charter.rights

Have you taken up trolling as a past-time or are you going to contribute to the discussion?

I believe I read somewhere a way's back that 80% of First Nation people lived off reserve in urban centres. That would make a statement that "natives don't pay taxes" patently false.

Ah but they are not all "white" or of British descent. Obviously you cannot handle that FACT! But you are further up the bowels of ignorance than you think. Quebec maintains its French language heritage and culture WITHOUT federal subsidies. It is the rest of Canada that they need help with. Bill 101 is law untouchable by federal statute. Unfortunately, yours is just a minor opinion in the greater scheme of things and your point of view is no greater than that insignificant opinion. Luckily neither being English speaking or Christian has any weight in law or government.

You've missed the points I made. Completely! The floods mentioned in the stories were not regional floods with little creeks and rivers overflowing their banks. These were no land in sight floods with turtles swimming in the water being the only refuge kind of stories. The point about the Bering Strait and the Beringer land Bridges has nothing to do with the bridges themselves. It is that the archeology suggests that human occupation of the Americas preceded the possible migrations by 40,000 years! They aren't plausible "theories" because the archeology - especially in South and Central America suggests that migration was from the south to the north. The point about Peru settlement has nothing to do with dismissing "out of Africa" theories. It is a suggestion that simultaneous evolution was occurring in 2 remotely located centres and by remote inhabitants. It is significant in that it shows that there was no reliance on out of Africa "migrations" to populate the Americas and that civilizations could occur not through inheritance or contact but through independent simultaneous evolution. It also presents the evidence that migration from Asia did not provide the means to populate all of the Americas since the concept of "civilization" did not reach Asia for some 1200 years later. There has been an assertion from historians and anthropologists that evolution was an linear event. There are too many doubtful data to support this and the idea that simultaneous evolution IS plausible.

Herein lies the problem: "The native activists are ignoring the obvious fact that for all of their grievances, they were living a stone-age existence when those evil Europeans arrived and started developing the land." This kind of ignorance automatically defeats your argument. The FACT is that Native people had complex democratic government systems, advance agricultural practices and were far advanced of the ignorant, uneducated refugees that escaped here from oppressive monarchies, aristocracies and oligarchies of 16th and 17th century Europe. Most of the Europeans only bathed once a year while personal hygiene was a daily occurrence among the natives. And while it is true that natives did not have iron production, archeology has proven that natives were smelting metals about 2000 years before the practice developed in Europe. It is a fact that Native people didn't need the implements made by smelters that heavily contaminated the earth and choked the air with soot. First Nations people were traders, developers and merchants long before Europeans arrived. The British made deals with the natives and had they paid up when the deals were made and properly managed the trusts that were part of the deals we would not be in the predicament tht we are in. The fact remains that WE OWE natives for those fair and reasonable agreements and the Supreme Court has ruled that compounded interest is now required to be paid WITH the original consideration. Unfortunately, $15,000 in 1800 dollars now amounts to over $1 billion and since the original amounts agree upon were well over hundreds of millions of dollars, we are on the hook for well over $1 trillion. Our only hope is to be able to either negotiate for a lessor amount in exchange for some other consideration, or arrange a payment plan that will span over centuries. The difficulty is that our position in negotiations is starting at a deficit and natives hold the upper hand.

Let's dispel a few of those "myth" that keep you from seeing "truth". 1. All of Canadian territory with the exception of a few token settlements that existed in 1763 are subject to aboriginal claim UNLESS the Crown can prove that there was a treaty of valid cede. That isn't a belief of native people. It is Supreme Law as defined by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 2. Unless Canada can prove that native peoples by treaty of other means became Canadian citizens then their pre-existing right of self-government still applies. In many cases this requires some negotiation with the Crown to determine the extent of that governance and where Canadian law fits int with theres. In the case of Six Nations which seems to be the subject of much malice and fear, they insist they have never given up their sovereignty even after the Canadian government invaded their council house and imposed our form of government on them. They claim to have proof that the Confederacy Government has existed without interruption. However, by way of court case and the fact that many native people are in our prisons there is an acknowledgment that Canadian laws apply to them. 3. In order to defend democracy and freedom, sometimes violence is necessary, wouldn't you agree? Otherwise our place is Afghanistan is an abhorrent crime....As you your assertion that you were threatened here on this forum, I demand that you provide a link since I would believe that the moderators would have taken action on it. I call B.S. 4. Natives AFAIK don't blame the "whiteman" for their oppression and genocide. They blame "colonial imperialism" whichi continues to displace them and ignore their rights as human beings and hand their land and resources over to corporations. Clothes and cars never belonged to "white people" nor was much of the technology ever invented by Caucasians. More likely the clothes you are wearing and the car you drive is the result of Asian innovation and creation. However, most of the foods you eat came from our contact with the natives. Pre-contact Europeans had little more than cabbages and peas to eat before they came here. As for your other make beliefs: 1.&2. Canada has a fiduciary responsibility for First Nations. They are legally required to provide services for native people under treaty interpretations for those that claim independence and as citizens for those who claim to be Canadian. First Nations do not receive "billions of dollars" that is budgeted by INAC. Most of the money never reaches native people and is gobbled up by INAC budgets, programs and employees. That which does reach the reserve level is often too little to fund the basic needs of the community. 3. The "laws" of Canada treaty every equal. The Supreme Law, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protect the rights of people from oppression because of their background. Aboriginal rights that are protected in the Charter prevent lawmakers from prescribing or enforcing laws that reduce those pre-existing rights, or those rights acquired by treaty agreements. And just like relions ar protected from laws that target them, aboriginal people cannot be subjugated because of who they are. 4. The occupations and stand off that have occurred in Ontario are the result of years of inaction by the governments of Canada and Ontario to properly consult and accommodate First Nation's over aboriginal rights and land rights BEFORE development. If there is someone to blame the government of Ontario and Canada responsible for the escalating costs of the dispute. Had they properly consulted (and they continue to ignore those rights) there would not have been any need for the natives across Ontario (or Canada) to have taken action to defend their rights. We're talking about legal rights too. Not some petty feelings of Canadians who are smart enough to figure it out. 5. In Ontario at least, I know that the OPP patrol 90% of the reserves and those reserves with their own police forces depend on the OPP for mutual aid calls. Again, I call B.S. 6. Native groups aren't suing since the government developed the Specific Lands Claims process which is meant to address hundreds of outstanding land claims. Those which fall out of the SLC process are dealt with by negotiation that will find settlements based on the historical relationships between the First Nation and the Crown.

We in fact know that the over the ages since the first Bible was written many aspects have been removed, altered, and reworded. King James did so much damage to the original Bible text that it cannot be counted on to entirely represent Judea-Christian beliefs. However, between the numerous Books speaking on Christ's life and times there are commonalities and while editors could have easily edited the text to weed out non-consistent, they appear to have left the descriptions of common experiences. That leaves us with the problem that hear, an oral history that was written down has been prejudiced by its interpretors. That certifies my point about the lower accuracy of written texts. So that is where we start - looking for commonalities in the oral accounts. Then we verify those commonalities perhaps with other versions and accounts and perhaps through experimentation, where possible. That gives us the best case. However, if our confirmation cannot be found in collaborating witness then we must resort to validated texts. This means not falling into the opinion of opinion kinds of accounts but going to as close as possible to the source documents and trying to root out the prejudice and bias contained within. At the end of the day a witness is better than a later recalled letter or report, and corroborating witnesses make a report or book on the subject, redundant.

Those flood "myths" (as you call them) appear over and over again in Native oral history. When collaboration appears in two seemingly unconnected accounts one has to wonder if it is more accurate than we want to believe. And while scientists have attempted to explain Native occupation of the Americas in many ways, the facts remain that the archeology have established that native peoples were in the Americas long before the ice bridges of the Bering Strait occurred (or for that matter the Beringer land bridge occurred), and in fact about 10-20,000 years before Europe was first populated. Theories abound about how people came to populate the Americas. The problem lies in that Europeans can't accept that fact that their admission to this land was not based on terrus nullus and that their claims were mostly fraudulent. In fact in a more recent article in the LA Times suggests that Peru's civilization sprung up at about the same time as they did in Egypt, Indus and China, which suggest that the concept of civilization was not imported by "out of Africa" migrants but that the Incan empire evolved on its own accord. Oral history alone is not all that. But when it is corroborated with addition information it has more value than written history for the reasons stated previously. And while scholars attempt to justify their prejudice by citing reference, it is often nothing more than compounding the prejudice. Oral history on the other hand also comes from other sources and the SCoC has ruled that when the line of these oral histories can be identified and corroborated with other validated oral history (under a number of "tests' set out by the SCoC), it MUST be taken with the same weight minimally as written history, and when the written history contains a bias, oral history is to be given more weight. In the case of Regina vs. Marshall the SCoC gave MiqMaq oral history more weight in determining the articles of an agreement. They suggested that all agreements are oral first and written second, and since the British took it upon themselves to write the agreement in full, knowing that the MiqMaq could not read or write, their version could not be taken as absolute proof of the agreement. Instead the Court took the MiqMaq version of certain promises that were never fulfilled. In essence all history is oral BEFORE it is written down and we must therefore be wary of the prejudice and bias of the writers. By committing their knowledge to paper they lessen its validity. More accurately the real and true story is the one that is told over and over again by various witnesses and this is the primary reason why affidavit holds less weight than eye witnesses in court.

"Quebec culture is primarily the same as any other province in Canada and has been culturally assimilated by Canadian/American majority culture." Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Do you live on an ice flow in a northern Alberta river? or are you just eating too much ice cream lately? Language isn't culture no. And culture isn't language either. They are intrinsically linked and cannot be separate. One cannot experience Quebequois culture in a totally English aspect nor can one experience Quebequois culture in an isolated Alberta dust town UNLESS it was populated by Quebequois. The best you can do pretend and try to emulate what you think is their culture. Unless you are part of it you can never experience it in the same way it exists in Quebec. French in Quebec has survive in spite of people like you who think they are a doomed people. You should get over the fact that YOU don't represent what a Canadian is any more than a immigrant that takes his oath in downtown Toronto. We're all Canadians and there is no such thing as a "majority" from any particular region, cultural or linguistic background.

Oral history is much more accurate than books. Oral history by its very nature is carried by many people repeating the same stories over and over again. Where the information is consistent in the stories told by many, there is a greater chance of its accuracy than if a single author writes it down. In the latter case the prejudices of the writer become ingrained in the text. If a mistake is make in the research and compilation it may go unnoticed or unchallenged and become gospel. On the other hand if the information provide in an oral history isn't collaborated it can be discounted without losing the whole story. Even the story teller can be discounted without losing the main thrust of the story because it is carried by many more people and not lost within the inaccuracies of one person. You must remember that before paper trails were created the mnemonic system was pretty much the only recording system available to the average ancients. Sure there was some writing at the elite levels but these systems were not available to those who could neither read nor write. Their memory then became the main means of saving information. Passing on the stories to their children and anyone who would listen were the only ways to make sure that important events and relationships were recorded. On the other hand we are so heavily dependent on artificial means of information recording that our memory system are pretty much atrophied. Sure we can remember a few things, but not with the detail that someone who might have relied upon would have been able. This is one of the main reasons why the Supreme Court has validated Native oral history to be as valuable (and sometimes more valuable) than the written history. Being able to draw from many sources to collaborate a view, and recognizing that British written history was often written from a single viewpoint, makes it accurate. Can we be absolute about what actually happened with precise detail? No. But then again we know that history is often written by the victors and between the US, Canada and Great Britain there are huge differences of opinion about who actually won the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and even the Vietnam war for that matter....and there have been thousands of books written on the subject.

Hawking believes a hypothesis and a theory are the same thing. You are too engaged in semantics to notice...Why not try a little research before you wade into this discussion again? "The hypothesis, the theory, is what Stephen calls a 'theory of everything.'" World: Physicist Hawking Concedes Error In Famous Black Hole Theory Simple research you could have done yourself.... However, the belief error wasn't with Hawking who was following his estimated hunch. It was with the other scientists that faithfully followed his theories without question. There was a lot of other science built on those theories that fell apart once his error was exposed.

Actually, you above quote is the most ignorant statement ever made on these forums. Comments like yours only serve to show how little you really know about the discussion at hand. Perhaps if you were to just take a back seat you might learn something, instead of injecting your prejudices in the middle of your oblivion.

Culture in the context of historical / group culture is defined as: Merram-Webster On-Line Main Entry: cul·ture 5 a: the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time Culture develops with language. Quebequois culture is as different from French culture as is Tahitian culture from Gaelic. Each were developed because of region changes in the lives of the people. There were not hybrids as you suggest but distinct and separate cultures arising out of the necessities of living together. Miqmaq culture is not the same as Algonquin culture. Welsh culture is not the same as Irish culture. They have remained the same culture for thousands of years, yet their traditions have changed as the people have changed and adapted. Culture is static. Traditions and icons are dynamic.

The Book of Numbers is in the Bible. Navajo astrology is more than just an accounting. It is used by today's physicists to explain elements of the universe that they had come up against a wall with. The Navajo Elders have such a scientific knowledge of the universe that they are teaching these physicists about how the universe works. However, as many physicist that have consulted with the Navajo Elders, there are just as many who "don't believe them". The same is the case when a medical scientist from Australia discovered the presence of helicobacter pylori (H.pylori) bacteria present in the stomach and intestines and proved that not only could bacteria live in the gut, but that bacteria was responsible for ulcers, cancers and other intestinal diseases. He was ridiculed by the scientific community because no one would believe him or the science that he presented, despite having infected himself and cure his ulcers using a concoction of strong antibiotics. Today nearly 20 years after his discovery, his cure is being used more and more in mainstream. However, there still remain a number of doctors (and pharmaceutical company scientists losing profits on antacid remedies) who refuse to accept the evidence. Then we have Professor Stephen Hawking who postulated a theory on time and space that carried the entire scientific community down a path for over 10 years. Science and research were built on his theories and knowledge in this area. Scientist after scientist had faith in him and his theories do a degree that they committed billions of research dollars to form new theories. His ideas were accepted as gospel until one day a single scientist (from the US I believe) stood up and said it couldn't be true. He had discovered one flaw in Hawking's theory that ended up unraveling his entire theory and setting the scientific community back about 10 years. The point is that science requires as much faith as does religion and without the pure faith that some scientific postulation could be true we would not have been able to discover many other things around us to be true. As for peer review, the Bible as well as other religious phenomena is also peer reviewed. Miracles are never accepted at face value but are scrutinized by clergy and their bishops. Sainthood, where by the Church recognizes the miraculous lives of people is approved by a long peer review process in the church. So your argument about only science being peer reviewed is neither correct or important since it is just as likely that the peers could be wrong depending on where they put their faith. However, at a more individual level neither one requires peer review. We accept religious beliefs, or scientific belief, or historical belief on the basis of faith in order to formulate our own prejudices about many things. Even the point of proving something through mathematical calculation requires faith, since the number 0 is not real in the natural world and its presentation into mathematical formula was created to solve a barrier that physicists and mathematicians had reached using real numbers. The whole science of numbers is built on a number of myths and theories that certain functions and derivatives can be formulated in their artificial world to explain our real world. Both science and religion are faith based constructs. Only the former refuses to accept their dependence on some things they have never seen or touched in order to explain the universe. And here it seems that many have put so much faith into science that they refuse to see its Achilles Heel.

The Book of Numbers carries hundreds (if not thousands ) of generations through family lines and was carried forward thousands of years without the use of books, as oral history....in much the same way you might know about your own family lines. The presence of anecdotal evidence can be carried forward by teaching of the events occurring under specific circumstances. In fact much of Navajo astrology was taught the same way and modern scientist have looked to the Navajo knowledge to help explain unexplained stellar phenomena. The point here is that sometimes the lines between religion and science are blurred. Either one may hold the explanation (we are looking for) and both may not fully explain anything. "...in which case how can that be trusted?" How can science be trusted given that mistaken conclusions are often presented as fact? However, the more evidence we reveal, whether it is religious belief, or science the more plausible it becomes. That is a simple test for any layman. For the Priest or the Professor, it may not be enough. But in the end what does it matter so long as each is true to his own belief? Of course the real danger comes by believing either absolutely without examining the evidence ourself. Therefore I would suggest to you that faith (in either science or religious postulation) is all in the "works". Faith without works is dead.

You mean like history books? Yep I agree with you there. History is tainted with the personal prejudices of historians. DNA you ask? Go read the Book of Numbers. At least in some regard it traces genealogy through hundreds of generations just like DNA is attmpeting to do today. That would be a good start. Perhaps they used some kind of genetic code to classify these people? However, belief and faith are much more than reading a book. If all religious people got was out of a book then we'ld be arguing about Scientology exclusively. Belief based on thousands of years of anecdotal evidence goes beyond that simplistic analogy. One guy picks up a car to rescue a victim trapped under it. Is that a miracle, or are all humans capable of that kind of strength? Sure there might be some best guess from a medical / biological viewpoint but they are trying to explain it after the fact. And wouldn't that give one faith that humans are much more capable than we believe under certain circumstances? So where would that strength come from, in view of the fact that we are generally limited to lifting our own body weight without extraneous conditioning and training? Find the connection between religious belief and science and I bet that you'll realize just how little we know about what life really is all about. So another quandry.... Our bodies are made of the same atoms, molecules and compounds as the air around us, the earth below us and the clothes we put on our nakedness. How is ith that we consider ourselves separate from it when in reality we are all in the same electron soup together and at that level there is no separation between us, the guy next to us and the bus we are riding on. The only thing that keeps us separate and believing that we are secret thinkers, is our belief in separation and individuality. In reality that is a lie - a myth - and yet we stake our very lives on that myth every day.....

Then you aren't as smart as you think you are.... Poutine and shit are chemically and biologically very similar. If not for added flavour like bile and ammonia shit would be indistinguishable from the original poutine as it was being eaten.

Perhaps before we get into a debate about the validity of religious observation, you should do some research. You obviously can't even make an opening statement on it. As fro sentience, the medical field has begun to understand that individual cells sense and respond to injury independent of the brain. This simple response could be thought of as a form of independent cellular sentience. A reaction doesn't mean that something is sentient. However, drop your sodium into heavy water (D2O) and explain what the reaction might be.......Before you can eliminate the the margin of error you must first find what is "pure water". The deuterium in deuterium oxide is radio isotope of hydrogen, making D2O and H2O virtually the same thing yet different....

I don't discount minorities at all. In fact I empower minorities over and above the xenophobic stodge's that populate the Conservative Party of Canada.

Sure traditions are a component of culture. But traditions alone do not change culture and they evolve with the people while still remaining connected to the culture. Human achievement and advancement are not the same thing as culture. Culture for the most part is intrinsically linked to language and region. It is often linked through regional world view. In order to distinguish culture from everything else there will be icons and rites that are associated with the culture. And language, historically supports those rites. Trying to say that rubbing two sticks together or eating poutine define culture is like saying that European culture involves ritual shit-eating and piss drinking because they once used to throw their human waste into the streets and water sources... The point is that cultural identity has nothing to do with historical practices. Hence "traditions" evolve with those observing the cultural politic.

Most of what is quoted as science is nothing more than a best guess. Carbon dating for instance is nothing more than someone's idea that carbon isotopes can be estimated. Yet it has its opposition that says that carbon dating accuracy is off by 10s of thousands of years. DNA falls into that same category in that they have repeated some tests and can identify similar samples, but they have mapped so little of it that they have no idea where it comes from and what it actually all says. For the most part those experiments in many cases are only repeatable with a margin of error, and it is that error that leaves doubt as to the origins. Religion on the other hand uses anecdotal evidence. Maybe it is not scientifically controlled or necessarily repeatable, but none the less has been formulated over thousands of years of observation. One does not need to know the basis of wind and sun to see a butterfly move swiftly going with the wind and despite their being light enough to be affected by the strongest of windstorms they can still move against it with some determination. The strength of religious evidence isn't that we can repeat an event but that the event repeats itself under consistent circumstances. When one has witnessed miracles then it is safe to believe that miracles are possible, even if they defy the laws of science and of nature. The real task then, is to find ways that religion is like science and explain the reason. And just like a scientist must believe in his or her hypothesis, a person of faith must believe in the laws of miracles until they are proven not to have merit. The argument always seems to be that science opposes religion and vice versa. I would suggest to you that both are similar and that the scientific explanation is not valid until it also proves the religious one. As for evolution. Who ever said that a day is what we think of it now, or man came erect out of the sea? If DNA tells our story then it is possible that our sentience existed back at the time that we were single cell animals and that the existence of Adam and Eve in the Bible could have been the birth of Atom and Evolution in science.

Funny isn't it that even when you think you have power, you still can't invoke your pathetic agendas. The reality is that the minorities were needed to give you guys a minority government...and still you can't offend them without losing their votes the next time around.....

I would expect that from someone who is a dogmatic supporter of science. Science is built on the prejudice of scientists before them. It is an evolving process but no less trying to explain the "unexplained". For the most part theories are made and then there is an attempt to prove the theories. Yet the theory and the conclusion can only be as broad as the limited thinking of the scientists. Which came first? The chicken or the explanation of how a chicken comes to be? Either one is a limited view.

Poverty isn't a money problem. It is a community problem - the loss of which causes poverty, homeless and other socially rooted dis-eases. The state is responsible for the social safety net because the other community support systems have failed. Some who have managed to survive have fallen into the poverty industry quagmire and destroyed any real chances they ever had at helping people along the way. Carl Marx believed that by removing the class system and treating everyone the same, the margins between wealth and poverty would narrow. However we all know that this kind of system only works in a vacuum were participants are isolated from the spoils of capitalism. The point is that even in his perceived egalitarian society, poverty still existed in one form or another. In some sense Marx was right about wealth being at the root of poverty but it isn't a money problem. It is the concept of wealth - the thinking behind it that destroys families by making them believe that obtaining something (that is really beyond their reach) requires sacrifice and devotion. It is the kind of thinking that usurps real communities and supplants them with pseudo corporate ones that are simply means to condition employees to the corporate mantra. From the beginning of the industrial revolution we have been conditioned to sacrifice ourselves, our families and the communities we once use to thrive in, in order to pursue a dream of independence and unrequited wealth. For a few that kind of success can be realized. However we do understand that it has more to do with who you know than what you know or how hard you work. For the majority it is just a dream where we wake up and do our duty, and "the man" keeps us believing that our success is just around the corner. And when we doubt that, they are quick to threaten us that our "success" - our benefits and securities - will never be found anywhere else. It all boils down to one single problem, the root of where poverty lies: we have our priorities mixed up! As human beings living in a collective, our first priority is to ourselves. If we put ourselves in danger, at risk or allow our health to deteriorate in order to serve some other priority then not only are we removing ourselves from our collectives, be it family, community or work, but we also put others at risk, by exposing them to our illness, dis-eases or by putting them in a position of having to expose themselves to dangerous conditions to rescue us. (Being "self-centred" in this regard is not the same thing as being egotistical). Our next priority is our family. If our family becomes disjointed then we lose our safety zone. And if our safety zone is exposed to the ravages of other's looking for their own connections to something safe then we increase the rates of infidelity and divorce and expand the possibly of deviant behaviors. Children emulate us as parents and for the most part over the last era children have perpetuated family dysfunction as the principle means of child rearing. Sure there have been some social experiments were adult children have attempted to change the way their children will be raised, but at the end of the day many of those attempts are thwarted by injunction of the corporate philosophy that requires absolute patronage to "the man". It is the unseen things that we pass on. Our next priority is to our community. It is our individual responsibility to ensure that our communities remain viable and healthy. It is our responsibility to contribute to and participate in our community safety systems - helping those who are having trouble raising their families and asking for help when ours is beyond our capability. When we are healthy and well, our families are healthy and well. Then are communities will also benefit from that wellness. In healthy communities there is less sickness, dis-ease and poverty. In healthy communities people are not offered hand-outs, but have their needs are met by gifts from the community that will be returned in kind at sometime in the future. At the top of all communities is a guarantee that all needs are met by or through the community. The last priority is work, and the global situation. While we do need to hold jobs in the way the current society and economy is constructed, our thinking energy should only be focused on work and employment after the other priorities have been taken care of. Work is not "a family" and it is not "a community", nor can it act in any capacity as such. Our co-workers are not our friends as the managers would have us believe but are people like us from other communities trying to fill their needs through work. They might become our friends should we invite them into our community circles but we are not obligated to be friendly towards them in the same respects that we let our close friends know all of our personal information. The only reason we are asked to treat our workplaces like communities is because workplace dysfunction lowers productivity and productivity affects the company bottom line. Even in today's heavily invested workplaces the bottom line towards productivity is becoming less important than investment profit. So workers are discarded in favour of profits - even to the point of taking jobs out of the cities where they were born and exported to low wage countries where workers can more readily be exploited. The problem we face between mixing up our first priorities with the work priority is that we have been led to believe that our wants ARE our needs and that the constant pursuit of ~things~ will satisfy us when we just have enough of them. In a healthy society system our needs will always be met. They are simple needs. In a soceity such as ours in an abundance of wealth they are easily obtained. Wealth then is not a matter of a corporate pursuit game where we literally work ourselves to death in search of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Wealth is a mind set - a "belief. It is knowing that all needs have already been met and that all else is extraneous wealth to be used and passed along and donated to our family's needs and our community's needs. And therein lies the difference between the wealthy and the poor. The latter don't believe that their needs have been met (and will always be met as long as they are alive). One need not be concerned where that comes from but be ready, healthy and well minded when the gift is offered, to receive it in grace and humility. Wealth is not a measure by which we hoard things, but a means by which we give it all away, and in turn receive more 10 fold back quantity. I'm rich!

If one could understand God as more than just the absence of an scientific explanation, they they might see where all things come from...and certainly things do not come from science. Science is nothing more than a collection of prejudices about the world and history has proven that scientific examination is often just as ethereal as religious dogma.