You Are the Weaker Side in a War You Don't Even Know Is Going On

You Are the Weaker Side in a War You Don't Even Know Is Going On

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
- John Muir,  Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness (1838-1914)

[DISCLOSURE: This is a rant. It is filled with personal opinion based on the science I have read and the facts on the ground as I have observed them. You can do anything from rage in disagreement to nod your head in agreement to learning more about these situations before you lose the war against your health and welfare.]

You are an innocent victim in a war going on around you that you might not be aware of. Yes, it sounds like a conspiracy theory. But in this case the evidence is clear and irrefutable. I will not trouble you with the science (study references) here for the sake of simplicity. If you doubt anything, check it out.

Perhaps the most significant characteristic of your life that has not been taught to you by your doctor, your schools or even what you learn from television or the internet is that you are not just one being. What you consider to be you is the host for billions of tiny microbes, bacteria for the most part, that inhabit virtually every part of your body.

It's called your immune system. That's right. Your immune system is actually not part of the cell structure of your body. They are independent organisms that live in symbiosis with you. You can't live without them and they can't live without you.

Does that sound creepy? That's what doctors and the media believe you will think. They believe you will appreciate remaining ignorant about what may be the most important part of your body, certainly the one that keeps you alive every day.

Science can't tell you how many or even how many varieties of microbes compose your immune system. The reason is that it varies from individual to individual. There could be as many as 10,000 different varieties of microbes in your immune system with anything up to billions of each. If you have a healthy immune system. Which you may very well not have.

Shouldn't your doctor be able to correct your immune system's deficiencies? Yes. But they don't. Antibiotics, indeed most pharmaceuticals prescribed by your doctor will impair or even destroy your immune system. Antibiotics are microbe killers. Trouble is, they kill hundreds of times more good microbes than bad. Yes, antibiotics and most pharmaceuticals (especially the most popular ones) harm your immune system. Drugs kill the wrong things. And you believe the doctors.

If you know a little about good health and the immune system you will likely know that fresh fruits and vegetables will boost your immune system. But conventional industrial farms commonly use pesticides (poisons), herbicides (poisons) and chemical fertilizers on the very same "fresh" fruits and vegetables you will see for sale in your supermarket. Nobody knows what effects the chemical fertilizers will have on your health years later. Nobody ever tests for that. Nobody.

You will have heard of GMO (genetically modified organisms) foods and GE (genetically engineered) foods--same thing, different terms in different countries--and likely read how safe they are. The producers of those chemicals that are put on the seeds they produce that accept those poisons create studies that show how safe the poisons are. But are they? The tests are notorious sources for conflict of interest. Independent studies, which receive little or no attention in the media (that profit from the chemical and pharmaceutical companies--same companies really) become buried, hidden from a public that deserves to know.

Farm workers who apply the chemicals must wear hazardous materials suits that completely enclose their entire bodies.The most famous is Roundup, by Monsanto. Its main active ingredient--glyphosate, claimed to be perfectly safe (yes, a poison they claim is safe)--has been found in mother's breast milk, in baby foods, in vaccines, in fresh organic foods, in most chemically treated city drinking water, in air samples in a majority of cities, virtually everywhere.

GMO food crops and seeds have been banned in a large number of countries of the world. Glyphosate and similar poisons have been banned in a large number of countries. Banned because they are carcinogens, chemicals that cause cancer. Yet you can buy Roundup freely over the counter in the USA and Canada. And when you apply it you are not required by law to wear a HAZMAT suit like the industrial farmers do. You aren't even advised to wear a mask or apply it downwind.

Generally speaking, mold, bacteria, insects and many larger animals will avoid eating a majority of food that is available in a supermarket. Some will avoid it even when they are starving because they do not recognize it as "food." The poison itself is so effective that it kills every living organism in the soil. Everything. How do you think that affects the food chain whose larger organisms feed you?

People are finding themselves allergic to the clothes they buy and the new furniture and draperies they install in heir homes. Others find themselves ill in other ways, including cancer, from the chemicals embedded in the fabric to make it "look better." You can ask your doctor about any of this.

Your government likely warns you about climate change and advises you that your car emits too much greenhouse gases. Your government does not tell you that airplanes--many fewer than cars--emit almost as much greenhouse gas as cars. They also do not tell you that one of the greatest sources of greenhouse gases is power generating stations that account for almost one-quarter of all emitted greenhouse gases. Those power stations are usually owned by the same governments that want you to cut back on driving your car.

If there is something wrong that is a public hazard, you may be assured that a government will blame you for it. That will distract you from the fact that governments are the greatest hazards to health on the planet. They do not protect you from air pollution. They do not protect you from water pollution. They will not enact legislation that will make your food free from hazardous ingredients. They will not insist on proof that new drugs--always man-made chemicals, never natural products grown in nature--are safe. Testing of new drugs is from three months to a year, usually. Yet they could affect your health years later. You will never know and never suspect it when you are dying and don't know why.

If you live in a democracy, you vote for the people who make decisions that affect your life and your health and your future. Legislators are ordinary people like you and me. They often make a lot of critically important decisions based on very limited input. Often that input comes from the very people who stand to benefit from their decisions. Or from lobbyists who are paid by the stakeholders.

You should learn. You should teach your legislators. Without your pestering, they may not even know the harm their decisions will make.

You should not be the victim of their ignorance or neglect. Nor should you allow yourself to be a victim of your own ignorance.

Bill Allin in the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about inexpensive and easy solutions that people are not taking to overcome serious problems. The "war against health" is a serious social problem. He has authored hundreds of articles that are available free on the internet.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

TV Commercials Can Ruin Your Life and Health

TV Commercials Can Ruin Your Life and Health

The question for me was, could TV actually teach? I knew it could, because I knew 3-year-olds who sang beer commercials!
- Joan Ganz Cooney, American television producer, one of the founders of Sesame Workshop, home of Sesame Street (b. 1929)

[DISCLOSURE: The purpose for this article is to make readers aware of the effects of following life and health advice offered by TV commercials. These are science based facts, not opinions. The science part is left out to make it easier to read.]

Children, adolescents, even adults learn about life and life skills by watching television. As odd as that may sound, they have few other convenient sources for information they need. Today's parents literally know almost nothing about parenting and the needs of children other than food, clothing and shelter.

For most of human history children learned about life from their parents and neighbours as they worked and played alongside their parents in fields and workshops. Today children are separated from their parents for almost all of their waking day, leaving surrogates to do the job of teaching them about life.

TV fills that role magnificently as it seeks to mold the minds of children to become devoted consumers of particular products as they get old enough to spend money. The prime objective of programming is to entertain people long enough that they will stay around for the next set of commercials.

But what are television commercials teaching? Is it worthwhile life advice? No. Do parents realize that they have turned the job of teaching almost everything their children learn over to pathological commercial interests who want people to follow what they teach with the same devotion as people give to their religions or their preferred political party? Again, no.

First, I want you to think about all the TV programs you know. Which among them has role models you believe children should follow? Of course we need buffoons to laugh at and actors to play conflicted characters for drama. Would you change lives with any of them?

As you think about the TV programs you know, one that would interest kids, adolescents or poorly educated adults, can you think of any you would like to represent life in your home or workplace? Even one? I can't.

TV news is filled with violence and perversion. Shows that emphasize personalities tend to have them conflicting among themselves. Comedies show people with personality problems, social problems, even mental illnesses (never identified as such). Dramas (mostly soaps) show people with lives that no one would want to emulate.

Commercials are where real life teaching takes place. Commercials pay the freight for programming. And they are often better produced. Their messages are meant to be taken literally, also to create a long term following. That's why you see the same commercials repeated over and over. And over. And over. As a hypnotist would do when putting a volunteer into a trance. The rule of thumb in TV advertising is feed the same message to people ten times or more and they will believe it. Anything.

Let's set aside anything to do with political or religious advertising as it is filled with so much brain twisting propaganda and distortions of truth that networks and stations should be required to flash warning signs before and after them. Networks don't bother big advertisers because there is too much income at risk.

Let's begin our look at commercials for personal care at the top. Hair care companies may have done the most and best research about hair care than any commercial product manufacturer. But their products only heal what other products have broken. In fact, most hair would be best treated with a simple soap wash every few days. The hair of a person who eats a healthy diet will look good so long as the natural elements of hair are not stripped away by chemicals. Wash, rinse with clear water, then leave the hair alone for a few days, other than brushing.

Any commercials to do with mouth care are deceptive, if not outright harmful. I have not seen one teeth brushing commercial in decades that shows a person brushing their teeth in a way that would avoid cavities. On the contrary, the ones I have seen would promote cavities and sensitive teeth. Neither is necessary, but both keep other industries like dentistry and teeth cleaners alive and flourishing.

The mouth (along with the skin) is a secondary part of the body's immune system. After the major immune system component in the gut, the mouth is the first line of defense against attack by diseases. Kill all microbes in your mouth and you destroy one component of your immune system. Wash your body with soap thoroughly in a daily shower and you will decimate another part. Take doctor-prescribed antibiotics and you will destroy the major component of your immune system. That's what these products you see advertised do. The advertisers make fortunes on your devotion to their somewhat or totally harmful products. Your doctor will come to know you intimately from your frequent visits.

Skin care products are a travesty against good skin health. To begin, cosmetics for women produce a look that studies have shown men do not prefer over the look of no cosmetics. Men know that cosmetics mean "fake" and act accordingly. Women who claim that they make themselves up to make themselves feel better have self esteem issues. Are they trying to compete for attention with other women or attract them?

Clothing fashions are another issue of brainwashing. A man or woman who believes that he or she performs better at work because they look better is a victim of effective advertising and self deception. Most bosses look at job performance before apparel. Should you be known for your good looks or your job skills?

Teeth whitening was originally used by movie actors to make them stand out from other actors on set. Teeth whitening, like fashion and cosmetics, was an industry founded by people who wanted to sell something that people did not need, except to impress others. Generally speaking, those with real talent and skill do not subscribe to that kind of fake.

People who whiten their teeth to look better in real life do indeed stand out. They stand out as being needy, prepared to do anything to get attention. Anyone who chooses a life mate based on white teeth, fashionable clothing, beautiful makeup, type of footwear or kind of car driven is bound for breakup when the fake wears off. Yet that is what TV commercials teach in North America, where the divorce rate is now well over 50% and a majority of kids in school classrooms live in single parent households.

Generally speaking, if you depend on TV commercials or programs to tell you how to live your life you will live a troubled life. And probably in debt.

When you think about buying something you have seen advertised on TV, remember that the choice is yours. Will the long term disadvantage of harm to you outweight the short term benefits? Of this you may be certain, the advertiser always wins. The advertiser has no obligation to benefit you, only to make you believe that you will benefit from the product. What will you believe?

You may think that what you have just read is opinion by one person. It's not. I don't care what you do or wear or how you live your life. That is your business not mine. I don't have time or interest in meddling in your life.

I do take an interest in helping people to think about choices they make, what effects those choices have on themselves and on others. If you "dress for success" to impress others, you will have bought into the model that industry leaders want. You will be a follower, not a leader. A consumer, not an independent innovator.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about inexpensive solutions to major social problems. If you have hear the word "sheeple" you understand that what you have read above is indeed a social issue.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Marijuana, Maybe Not What You Thought

Marijuana, Maybe Not What You Thought

When Mexico sends its people [into the U.S.], they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.
- Donald J. Trump, American actor (b. 1946)

Donald Trump is merely the latest loud voice to rail against the coming to the United States by Mexicans fleeing their homeland hoping to find a better life. At the turn of the 20th Century, Americans with similar feelings adopted the Mexican Spanish word marijuana for what most of the rest of the world called and still calls Cannabis. Before the 20th Century everyone called it Cannabis.

The American campaigners originally tended to spell it marihuana, which is closer to the Mexican pronunciation of the word, but eventually the Mexican spelling marijuana prevailed.

Anti-immigrant advocates in the U.S. expressed their aversion to foreigners invading the land they themselves had only recently invaded and stolen from native Americans that they used the newly adopted word marijuana as an expression of the evil that they claimed the foreigners brought with them.

Is it possible that the U.S. Congress passed laws criminalizing the growth and sale of cannabis marijuana specifically to discourage Americans who had neutral feelings about Mexican migrants so that they would associate the Mexican word for the now-illegal product with migrants who entered the U.S. illegally? That may seem a strong claim but prejudiced Congress members have passed many laws in the past to advance their various bigoted causes.

How strongly did these politicians feel about turning Americans against Mexicans by making marijuana seem like a Mexican curse? The only cure for cancer that has ever been patented in the United States was filed by the U.S. government itself, in 1937. The government of the country with the highest cancer rates in the world withheld a cure for cancer rather than make the all-natural chemical-free plant marijuana acceptable to the American public. That patent holds today, though many others of that time have been allowed to expire.

Not all varieties of Cannabis are alike. C. ruderalis is generally agreed to be of little value for either recreation or medicine. Though uncommon, it is still illegal, yet it could be feral so it might be found growing in your back yard. Illegally, of course.

Etymologists give various origins for the name Cannabis, but the plant indisputably originates in Asia. The Chinese used it to relieve various conditions from constipation to malaria as far back as 2700 BCE. In India it was considered a sacred plant used for its psychotropic and medicinal effects. Mind-altering natural products that improve sensitivity and intellect temporarily are not considered sinful in many cultures and have been used for that purpose for thousands of years.

Cannabis is mentioned in the Jewish Talmud. Traces of its pollen or oil have been found in various tombs of ancient Egyptians, including that of the famous Rameses II. The nomadic Scythians, who were documented in 450 BCE to have used it in funeral rites by Greek historian Herodotus, likely brought it to Europe.

But which variety of cannabis? C. sativa and C. indica are the two best known. But they are often confused even in modern literature. Some claim that C. sativa has the most psychotropic ingredient delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in its sticky resin. Other non-scientists claim that C. indica has the most cannabidiol (CBD), claimed to be the primary medicinal ingredient and a sedative.

Both groups are mistaken. Both varieties are high in THC and relatively low in CBD. Much research is taking place with CBD because of its anti-inflammatory effects. Inflammation is known to be the starting place for cancer.

Researchers have found that CBD results in weight loss in their studies of overweight mice. No one has risked experimenting on humans, despite that fact that the U.S. has the highest rate of obesity in the world. Nobody knows how to tell if mice get the munchies.

Then we have what may well be the most useful subspecies of cannabis, Cannabis sativa L, more commonly known as hemp. Hemp grows much faster than trees and can be used to make paper (thus saving forests), clothing, building materials (someone made a whole car from it) and it can be used to replace oil. Yes, this renewable energy source could replace the non-renewable oil that is extracted from the ground and it can even be grown in less than ideal agricultural conditions.

That is, if it were legal. Which it isn't in the USA. Hemp is grown legally in Canada and many other countries. But not in large quantities that could be exported to the U.S.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems and hundreds of articles which are available on the internet.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

[Primary resource: Discover, April 2016]

Why The Food You Eat Is Dead

Why The Food You Eat Is Dead

I certainly feel that the time is not far distant when a knowledge of the principles of diet will be an essential part of one's education. Then mankind will eat to live, be able to do better mental and physical work and disease will be less frequent.
- Fannie Farmer, American culinary expert (1857-1915)

Sadly, Fannie Farmer was mistaken. We did not learn because the knowledge we need was not incorporated into our education system. In our ignorance, while we were busy with other things, the food, drug and chemical industries collaborated to make us a sick society, one that would forever be dependant on doctors and drugs. Or, in the case of the poor, dependant on dying as a form of relief.

Could this be true? Is it even possible? Does it sound like a conspiracy theory? Yes to all. The evidence is all around us. Cancer, muscular dystrophy, autoimmune diseases, viral infections are commonplace today whereas they were rare just a couple of generations ago.

There must be some explanation. We live in a world--in the west known as a rich world--filled with people with poor health, with compromised health problems that impact every day of their lives. We have all the food we want, we have the ability to exercise and get advice about how to live healthy lives, but we don't and can't.

We rush around making money but never take the time to develop our greatest source of wealth, our health. Inevitably, our accumulated wealth goes to pay for the consequences of our poor health practices.

These problems were not common in the past. Our ancestors had many problems but illnesses from today's most common diseases were not prominent among them. There must be something we don't know. We need to change or we will be unhealthy with illness and physical incapacities ourselves. It will happen. It is happening around us. If not to ourselves than to others we know.

There are a few who know, a multitude who don't know and a massive number who are in denial. "It couldn't be that bad." "They wouldn't do that to us." Yes, alas, they would. All for the sake of profit.

Denial that a problem exists is the worst problem we have. Until we admit that we have a problem with the food we eat, the beverages we drink, the water we drink and use every day and the air we breathe every moment, we will have no way to address our own health.

We can begin by learning about the studies that have been done that show exactly how the factors just listed impact our lives in negative ways. Thanks to the internet this task is easy. Not fast, but easy if you want to take the time to learn. It is, after all, your life we are talking about. How long you will live. How healthy or sick and impaired you will be in the last decades of your life.

You can begin learning about how what is happening around you and what you eat (not the quantity or the foods themselves but the quality of them) has such a negative effect on your life. You can begin with this video presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esk7k5KkhXE Dr. Tent's presentation (2 hr.)

Dr. R.E. Tent is a doctor of naturopathy and chiropractic. He has nothing to sell in his videos. His purpose is to inform. To inform those who wish to learn. There will always be those who deny that the food they eat could be as lacking in nutrients (that used to be natural and normal but are no longer) and often harmful. Dr. Tent has no interest in arguing with these people. He has patients to heal. He shows you how in the video.

If you prefer to learn through videos, I recommend that you go to YouTube.com and search the word "health".

If you are up to learning by reading, put "nutrition health" into your favourite search engine.

But first watch Dr. Tent's video to learn why you need to learn so much about how your health is being damaged and how you can fix it.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about cheap and easy ways to improve our lives by making changes in our education systems. And, yes, poor health is a severe social problem.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Your Food Is Not As Good As You Think

Your Food Is Not As Good As You Think

The hospitals and graveyards are filled with those who refused to acknowledge the virtues of physical morality.
- Dr Ron Spallone, denverchiropractor.com

Imagine you own some slaves. Bear with me, this is only a hypothetical example to make a point.

You want your slaves to be happy and healthy at the beginning because you know they will work best for your advantage that way. You give them weekends off, holidays, provide health care, forms of entertainment.

People around you claim you are wasting the potential of your possessions because you aren't working them harder. At first you resist. But you see the others making far more money than you.

First you cut out the holidays. Then the weekends off. You make them work every hour there is daylight. You don't bother with health care any more because there are always more slaves to buy. Entertainment becomes something for you and your family, not for your slaves. They have a job, a purpose, and that is to work.

Eventually they become exhausted beyond recovery. You pump them full of medicines and power drinks, but they never recover. They die and their families die along with them. Neglect and abuse.

Now let's replace the slaves in our example with fields owned by a farmer. When I was a kid I lived in a rural farming area. Every field lay fallow once every three years, four at most. Fields needed rest in order to recover their health and vigor. Often farmers would plant crops such as clover that they would then plough under to fertilize the field. There would be no profit from that field that year.

Today there is no such thing as a field without a crop, unless it is pasture. There is no such thing as leaving a field fallow. Every field must produce every year. Crops must produce as much return as possible every year. The ground is tired, exhausted.

What about the health of the field? Fertilizer has become the power beverage that keeps every field going every year. But what about pests? Ah, we have pesticides, poisons we put on our crops to look after the pests.

And weeds? No problem, we have poisonous herbicides for that. In fact, we have chemical poisons that kill every living thing in a field. Everything it touches. And, as it happens, every bird and other small animal that eats whatever the herbicide has killed. Those birds and other animals won't eat our final crop produce.

This stuff is sprayed on the food you eat. You avoid packaged and canned foods because you don't want to ingest added preservatives since preservatives do exactly the opposite in your body of what you want to happen to the food you eat. You eat produce you buy fresh from the market. Everyone says that is best for you.

That produce is grown with poisons. The worst among the produce products are apples and potatoes. Apples are sprayed with poisons before the blossoms even begin to grow into fruit. Then several more times before harvest. Much the same happens with potatoes. When clean, these are among the healthiest foods you can eat. But how clean are they when they are sprayed with poisons several times?

The agriculture industry, chemical industry and government agriculture departments all claim the food is safe to eat. Because nobody dies from eating it. At least not within the few months or years after they eat it.

Even if you buy organically produced fruits and vegetables, they most likely come from tired ground, exhausted ground, dirt lacking many of the nutrients you expect to get when you buy fresh produce. Look at the foods that are "fortified" with vitamins and minerals. Why were these added? Because they were grown in ground that was nearly devoid of the microbial life that makes food nutritious. You may choose to supplement the food you eat with products that will give you what you should have gotten from your food.

Look at the proliferation of cancer. Cancer doesn't grow quickly. It takes decades to blossom in your body. A sunburn you got as a kid becomes a form of skin cancer when you reach middle age. Decades later. Other forms of cancer, prompted by poisoned foods, also take decades to become dangerous or lethal.

Poisoned foods are never tested over decades. Usually their "safety" is tested over months, not even years. Some chemical companies claim that their poisons have disappear after being sprayed on a field only a day earlier. Those who applied it wear HAZMAT suits. You won't find any kind of life, birds or any other animals, anywhere near these fields. Yet you are expected to believe the products grown in those fields is safe for you and your children and grandchildren to eat.

Your government tells you the food you buy is safe. The same government pays out fortunes every year in tax money to care for people who ate that "safe" food for decades.

In the market organic food is often more expensive than "conventional" produce. So you pay a little bit less now only to find that you have to drain every bit of savings and capital you have later to pay for your very costly health care.

No economist would call that a good investment. Those people who ate carelessly for many years never speak up to warn you about the ill health and expenses they suffer during the last few decades of their lives. Yes, they are living longer thanks to advances in medicine. But they are not living health, active and happy lives. They are existing.

By no means are all elderly people unhealthy. Some are anything but. Active, involved in volunteer work, hobbies and social groups. But nursing homes and care facilities always have waiting lists that never get smaller.

There are many old people in our communities. We and government tend to think of them as burdens on society. Rarely does anyone associate their ill health with unhealthy practices, especially in what they eat or ate in past decades.

That's the way the human body works. It takes decades for abuse or neglect to show up as ill health.

Take the time now to search out what foods are healthy and where you can acquire them. It will pay off well for you in years to come.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about cheap and easily implemented solutions to problems that cost you a lot of tax money. Poor eating habits is a major social problem.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

What If God Is A Scientist?

What If God Is A Scientist?

“Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.”
- Albert Einstein, The World As I See It

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
- C.S. Lewis, British novelist, poet, academic (1898-1963)

One of the most asked questions among people around the world is "Is God real?" Or some variation of it, such as "What is God?", "Why does God allow evil?" or even "Why am I here?" They are all essentially the same question. Feed me because I want answers.

Answers to the unknown. Or the unknowable. Yet we still ask. Not surprisingly, many have devised answers over the years, answers that insult the intelligence of some, but that others cling to so dearly they are prepared to make regular donations to support, even to give their lives for. Or take the lives of others.

First of all, note that in the questions above, the background motivation for them is to learn "How does or can God serve me and my purpose and needs?" One famous quote from US President John F. Kennedy goes "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Yet we still want to know what our country and what God can do for us.

"Where does God fit into my life?" not "What can I do to justify my being here in the first place?" Our questions are self-centred. The answers provided by others all tend to sell a product that satisfies that need, then collect proceeds for the answers.

Note that every answer is designed to satisfy personal needs. The answers are custom designed to serve that customer need, not to provide a universal truth. Religions gain followers by offering up a god that will supposedly satisfy those needs.

Inevitably others, often scientists, claim there is no God. Or at least there is no God like that. Atheists and skeptics are so busy debunking false gods they don't have time to address the question of what a real God might be. How, given what we know and what science knows today, can there be any kind of God?

Every concept of God is based on assumptions or premises. Should we be surprised if an invented God meets the needs of someone who is prepared to pay for the services of that God? Should we be surprised if those invented gods fail to meet minimum standards of logic or questions based on common sense?

Everything you believe about God, or everything you disbelieve, is likely based on a concept of God somebody taught you. It is based on assumptions that satisfy personal needs. Do you need a manly God? God is all-powerful and vengeful. Christianity's Old Testament has that kind of God. Do you need a God with maternal qualities? God loves you, will always look out for you, will hold you in the palm of his hand, will look after you when you die. God has those qualities in the Bible's New Testament.

God can be whatever you need. Whatever you are prepared to pay for.

Does that mean there is no God? No. It means that any concept of God based on satisfying the needs of people for a deity that will serve them so long as they keep paying will ultimately fail. They are all based on faulty assumptions. Like effective advertising. It doesn't have to be true, it only has to sell.

And it does. Every concept of God, no matter how absurd to the rest of us, will find some followers, who will pay. The best way to be remembered through history is to tell others that God has spoken to you. There are shrines around the world where people claim that God has spoken to them. The shrines are named after the individuals who received the messages. Or believed and publicly claimed they did.

Science, in general, insists there is no God because God can neither be proven by argument or sensed in any way through sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell. At its base, science uses these as basic premises for existence.

Some use the argument that because there are and have been thousands of different gods over past millennia, it is obvious that they have all been invented by their users/followers. That does not meet the criteria of logic because it denies that one could be real and valid. It also does not recognize that all have one characteristic in common, a strong belief in a supernatural being. Why is this belief so universal no matter what the culture, history or geographical location?

It's worth remembering that "supernatural" does not mean "extra" as in "super fries". It means more like "outside of nature", a force or kind of energy unlike anything we have previously contemplated. Just because something has not previously been contemplated by a human does not mean it does not exist or that it is impossible. Air flight was long believed to be impossible. Then someone contemplated it and made it possible.

Rarely in these debates does anyone raise the fact that there are phenomena that exist for which no one has an adequate explanation, or even a reasonable guess. Ghosts and UFOs that the US military, science or governments have no explanation for would be some examples. There are better examples that would require more space than we have here to explain. TV shows often put these down to examples of early visits to earth by extraterrestrials. Are these any better than religions based on emotions and faulty guesses? I would say no. Their hypotheses are as full of holes as the religions they propose to replace.

One fundamental part of the God debate involves how earth and the universe began. The Bible says that God created everything in six days, then rested on the seventh. No one ever attempts to explain whether the days are earth days, Jupiter days or some kind of God-days. Nor does anyone ever explain why a supernatural being would require rest. We humans require rest to refresh our bodies and set memories and clear trash from our brains. As God has neither physical body nor brain, why would he require rest?

Religions claim that God or gods are supernatural, not subject to natural laws or explanations. Then they set about making up claims for God, what God does, who God cares for, as if their God were a physical being. No matter how much their followers are devoted to these beliefs, their arguments inevitably fail.

Science claims that evolution and fossils destroy the Bible's explanation that God created everything 6,200 or so years ago. Would those be earth years or God-years? Don't laugh about the concept of God-years as it is not even one you can contemplate.

More importantly (to me, perhaps soon to you) should be the question of why a creator, essentially a scientist of unusual skill, would work for a week then stop. Forever. No human creator, artist or scientist would ever stop work after one success. I find it hard to imagine a creator who would work for a bit, then stop forever.

Progress or development, the top argument for evolution, is undisputable. It happens and it can be proven. But the whole concept of evolution itself is full of holes. Unexplainable gaps, for one thing.

Zoologists claim that for a species to be viable, to survive, it must have a minimum base of 30 members. With fewer than that there could be mating, but inbreeding would force the species out of existence within a few generations.

Evolution claims that a new species begins with a single genetic mutation. Even assuming that the newly evolved creature could mate with some other genetically close species, science today has shown that the possibility of the offspring of such inter-species mating being fertile is extremely low. With species survival possibilities near zero, how could so many have survived and thrived to this day?

Imagine yourself as a creator. You try many possibilities, they fail. Then you get one that works. You make more. Then you move on to another creation project. Same routine. Many failures, then eventually a success. If your creations are natural they need instincts for survival and reproduction. And they need to eat. So you have more creating to do. You develop a food chain.

Eventually and inevitably your food chain life web becomes extremely complex. Then what? More work. More planning. More creating. Gaps in your development could be explained by the fact that you created different species at different times. These species, with reproductive instincts, evolve their DNA and in the process create other close species. So new species originate from two very different sources.

Would it not work that way if God were a scientist?

Neither science nor religion would need to modify their beliefs much to accommodate such a radical concept.

I did not set out in this article to prove anything. I hope I have planted a seed of thought in some people. The "God argument" to date has been more like a war with neither side wanting to give a point to the other than a discussion. The argument has been as productive as one that might be fought over the existence of purple elephants. (You can paint an elephant purple, but does that make it real?)

Science denies that anything exists that its members are unable to contemplate, let alone explain. Religion has invented deities and whole spiritual environments around a few experiences that defy explanation. Both have limited their own credibility. A real God would have to be an unlimited concept. Those who debate the topic build walls of limitation around themselves. Then they battle it out with anyone whose opinion differs from theirs.

Let's get serious about coming together. We will never reach any reasonable understanding until we accept that there could be other explanations for the unknown and the unexplainable that we have not considered.

In the final analysis does it matter? Why would God care about atheists or those who have different beliefs from each other? God would stand apart from such trivial debate. No God worth respect would do trivia.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems and hundreds of articles that are available free on the internet. Search for them using the author's name.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Why You Desperately Need Your Sleep

Why You Desperately Need Your Sleep

How about those people who don't need sleep? What are they called again? Successful? What a bunch of dicks they are.
Jim Gaffigan, American comedian

The significance of that quote goes far deeper than the joke Jim intended. "Successful" tends to refer to people who make a lot of money. They are usually workaholics, they neglect their families (if they have families that are still together), they are first in line for divorce, many commit "white collar" crimes that make us wonder "What were they thinking?" Most of them die wondering what their lives might have been like if they had not idolized money.

One characteristic they all have in common--all people self described as "successful"--is they get only a few hours of sleep each night. The payoff for them is their feeling of success and the size of their investment portfolio.

Most are narcissistic, even to the point of being borderline (or actually) psychopathic. They are the ones that those they consider "unsuccessful" think of as slaves to a system with money as its god. If they are not actually in the "1%" they are strong supporters of those who are. Any support for those who are desperately in need through no fault of their own comes with a catch--tax deduction, social status, self-aggrandizement.

In my experience (anecdotal evidence only) these self described "successful" people all believe that they can get along with only a minimum of sleep. To them, sleep is the equivalent of a long coffee break.

That is patently false, which is why so many of them lead single purpose lives, like monks, and why most of them die far younger than they believed they should, having suffered for too many years before their death with unexplained health problems.

As they lie dying they will be visited by family members and other individuals whose names appear in their will. They bought that devotion.

The above is but one consequence of sleep deprivation. As always, no generalization is 100% accurate for everyone. And it may be argued which came first, the dedication to 'success' or sleep deprivation--chicken and egg. Here are more consequences:  http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/important-sleep-habits

So what else does your brain do while you sleep? First you should know that your brain may be busier when you sleep than when you are awake. It's that busy. Not dreaming necessarily as that is more of a side effect. Yes, you read that right.

The most important activity your brain does when you sleep is house cleaning. Blood vessels that are so tiny they can hardly be detected in daytime enlarge greatly inside the brain when you sleep. They carry away amyloid beta among other things. The brain makes amyloid beta and needs it when you are awake, though the reasons are unclear. It is cleared away by those blood vessels when you sleep. Too much retained in the brain may be a primary cause for Alzheimer's. Lack of sufficient sleep would mean amyloid beta would stay in the brain. Almost every brain analyzed of Alzheimer's sufferers contained plaque of amyloid beta.

Also during sleep the clutter of what accumulated while you were awake is cleaned out. Everything you see, hear, taste, touch, smell and think during the daytime is too much to commit to memory. So priorities are made and the necessary stuff is committed to memory. The rest is cleared away.

The brain actually does some problem solving while you sleep. Have you ever wrestled with a problem you could not solve during the day, then wakened at night or in the morning with the solution ready at hand? The brain does figuring like that, sorting through data, prioritizing it, then working out a solution while you sleep. A sleep deprived brain can't do that.

Dreaming helps people to make sense of what they experienced during their waking hours. Sometimes, not always. Often daytime experiences are assembled in an incorrect order and they emerge at night as dreams. Science is not certain what causes nightmares, though there are many theories. Dreams tend to be refashioned assemblies of experiences and thoughts of the previous few days.

What about naps during the daytime? Do they do good or harm? A nap may give rest to a tired physical body. It may also give the brain time to consolidate what has been learned over the previous few hours. Consolidating new learning is one critically important function of sleep. Science has proven that staying up late to cram for an exam often results in confusion and forgetfulness during the exam itself.

Better to learn a bit at a time, then sleep or nap to consolidate it and commit it to memory. You can't draw on information that is not already in your memory.

Why do you desperately need your sleep? Because you desperately need your brain to help you avoid being a boring drone with a limited future and a lifespan that is shorter than it should be.

The human brain has been under intense scrutiny for studies in recent years. Brain transplants, uploading data to the brain and artificial electronic brains are under study, but are many years away from any kind of conclusion, let alone approval.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems and hundreds of articles which are available on the internet by searching his name.
Learn more at billallin.com

Who Lied to You Today? Your Immune System

Who Lied to You Today? Your Immune System

Nature is a numbers game. We need all the support we can get as our immune systems and health are under assault from pollution, stress, contaminated food and age-related diseases as our lifespans increase.
- Paul Stamets, world's preeminent expert on mushrooms--he has more viable ways to save our planet and our health than most people can imagine

I struggled with the title for this article. You will soon see why. No physicians, no government health "experts," no journalists and very few researchers will dare to tell you what you are about to read about your immune system. I mean that sincerely. They are afraid to tell you. So be prepared to be shocked.

Your grandparents knew nothing about immune systems. Your parents' generation knew very little because the whole concept was new to the medical community they learned from. Good health was still more good luck than good management.

You probably know far more than any generation before you. Yet what you think you know is likely wrong, at least inaccurate. Bear with me as this may be uncomfortable, even ugly, for you.

What you know as YOU, the living entity with your name, is not just one being. The only part that is distinctly YOU is your personality or, as some might say, your soul. Are your own body cells not YOU? Maybe, but maybe not. Read on.

The biggest part of what you think of as YOU is comprised of the cells of your body. They, even together, are only a small minority of the living entities that live together inside your skin. A majority of the rest is bacteria, though some are actually beneficial viruses. A large majority of them--about 80%--live in your gut. Specifically in your colon, your large intestine. Yes, the place where you store your poop before you excrete it from your body.

Uncomfortable yet? These microbiota, along with those on your skin, in your mouth, around or in every organ of your body and in every orifice are what mot people think of as their immune system. That's right, your immune system is NOT part of the cells of your body. It works in coordination with the cells of your body.

These microbiota, what advertisements seem to call germs to be gotten rid of, and what antibiotics and other contaminants kill freely, live in symbiosis with the cells of your body. There are trillions of them. At least as many as you have cells, most scientists say ten times as many as you have cells, some say as much as 100 times as many as you have cells.

Why the apparent differences in number? Because so often what you eat or take as medical prescriptions kills so many of them, all at once. You can't live without them. I mean you would die without them. Not just from infection due to lack of ability to fight off disease.

Upset these little guys with a bad diet and they react as if they are under attack. They can actually allow disease (such as cancer) to spread in a desperate attempt to get rid of what they don't like, what does not allow them to thrive.

Science now considers these microbiota so important that it considers them, collectively, as a second brain. You read that right. Just recently the link between the microbiota in the gut (yes, found in your poop as well as around it) and your brain was discovered. Your two brains work together.

I should emphasize here that your brain is yours, comprised of your own cells. Your other brain is not. Is your head brain all you? Your DNA is composed of genetic material that comes largely from bacteria, in our distant human past. Some strands of DNA have come from viruses. Since your DNA produces the cells of your body, are your own body cells all YOU or just another part of a composite mega-organism comprised of trillions of parts that live in interdependent symbiosis?

Should your second brain not protect you against cancer? Usually it does. Research on this is still in early stages, but it seems that your second brain allows cancer cells to grow and spread as a kind of defence against other invasions, other health problems. Cancer cells and other diseases, it seems, can kill other body invaders. But, like allergies, sometimes the defenders take over and kill the main body itself. The military calls that collateral damage.

Why can't the protectors be stopped? Maybe they can. The protectors are powerful. What would you do to try to stop a powerful killing machine such as the US military if the US military were attacking you and your people? The problem is no less complicated than that.

We know very little about how our own brain, the one that is comprised of our own body cells, works. What we know about how our second brain, the one in our gut, is almost nothing. We do know that when we feed it a diet it doesn't like it becomes our enemy. A deadly enemy.

That second brain also has a great deal to do with mood, our feeling of well-being, even our attitude toward life. It likely is more powerful than our own brain (the head one) in the sense that it can affect decisions we make, including those that risk our life, whether or not we break laws, how we make choices between right and wrong, even about addictive behaviours and suicide.

We know that our second brain is supposed to be an ally. That should cause us to want to support it, to strengthen it, not to kill it or weaken it.

I am not able to present evidence to support all of these claims here due to space requirements. You have starting places if you want to search to learn more yourself.

If you have comments or questions please feel free to write them. I will do my best to address them.

Bill Allin is the author of the book Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems and hundreds of articles which are available on the internet. Search for them using the author's name.
Learn more at http://billallin.com