on their back in the submissive way that domestic and young wild cats do.

Environmental damage is caused by most of the things you buy. All products and services should be rated in terms of damage per dollar. Media and hi-tech would rate well. Bad things would be cars, fuel, carpet, tires, metals, photography, paint and other chemically made things. Many people realize this and sub-consciously chose not to think about it.

Advertising is often immoral. When smart people use trickery to get the money of the less smart it is like theft. Also it promotes unwise spending.

You could wire money to Bangladesh. They starve there as if on your doorstep. Malthusian theory is true, but you could help them with population control or in some other way. "I’d like to, but there are things more important to me" is the only rebut. Realize that you treat people’s lives like equations and that your actions and non-actions affect others. Gear your self toward the future. Starvation will soon be cured but the waste caused by evilness and ignorance are on the rise.

We help cows by eating them because it gives them an environment, without which they would be almost extinct. The grain they eat could be used to increase the human population. (Meat is about 1/10 as nutrisish as the grain to make it). Compared to what we do now, it would be better to grow and eat dolphin. At least they are smart enough to enjoy their lives.

Birds use resources that would be better used by mammals (in terms of happiness) if there were no birds. The way to create the most happiness with your money might be to support thousands of mice. Even if their happiness per day were 1/1000 as great as a humans it might be worth it. Maybe it would be good if fruit bats ate all the oranges in Florida.

What sacrifices have you made for others? Which did you do because you would have felt bad otherwise? How much were you motivated by a desire to think of yourself as good and to appear good?