UNSELFISH

SACRIFICE

By Paul Rattray

Unselfish Sacrifice

Copyright
Paul Rattray
Unselfish Sacrifice
Published by Sacrificial Succession http://www.sacrificialsuccession.com/.
This original work is made freely available for sharing, translating and readapting, provided
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Unselfish Sacrifice

Foreword
Despite personally endangering family and friends from the disease itself and from the stigma
that it brings, there are heroes of the Ebola epidemic who should be remembered for their
unselfish sacrifices. Their willingness to put others first by stepping into harms way to help
orphans of this deadly disease, the sick and the dead are some of the finest examples of
unselfish sacrifice.
One of those amazing people was Augustine Baker. After doing all this he succumbed to the
disease himself along with his wife, leaving his three small children as orphans. Augustines
mother says she will make sure his children understand what their father did for Sierra Leone.
I will tell them, she said. They will be very proud.
Comparing heroes such as this and their battles for the abolition of sexual slavery and against
terrorism, epidemics and diseases, with those who fight for same-sex marriage, unrestricted
abortion and euthanasia, and protection from and prosecution of those who disagree, says a
lot about the quality of their sacrifices.
While the former are primarily focused on freeing the victims of this oppression and being
free from it themselves, the latters sacrifices are more selfishly focused. The danger of
selfish sacrifices dominating a culture or society and becoming the status quo is that it
produces a selfish hero. Unselfish Sacrifice is no longer the benchmark for heroism and
greatness as its poorer cousin Selfish Sacrifice takes over.
Yet the adage that the more selfish sacrifices become the unhappier people people are is
evidenced by the chronic unhappiness and suicidal behaviour endemic to societies that have
chosen this path. Otherwise affluent and well-educated young people are losing hope and
committing suicide in record numbers or lashing out violently at others often for no apparent
reason. The bitter fruit of selfish sacrifices seen in the selfish relationships and legacies of
today.
To break this suicidal cycle of selfish sacrifice and leave behind this mutually destructive
legacy requires putting the last and the least first instead of self. This book, Unselfish
Sacrifice, unapologetically finds the selfish sacrifices of today, their broken relationships and
suicidal legacies wanting. It offers the alternative, unselfish sacrifice and the strange success
that it brings to lifes relationships and legacies. Concrete steps are provided for unselfish
action to be taken to help you find and succeed with your own unselfish sacrifices.

Unselfish Sacrifice

Introduction
Three related elements contribute to our humanity or humanness. They are the relationships
we have with each other, the sacrifices we make for each other and the legacies we leave
behind as a consequence. The quality of our relationships and sacrifices determine our
legacies.
Because human relationships and legacies are mediated by sacrifice, intended or not, the
more selfish the sacrifice the more suicidal the consequences. On the other hand, the more
unselfish the sacrifice the more positive the effects.
Unselfish Sacrifice charts the causes and consequences of both selfish and unselfish
sacrifices. It exposes the suicidal consequences of selfish sacrifices in the lives and legacies
of people today and explains the radical alternative, unselfish sacrifice.
Unselfish Sacrifice shares the stories of ordinary people who became extraordinary because
they put others first. I hope you are as inspired reading it as I was writing it. May you and I
act on this inspiration by sacrificing unselfishly!
~ Paul Rattray

Unselfish Sacrifice

Chapter 1
Stories about Sacrifice
You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their
own nature. ~ G. K. Chesterton

Billy wants to die

Billy is on a mission. Today is his birthday. He is 22 years old. Riding high on alcohol and
numbed by anti-depressant drugs nothing can stop him. He loads the rope and some more
booze and pills into his backpack and goes off as resolutely to his death as a Christian
Crusader, Muslim Jihadist or Buddhist Samadhist. He wantsneedsto get to that quiet
place where his thoughts can take over his mind, allowing depression, negativity and fear to
fill his body and soul to overflowing.
He doesnt believe in anything or anyone much else other than himself. He has been taught
secular scientific reasoning at a good private school and excellent university, especially in
computer programming and graphic design, Billys chosen field of interest. Billy has the
potential to become more than the online gamer he has become. He has not settled well into
his jobs. He lives his life online. His many social media contacts have not brought him
closer to real people. This exacerbates his sense of hopelessness and helplessness that he has
no meaningful future, no hope.
He does not come from a bad home. His family are well off. Mum and dad got divorced
when Billy was eight years old, but both separately keep as close to him as he lets them.
Billy resents their separation but cannot be bothered talking about it. He had a girlfriend,
Susie, and recently she had his baby, even though he did not want her to keep it. Susie
should have had an abortion, but she would not list to him. Now they have drifted apart and
are not that close anymore. He isnt even sure he really ever loved Susie anyway. Maybe
Susie never really loved him either?
Ah, his favourite spot. The lieshe has no friends who really care about him, no family to
love him, no hope for the future, nothing to believe incomes flooding over him like a tidal
wave as he ties the rope for the last time.
He has practiced this slipknot and toyed with the idea of death a hundred times before. This
time it is for real. A line from one of his favourite songs, the melancholy (1992) Under the
Bridge by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, runs through his mind: Under the bridge downtown /
Is where I drew some blood / Under the bridge / I could not get enough / Under the bridge /
Forgot about my love / Under the bridge / I gave my life away.
Climbing the lower branches of his favourite tree, briefly his short life flashes before his sad
eyes as he ties the rope around his neck for hopefully the last time. Then he jumpswhat a
selfish sacrifice!

Unselfish Sacrifice
This tragic tale of Billys suicide, the voluntary taking of his own life, though fictitious,
occurs on an hourly basis, especially in western countries. Suicide is now the second or third
leading cause of death for youths in most western countries.
Thankfully, this young man took no others to their deaths, as did Adam Lanza of the
Newtown, United States murder-suicide, when he killed his mother, twenty-six young
children and teachers, then himself.
Then again there are sure to be some copy cats that want to emulate these selfish sacrifices
themselves by taking their own lives and the lives of others. What caused this tragic ending
of a life barely begun? Why? Why? Why?
These horrific thoughts and scenes scream through the minds of loved ones, are replayed a
thousand times in the minds of first responders and resonate painfully with educators and
government. What could be done better? Whose fault was it? Why didnt we see the signs?
Hindsight is helpful, because it points out possible problems and potential solutions, yet it
would probably not have saved this young many or the hundreds of thousands of other young
people, particularly in the developed world, who are committing suicide. Why is this so?

Death by Design
Because suicide, deliberate self-sacrifice by taking ones own life or attempting to, is a
symptom and effect rather than cause. Unless the causes of the problem are dealt with, then
more suicides can be expected. In this book I will explain the main cause of this problem as
being a culture of selfish sacrifice. Suiciders are the products of their environments.
There are the Muslim Jihadists that blow themselves up along with their intended victims.
Buddhist Samadhists burn themselves alive to protest injustice. An unwanted baby aborted
by a mother and father unwilling to care for it or fearing it may be disabled or the wrong sex.
An elderly citizen or a younger one with a disability is encouraged to die. Religious leaders
are willing to die rather than renounce their followers and faith.

Selfish and Unselfish Motivations

In each of these cases, understanding the spectrum of selfish to unselfish reasons for these
ultimate human sacrifices give incredible insights into the wisdom and folly of such actions,
their root causes and effects. Most researchers focus narrowly on the immediate causes and
effects of suicide: poor mental health, socio-economic deprivation, limited employment
prospects, poor sexual health, etc., without carefully considering or critically concluding
some of the wider reasons for this awful problem.
Suicidal selfishness is just the obvious tip of a much bigger, largely hidden, iceberg of
suffering. As the most spectacular bit that sticks out of the proverbial waters of life, suicidal
selfishness is the tip of a largely hidden substructure of habitual and continually selfish
sacrifices. The fact that this epidemic of despair is literally sinking so many human lives is a
symptom. The causes of this terrible tragedy are found in the more mundane yet critically
important selfish and unselfish choices in relationships, sacrifices and legacies made daily by
the Billys of this world, and our next fictional subjects: Renny and Carol.
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Unselfish Sacrifice
In this chapter you will get to know them better through a few more fictional yet real enough
life stories that drive home this point about selfish and unselfish sacrifice further.

Renny wants a baby

Renny wants to have a baby. She is 35 and makes good money as the marketing manager for
an innovative and growing software firm. Renny had met a great guy, Zack, but he was just
not ready to settle down with her yet. Despite being nearly forty, Zack just could not seem to
grow up and take on the responsibility of her or their relationship.
So Renny sadly said goodbye to Zack and reconnected with Mark. He is a nice enough guy
to have as a boyfriend and for sex, but Renny really does not want to have his baby. Instead
she decides to have her own baby using in vitro fertilisation. That way she gets to choose the
sort of father for her baby she really wants by checking off a list of characteristics for her
perfect partner.
Semitic, intelligent and healthy, Sperm Donor A is genetically like Zack. According to
Renny they seem a perfect biological match. The pregnancy is going really well. There are
no medical complications or imperfections that could cause Renny to consider termination.
Baby and mother are doing well. When her friend Rhiana asks her about future plans, Renny
has it all worked out. She has told her boss and he is supportive of her taking some extra
time off for the birth. Then, she will put her baby in childcare and go back to work full time
at the company.
When it comes to Mark...well he does not really feature in her long-term plans much at all-apart from the casual sex they have from time-to-time. Renny justifies this situation by
pointing out that when she has baby Jack (yes, she had a pregnancy test to find out gender
and any congenital health issues), she wants to travel overseas to visit her parents and this
would be difficult for Mark. She would not consider inconveniencing him or herself like
that!
So what does the future hold for Renny and Jack? Jack, like many other western children
will grow up in a single parent household, albeit a financially healthy one, with no real father
figure to speak of except maybe Mark or some other casual sexual companion who comes in
an out of their lives according to the whims of his mother. Some may say, So what! He
has a loving mother who can and will pay for a premium education and provide for his every
material need. Besides, Jack will be too busy being entertained and learning to miss his real
dad, whoever he is. And if he does miss a dad, then he may have some father figure, possibly
Rennys father to emulate.
Maybe Jack will do okay or maybe not...Jack may feel this lack of a male role model and
father figure more acutely than his mother can appreciate. He could start to feel abandoned,
depressed--even suicidal. Hopefully Jack will grow up just fine, despite what the statistics
say and reality proves, that fatherless boys like Jack often grow up angry and aggressive yet
strangely anxious and suicidal. They tend to treat women and wives like they have seen their
mothers treated. If Jacks girlfriends come from similar sorts of homes, then you can expect
this cycle of pragmatic attraction and abandonment to continue.
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Unselfish Sacrifice

Stories of abandonment
If you doubt this discouraging assessment, then listen to the songs of abandonment and anger
that are spewed out by rappers and hip-hop artists like Eminem and Pink, who are raging
against the fact that their dads left them and their mothers. Despite their mothers being
physically present, they were often too preoccupied emotionally with their own selfish male
relationships to recognise the damage it is doing to their sons and daughters. If you doubt the
anecdotal evidence, statistics are easy to find. Children from fatherless families and broken
homes with emotionally absent mothers are bad news for boys and their girls and vice versa
and their offspring.

Marriage Equality?
So what is the alternative? Many are saying, open up the matrimonial game and family field
even more. Let anyone who wants equal access as a parent or partner to get involved.
Provided they do not abuse this trust sexually and can offer emotional and financial support
for these children and each other why not? Surely they cannot do a worse job than is
currently being done by the normal family unit (whatever it is these days)?
In fact, they may even do a better job? Marriage equality is but the tip of the iceberg in
redefining families. Indeed, all these new ideas about matrimony appear to be exciting
frontiers of sexual and social exploration and experimentation until a fundamental question is
asked. Are these marriages', as mediating human relationships and legacies, more or less
fundamentally selfish or unselfish than their more traditional counterparts?
If the answer is yes, then these sacrifices are fundamentally more selfish and challenge
unselfish rules of relationship, sacrifice and legacy. Despite the prevailing secular scientific
worldview that this is okay, the headlong rush into homosexual and multi-sexual marriages,
selective abortions to get designer babies and vehement attacks on anyone who does not
applaud these changes could result in selfish sacrifices that ultimately have suicidal
consequences.

Times have changed. Get over it!

If these suicidal choices and their consequences are destroying our families and futures, then
the selfish attitude of times have changed, get over it! or it is inevitable, get on with it is a
suicidally selfish and catastrophic attitude. Indeed, times have changed.
However, when chronic unhappiness, narcissism, depression and suicide become endemic in
conjunction with virtually unparalleled sexual freedoms then they are warning signs that
something is amiss. The scientific method demands that these apparent parallels are
carefully considered, especially when selfish rather than unselfish sacrifices are the legacies
of these relationships.
Since something is obviously seriously wrong with human relationships based on the selfish
sacrifices being made today and due to the tragic legacies being left behind, then a tentative
link must be drawn between the two and tested.

Unselfish Sacrifice
Despite these unprecedented sexual freedoms being condoned as evidence of equality, if they
promote and result in fundamentally selfish sacrifices, even if legitimised and legalised by
the state and society, there is extreme danger of destruction in ignoring these warning signs.
In spite of these warning signs, vocal minorities are willing to take the risk on the basis of
secular scientific reasoning, tolerance and equality. Carols story sums up this worldview
well.

Carol wants equality

Carol loves her four kids and decided along with her husband to send them to a good
Christian school because she knows, there, they will get a great education and be taught good
Christian values. She tells her close friend, Candy, who also sends her children to the same
school, that one thing does concern her about the school.
Believe it or not, it is teaching that a homosexual lifestyle is wrong rather than a good option
amongst many. This really bothers Carol. No, in fact it makes her really angry that this
Christian school and its Christian employees are such bigots! She goes on to tell Candy that
they should not be able to impose these homophobic values on her children. How dare they
make a moral judgement about homosexuality!
Her own brother, Ryan, and his gay partner, Scott, are accepted just like any other married
couple in Carols home. She and her husband tell their children that Uncle Ryan and Uncle
Scott are just like mummy and daddy. They love each other, have their own room and live
together and it is perfectly normal.
When Candy gently reminds Carol that it is a Christian school after all, based on biblical
values, and that she too believes that a homosexual lifestyle is morally wrong, Carol gets
even angrier. Carol makes it clear that this topic is not up for discussion or debate so it is
dropped by Candy to keep the friendship.

Embracing deviance as equality

Since when have certain matters of morality, such as homosexual lifestyles become taboo for
discussion unless it is to embrace their diversity and applaud their promotion? Why is
opposition to certain immoral and deviant behaviours such as homosexuality, bisexuality and
multiple sexual couplings now being overturned by applause and admiration for these
perpetrators and their sexual practices?
Deviance is usually negatively associated with a departure from socially acceptable norms,
though now is sometimes regarded as a positive thing, such as positively deviating from
something that has not proven its traditional value. Already, this dogged acceptance of the
alternative is proving to be a negative deviance because the healthier or happier lifestyle
hoped for by these couples and their offspring is questionable at best.
For many, it is turning into a nightmare. How is it that a mother like Renny prefers to bring
up a child without a dad or father figure in his life and seems to have given up finding
someone to care for her and be a father to Jack?

Unselfish Sacrifice
She does not want to inconvenience her non-committal boyfriend who seems happy enough
with this casual arrangement or maybe just does not care enough to do anything about it.
What about Zack? How is it that he can show such low levels of commitment in his
relationships? And what about Billy? What made a promising young man want to end a life
so full of potential early? He has plenty to live for really, a new baby, a girlfriend who might
just have him back if he showed a bit of humility and interest.
Then again, maybe notif she is like Renny. His mother and father, though selfishly
separated, to their credit, were reaching out to Billy. Unfortunately, he seems to have
divorced himself emotionally from his immediate family, despite being eaten up by his own
emotions.
Carol, too, seems dogmatically confused. She wants her children to learn the Christian
values and ethics that the Christian school teaches yet cannot accept that these morals are
based on absolutes. Each of these stories could have an unselfish rather than selfish ending.
The unselfish endings suggested for our fictional characters: Billy, Renny and Carol, come
next. Each requires unselfish sacrifices on the part of these individuals and the people with
whom they have close relationships. It should be obvious how challenging it is going to be
for them to choose to be unselfish when everyone in relationship with them is making selfish
sacrifices.

Unselfish Stories
Billy wants to live
As Billy is readying himself to jump he realises what a selfish sacrifice he is about to make
and stops, pulling back emotionally and physically from the brink of almost certain death.
Now Billy is on a new mission. To live! Today is his birthday. He is 22 years old. Instead
of dosing himself up on drink and drugs, he realises that much of the overwhelming
emotional pain he feels, though real, is partially self-inflicted. He has been an incredibly
selfish and self-focused individual. Just about everything he does and is are about him and
his wants.
Now, as he loads the rope back into his backpack and throws his drink and drugs into the
nearest rubbish bin, he understands better the desperate, fatalistic hopelessness that drives so
many of his counterparts to die untimely, lonely deaths or go out in a blaze of self-righteous
glory and publicity by taking the lives of themselves and others.
Most of his lost friends are however, radically different to the Christian Crusader, Muslim
Jihadist or Buddhist Samadhist who has gone before them or is planning this terrible trek
down suicides no through road. Rightly or wrongly, they believe that their sacrifice in this
life can save them in the next. For most of Billys friends the end of life means deaththen
nothing. There is no life after death, no one to be ultimately responsible to and nothing to be
answerable for.

Unselfish Sacrifice
Billys secular scientific life education and worldview has castrated his conscience and
muddled his mind to such an extent that he has no sense of real right and wrong in his lifes
relationships, sacrifices or legacies, beyond his immediate needs and feelings.

Death by Despair
Is it any wonder that he and so many others of his generation are making selfish sacrifices
throughout most of their lives then in exiting their physical world are willing to pay this
ultimate price so cheaply? It seems like such a waste--and is!
Yet, when depression and despair are your constant companions in a lonely existence haunted
by mental and emotional demons and images that cannot be erased by therapeutic drugs or
psychological counselling, what hope is there in a world with no hope? When the reality of
life is limited to what nature can produce and reproduce and spirituality and god have died
the death of secular scientific reasoning, what more is there to life?
Thankfully Billy had an epiphany on his death day. He now recognises that he must start
making some unselfish sacrifices. The child he fathered that he never was a dad to needs his
love and attention. Susie, his girlfriend, who he claimed to love in moments of passion yet
never really cared for, needs to become his priority. Not just because she is the mother of his
baby.
Billy needs to be responsible to her and develop their physical relationship into something
more emotional and spiritual. He must admit that he needs his parents, to ask their
forgiveness for his selfishness and accept the fact that the pain their divorce caused him must
be let go by him for him to move on and take responsibility of his family and ultimately his
life.

Journey back to life

Billys journey back from the boredom of a life littered with selfish sacrifices and the brink
of a suicidal death will be a hard road made easier by the people he lets into his overly
complicated life. Changing these selfish habits into unselfish sacrifices will be challenging.
Billy has lived his entire short life making the selfish rather than unselfish sacrifices that his
society and culture regard as the pinnacle and norm of a successful secular scientific citizen.
Fortunately, he now realises that this worldview has failed him personally. Now, Billy must
recognise that making unselfish sacrifices in his relationships is the only viable alternative to
the many selfish sacrifices he has made. By making these unselfish sacrifices Billy can start
to turn the tide of his relationships around, leaving a legacy of positive consequences. Go for
it, Billy, you can do it if you are willing to change and let others help you do it!

Jack needs a mother and father

Instead of deciding to go solo Renny and Mark eventually decide to settle down together.
Renny knows it is in the best interests of baby Jack that they should make a lifetime
commitment to each other. They got married and are bringing baby Jack up in a loving
enough home with a mum and dad who care for each other, maybe not in an overly
passionate sense, but at least in a place where Jack learns commitment and contentment.
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Unselfish Sacrifice
As Renny shares with her good friend Rhiana, Mark is not the perfect man she envisaged in
Zack or the sperm donor. She often feels it would have been better for her personally if she
and Jack had gone solo without Mark. Renny acknowledges, though, that Mark has been
good for Jack. She shares with Rhiana how consistently amazed she is at such a strange
attraction between this boy and his adopted dad.
Then again, traditional wisdom, common sense, even scientific knowledge has long
recognised and accepted the importance of these human relationships and the critical need for
a healthy relationship between men and women, husbands and wives. Of course, Renny,
similar to virtually every other person of her generation has learned from secular science to
question these traditional norms and values as being out-dated and outmoded.
Then again, she also has a habit of rejecting the unselfish sacrifices required to sustain these
unselfish relationships with self-centred, selfish decisions that threaten to destroy these
fragile, hard-won relationships. For now, Renny is giving it a go. Only time will tell if she
and Mark faithfully keep their promises and commitments to each other. One thing is sure, if
Jack has his way, his choice is that Renny and Mark stay together and care for him and each
other.
Even though Renny resents Mark and her situation at times, she realises theirs is a real
relationship, with all its faults and failures. Besides, Jack should come first. He is their
legacy. Despite the difficulties, both Renny and Mark have made an unselfish sacrifice. They
may not realise it, but by making such an unselfish sacrifice about their relationship--and
Jack--the legacy they are likely to leave is much more positive and potentially successful.
Unfortunately, statistics predict that this unselfish version of Rennys life story is unlikely to
turn out this way. Renny, like Billy, is much more likely to choose to make a selfish
sacrifice. Jack has no choice in the matter and will most probably eventually have to deal
with growing up in a single parent or blended family. Making the same mistakes of selfish
sacrifices as his parents will most likely be his lot and legacy in life. A stepfamily, if Renny
decides to remarry, can be troublesome.
Statistics show that with nearly half of the population married to, or cohabiting with, spouses
that are step parents to their children, these relationships remain confusing, especially for
children. Relationship dysfunction is growing and will only get worse with time, if family
breakups continue to increase. What of Mark, if he and Renny separate, as statistics say they
will most likely do?
Jack sees him as a father figure--his only real father figure--since Rennys dad lives halfway
around the world. Like it or not, Mark is a de facto dad, who only has a psychological rather
than biological relationship with Jack. If Renny decides to separate from Mark, in many
western countries Mark has a legal right to continue visiting Jack, even against Rennys
wishes. These are just some of the realities that Jack faces if Renny or his dad, Mark,
decide to go solo or separate to be with someone else, which is more like to happen than not.

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Unselfish Sacrifice

Carol needs reality

The suicidal consequences of these selfish sacrifices, legacies and relationships are obvious
enough, just look around. I am sure you know people like this. I know you do. So do I. But
what is so wrong about Carol wanting equality for her gay brother, Carl and his partner? Her
answer is probably that he and his partner should have the same opportunities as she has to be
happy, get married and have a family. What Carol and her brother really need is reality. The
reality is that Carls relationship with his partner, Doug, is not normal or natural.
There are no historical or natural examples of homosexual relationships as a social norm
amongst humans or animals. This is an uncomfortable reality that neither Carol nor Carl is
willing to admit. Carl and Doug will probably go ahead and adopt. If they cannot do that
then they can seek a surrogate mother for their child. Carol is willing to help with organising
that, though she cannot have any more children herself. No one is denying that there are
plenty of Carls out there with homosexual tendencies.
Some are born with these same-sex tendencies and others develop a homosexual orientation,
often due to sexual abuse. Some choose a gay lifestyle whereas others do not. As more
children are raised in same-sex families, homosexuality is encouraged as a normal lifestyle
choice and hormonal pollutants build up in the environment affecting sexuality, the
proportion of gay people may well rise.

Choice versus Chance

All choose, however, to become homosexually active and seek same-sex unions and
marriage. The fact that proponents of same-sex marriage attack anyone who questions this
status quo of same-sex equality and are supported by the secular scientific establishment is
testament to this fact. In the West here is now scientific evidence that proposes people are
born gay, government laws protect homosexual activity and social taboos against
homophobic discrimination are firmly entrenched.
Evidence of an obvious secular-scientific conundrum is found in the conflicting argument of
pro-choice freewill versus natural orientations remain largely hidden by the vigorous
attacks on anyone who questions such conflicts. Secularism argues that homosexuality,
amongst many other lifestyles is a choice, which implies freewill, whereas science tries to
argue that it is inborn, therefore cannot be chosen. Which is correct?
Such conflicts and reactions to such conflicts, especially when free debate is curtailed, are
always a strong clue to the selfish or unselfish nature of a sacrifice and its outworking in
relationships and legacies. Due to these conflicts, secular science must be largely ambivalent
towards same-sex relationships, regarding them as being irrelevant in evolutionary and moral
terms, yet important socioculturally.
With atheistic evolution, natural selection theoretically sorts out same-sex unions, because of
the inability of homosexuals to procreate. Obviously, this naturalism does not account for
adoption, surrogacy, assisted reproduction technologies and other man-made efforts to
morally or immorally circumvent these natural laws. Morally speaking, secular science
avoids taking a stance on the implications of homosexuality on group selection.
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Unselfish Sacrifice
In other words, they avoid speculating how such deviant behaviour affects society as a whole,
by claiming that as long as it is a personal choice amongst consenting adults then it is only a
problem for people of faith not secular science. This is a cop out. The fact is no successful
society has ever permitted complete equality when it comes to marriage. By Carol telling her
children that uncle Carl and his family are just like her heterosexual family unit is untrue and
secular science, if it were honest and unbiased as it claims to be, would at least acknowledge
this factor.

Unsustainable Relationships
At the very least, an honest, atheistic evolutionist should point out that in the natural world
such same-sex relationships are unsustainable because they cannot produce offspring. Some
secularists may argue that same-sex relationships and surrogacy is actually beneficial because
it limits overall population growth and is more cost effective.
Obviously, homosexual couples cannot have children naturally yet because of their relative
affluence can adopt children borne of heterosexual parents who do not have the financial
wherewithal to care for their children properly. Here then is the question of parental
suitability.
On this basis, Carol and Carl could point to some studies that are now showing children
raised in homosexual families are doing as well if not better materially, intellectually and
emotionally than children raised in heterosexual families. Significantly, most of these studies
are based on self-reports by same-sex couples and sympathetic researchers. Obviously, in
such an emotionally and legally charged debate gaining the moral high ground of authority is
important and both sides of the debate are guilty of playing this game.
Wanting to win the hearts and minds of a rightfully sceptical public biases many of these
reports either for or against same-sex parenting. What Carol and Carl both need to know is
that children who grow up in a biologically intact family with a mother and father who
sacrificially stay together are the most successful relationship and legacy of all with the
wisdom of history on side.
As such, this is not really a question of parental ability or even equality. Instead, it is a
matter of reality. The reality is that empirical, non-self reported studies of same-sex family
structures compared to more traditional, biological families predictably show problems in
two main areas.

Legacy Problems
The research reports that the first area of difficulty is in the poorer quality of relationships
between same-sex partners compared with their heterosexual counterparts. For instance,
some findings show higher levels of domestic violence between same-sex than heterosexual
couples. The second problem is the more negative legacy of same-sex unions through the
children. This results in same-sex relationships tending to breakdown more often than
relationships between their heterosexual counterparts.

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Unselfish Sacrifice
A knock on effect is that these relational failures have a negative impact on a childs
development. Its result is the second issue of the legacies of these relationships. The
children of these unions, especially girls, suffer from more sexual and emotional problems
such as depression. Obviously, these problems are not exclusive to same-sex couples.
Heterosexual couples that sacrifice selfishly by being absent or abusive parents (fathers in
particular) also suffer from many similar problems, hence reinforcing the reality that selfishly
mediated relationships leave legacies with depressing and disastrous legacies.
While these fictional stories and characters are drawn from real life situations and people,
there is an obvious connection between these three fictional cases because they are based on
real life people and sacrifices. The case of Billys sad suicide, Rennys IVF designer baby
and Carols gay brother, each are different examples of selfish rather than unselfish sacrifice.
By selfish, I mean putting self-interest before the interests of others.
Now you may disagree by thinking, Yes, but they are doing the right thing for themselves.
My reply, This is precisely why it is a selfish sacrifice, because in each case self-interest
dominates. Billy is putting his hopelessness before his familys hope for him and his future.
Neither Renny or Mark are really willing to commit to a loving marriage relationship that
gives Jack the best chance of thriving as a person. Carol is trying to still her doubts about her
brothers gay lifestyle by making it appear as normal as possible to her children and attacking
to silence anybody that disagrees with her.

Sobering Statistics
If you doubt this assessment, consider for a moment these sobering statistics. In the
developed world, abortion rates are highest in America, Australia and Sweden. These same
countries also have some of the highest divorce rates in the world. Not surprisingly people in
these countries are also some of the most narcissistic, that is pathologically selfish, and suffer
from some of the highest rates of depression, divorce and suicide in the world. They are also
more likely to be spiritually agnostic or atheistic, rely on secular scientific reasoning and be
most tolerant of same-sex relationships and marriage and multiple sexual couplings.
Even a casual perusal of these statistics should shout loud that there is a problem when the
most materialistically wealthy and technologically developed countries in the world are so
dysfunctional. So what is the problem? Simply put the problem is self-interest or
selfishness. Selfishness is putting ones desires first. As the line of a popular banking
advertisement goes: Who is the most important person in the world?
It's materialistic answer: You! Interestingly English is one of the few languages where I
is capitalised. Non-English background speakers have pointed out to me that this says
something about western cultures worship of the individual. Always putting yourself first
makes you selfish. There is no way around this truth. Consistently making selfish choices
causes selfish sacrifices to be made from one generation to the next.
These selfish sacrifices are manifestly obvious in the abortions, divorces, suicides, same-sex
and multi-sexual couplings that have become a hallmark of western culture. Western cultural
heroes are now those who are coming out to promote these selfish sacrifices.
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Unselfish Sacrifice
While western culture has left an incredible legacy of personal freedoms and cultural
progress the question must be asked if such selfish sacrifices are sustainable?
This book will categorically answer this question as a no! It will also point out the folly of
relying exclusively on secular science to answer moral questions and conundrums that it has
no ability to answer. It will be especially critical of secular science denying the combined
traditional wisdom and common sense knowledge of centuries past. In the process, the case
for unselfish sacrifice will be made in no uncertain terms.

The Case for Unselfish Sacrifice

One of the main culprits in this battle is secular science itself and its demand that any
knowledge based on traditional wisdom or common sense observations be subservient to its
brand of materialistic and deterministic reasoning. As such, secular scientific reasoning itself
is the main cause for selfish sacrifice, especially in the western world. The fruit or outcome
of making more selfish sacrifices is their suicidal consequences.
By understanding the implications of this problem, we can do something about it. That is, if
we are willing to make the changes necessary to do so. Time will tell if we are willing. This
book gives the necessary answers and actions needed to turn this human tragedy of suicidally
selfish consequences around into a positive legacy based on unselfish sacrifices. Not
surprisingly, children that have experienced these selfish sacrifices have trouble with their
own relationships and their selfish legacies confirm this generationally.
Again, all one needs to do is look around to see the outworking of these selfish sacrifices.
Most of us know or know of (or are) a Billy, Renny, Carol or Carl. You may be like one of
these people. The good news is that each of us has a choice. Life is not as deterministic as
secular science would have you believe. Choice, though, involves selfish and unselfish
sacrifice.
Consistently selfish sacrifices in life relationships are legacies that bear sour and bitter fruit.
More powerful yet harder to do, are unselfish sacrifices, because through serving and
sacrificing for others sweeter and healthier human fruit is produced. These are the sobering
choices facing all of us today. Like it or not, selfish sacrifices and their sour, suicidal
consequences or unselfish sacrifices and their positive, successful effects are reflected
through our relationships and legacies.
It is these selfish and unselfish interplays between: sacrifice, what we are willing to give up
or forgo; relationships, particularly intimate, personal ones; and their legacies, what we leave
behind for others to care for or clean up, that are the main topics of this book. The central
point that should be clear from these fictional, yet reality-based stories shared earlier, is that
we mess with these natural and supernatural laws at our own risk and peril.
To do justice to this topic of unselfish sacrifice and its positive effects and selfish sacrifice
and its suicidal consequences, this book is laid out in seven chapters. This chapter and its
practical examples of selfish and unselfish sacrifices should give enough insights and
examples of selfish and unselfish sacrifice to whet your appetite for a more in-depth study of
both in the following chapters.
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Unselfish Sacrifice
In the next chapter, the nature of sacrifice is our main topic. It deals with the way sacrifices
are understood, ranging from the selfish self-interest of personal gain through to the unselfish
personal expense of altruism. From there, chapters three, four and five explain the laws of
sacrifice, relationship and legacy in terms of today and their outworking through differing
worldviews.
Then, in chapter six, the suicidal consequences of selfish sacrifices are the main topic, with
their practical implications for us today the focus. Finally, the positive effects of unselfish
sacrifices end the book on a high note, providing an opportunity for selfish sacrificers to
change course and encouraging their unselfish counterparts to keep choosing what is better.
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Unselfish Sacrifice

Chapter 2
The Nature of Sacrifice
At all times and among all nations there has always been the offering of
sacrifices ~ Thomas Aquinas

To Sacrifice is Human
In the first chapter, Sacrificial Stories, the stark differences between selfish and unselfish
sacrifices were told through the fictional yet real life stories of its three main characters,
Billy, Rennie and Carol. Their choices represent our choices. Choosing to sacrifice selfishly
or unselfishly in life is a legacy we will all leave behind. The overwhelming sense of
hopelessness leading to some of the highest levels of suicidal, selfish sacrifice in history,
especially in a developed world that should know better, is a bitter fruit indeed.
Yet this legacy of suicidal selfishness does not have to be. There is a better way. The way of
unselfish sacrifice is a no less radical alternative. In Bahasa Indonesia, the national language
of Indonesia, there is a pithy saying that captures this choice succinctly: Fruit does not fall
far from its tree.
In other words, the actions of ones forebearers bear similar reactions and consequences in
their offspring. Children tend to behave as taught or modelled by the parents and teachers in
their lives. They are the successors of their predecessors, the legacy of the selfish and
unselfish relationships and sacrifices made by their parents and peers.

Selfish Sacrifice
Selfish sacrifice, be that of Islamist suicide bombers blowing themselves and others up,
young Western men planning and carrying out mass murders then killing themselves, young
Buddhist monks self-immolating as burning torches in protest of repression or youths
suiciding individually or in copy cat acts of destruction are all examples of selfish sacrifice.
This deadly enculturation and its suicidal consequences are threatening to destroy future
generations as the plagues of the past once did, unless something is done to stop it. Choosing
to write about selfish and unselfish sacrifice and its negative and positive consequences may
initially seem like a strange--even macabre--endeavour, especially in relation to suicide. It is
not meant to be.
Having friends who have taken their own lives cheaply is incentive enough to delve into this
subject beyond a casual perusal of statistics or social media. The aim of identifying the
suicidal consequences of selfish sacrifices and the positive effects of unselfish sacrifice is that
this generation chooses life instead of death, thus rejuvenating relationships and leaving
legitimate legacies.
Taking a stand against selfish sacrifices in favour of unselfish sacrifices is unpopular. As a
father of children and leader of people who look to me for leadership and legacy, no less
should be expected.
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Unselfish Sacrifice
Concerns about increasingly selfish sacrifices and their negative effects are not only
necessary they are vital. If you were on a road that up ahead you knew was about to collapse
under the weight of a landslide of ice, snow, mud or water, would you do nothing about it?
Hopefully not! When the weight of selfish sacrifices threatens to destroy that which is held
dear then fight the good fight, I say! Responding any other way is in itself a selfish sacrifice.
Whilst suicidal self sacrifice may be the most spectacular and stark of selfish sacrifices, ours
is not a study of suicide per se nor a lens through which suicides are used to conduct social
studies in the tradition of Emile Durkheims sociology of Suicide. Instead, our starting point
is that suicides, no matter what their form or function, are fundamentally selfish sacrifices
that cause suicidal consequences.
Thus, distinguishing between types of suicide is not important here. What can be done to
turn these selfish tales of tragedy into an opportunity for unselfish sacrifices and their
positive effects is the critical focus. One similarity with Durkheims study of suicide is his
finding that abandoning traditional values can affect the quality of personal sacrifices because
individuals lose their sense of moral place in the world.

First Causes of Suicide

If a loss of morality results in more selfish than unselfish sacrifices, then his conclusions
stands the test of time as any true scientific work should. When there is a correlation
between the rejection of traditional religion and embrace of secular science with higher levels
of selfishly induced societal dysfunction even suicide, then these factors must be seriously
considered as first causes.
For instance, the proposal that high levels of self-interested behaviour lead to selfish
sacrifices is not difficult to contemplate. One only has to observe a child whose every whim
is indulged religiously to note that this mini man or womans naturally selfish choices are
followed by a heightened sense of depression and hopelessness.
It can be guaranteed with certainty that the suicidal consequences of selfish sacrifice will
negatively affect the values of its adherents in a viciously depressive cycle. Here and
elsewhere these ideas are tested extensively, even though there is plenty of emerging and
historical evidence that these principles are true. One such confirming truism is the principle
that core cultural values handed down from one generation to the next significantly influence
social progress. These findings come from comparing countries that differ on certain ethical
indexes, such as honesty, humanity and diligence and discipline.

Sacrifice is Nurtured
Why is it, for example, that countries basing their values on Judaeo-Christian principles have
apparently been more successful economically and socially than nations that have applied
atheistic socialism? What really distinguishes Jew from Arab, Christian from Muslim, Hindu
or Buddhist but their culture? How is it that Confucian values appear to support progress
more easily than African ones?

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Unselfish Sacrifice
Surely it is not their colour but culture, though at times colour is and has been unfortunately a
racial barrier. Any advantage for a white boy growing up amongst former Dayak head
hunters in Borneo must be in the way he is nurtured, since there is no other real difference
between him and them other than culture. By comparing human values cross-culturally the
finding is that values do affect national progress.
The logic of such findings must be that if the values that have sustained or have been a source
of success in the past are suppressed or repressed in the present, then the cultural benefits that
these values bring will eventually wash out of a culture to such an extent that their essential
benefits disappear.

Cultural Values Change

Similar to that comfortable, old pair of jeans that has had its indigo hues long washed out of
it, the pants fit fine until they are needed in their original colour and form. Salt that is no
longer salty can no longer do its job of preserving and flavouring. It appears to be salt yet is
without its saltiness. By then it is too late.
The relevance of this analogy to sacrifice is to call into question the wisdom and ultimate
sustainability of recent attempts to rewrite spiritually inspired moral laws and traditional
wisdom even though they deviate significantly from value systems that have proven
successful in the West for so long. The purpose of analysing sacrifice is not to be overly
technical. It should, however, be rigorous enough to ensure that any practical
recommendations made are based on laws or principles grounded in fact not fiction.

Analysing Sacrifice
If this analysis of selfish and unselfish sacrifice frees the mind of its usual confines, enabling
honest thought and reflection, then this exercise has done its job. Our aim is to think and
reflect long enough about the state of sacrifice in life for you to make up your own mind as to
the truth or untruth of unselfish sacrifice being the basis for true success and succession.
The reason the nature of sacrifice and its associated pillars of relationship and legacy are
explained in such depth is that these laws and their main principles form the basis for the
questions that will be asked about selfish and unselfish sacrifice. The answers are a call for
action.
These questions are meant to make you think about the selfish consequences of the sacrifices
we make more naturally than unselfish sacrifices. The aim is to make unselfish rather than
selfish sacrifices. Common sense wisdom is shared to cancel the suicidal consequences of
selfish sacrifice and promote the right use of these laws or principles for unselfish sacrifice.

Using Laws as Principles

Laws are generalisations about effects or results that are observed to work in daily life. Based
on these common sense observations is the assumption that these effects have an underlying
cause, a reason for being rather than simply happening with no underlying framework.

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For example, the Law of Thermodynamics deals with the mechanical actions or properties of
heat. Practically it is proven from observing the mechanical action of water boiling caused
by some sort of heat source. While the physics of thermodynamics are fairly straight
forward, the causes and effects of sacrifice are not so obvious or predictable and highly
dependent on what first causes are understood to be.
In other words, how did sacrifices, especially self-sacrifices, start? Are they the result of
mankinds inborn spiritual desire for redemption and salvation not found in the animal world
as the religious traditionalist argues? Or are self-sacrifices mainly motivated by unconscious
primal urges from our reptilian pasts?
Whether human self-sacrifices, are a largely unconscious moral choice based on chance as
secular science and its naturalism asserts or a conscious choice based on free will and
conscience taking action, as traditional religion asserts is an important starting point.

Right and Wrong Relationships

Obviously such radically different assumptions about human choices strongly influence
perceptions about the selfish to unselfish nature of human sacrifices. Are self-sacrifices
based on the natural way we are wired and evolved or are they nurtured, conscious choices
attributed to free will?
For example, if there is such a thing as right human relationships that are more likely to cause
more unselfish than selfish sacrifices, then presumably the effects or legacy of such altruistic
sacrifices are not a coincidence and vice versa.
In other words, if there are right relationships that are more unselfish then potentially there
must wrong relationships that are more selfish? Questioning these logical assumptions
about the selfish and unselfish causes and effects of sacrifice is a key part of this initial
exploration of the nature of human sacrifice, especially self-sacrifice.

Terms of Sacrifice
The purpose of defining these terms of sacrifice is to establish some of the main principles
for sacrifice. These definitions help explain which is selfish and unselfish sacrifice in as
practical and applicable terms as possible. It is best to start with the people, the selfish and
unselfish players in this game of life. A selfish person is concerned almost excessively or
exclusively with personal wants and desires, seldom considering the needs of others.
In contrast, an unselfish person is more concerned with others needs and willingly puts
others first if necessary. A selfish person, in principle, puts self-interest first by being selforiented and focused. An unselfish person is, in principle, altruistically others-orientated by
putting self-interest last.

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Unselfish not Selfless

In this sense unselfishness is more apt than the term selflessness because unselfish behaviour
is a positive and proactive act of the will and self through sacrifice, whereas selfless acts can
be more often a reactive and reflexive suppression of the will in sacrifice. Being unselfish is a
choice rather than a response to chance or circumstance and suggests strong self-confidence
and a person of substantial character.
That is why, for the purpose of defining sacrifice, being unselfish or altruistic is an active
response to circumstances in spite of a naturally strong will and self-interest. Unselfishness
is emphasised more than being selfless, which implies a more passive response to
circumstances due to a weaker will and self-interest. Giving up ones life, literally and
figuratively, for others rather than for oneself is an example of this distinction.
Similarly, persons who allow themselves to be passively sacrificed for cult or cause, often do
so due to the lack of a strong self-will and self-confidence, whereas one who proactively
sacrifices usually does so with a strong self-will and self-confidence because they believe in
the cause. While this is a fine distinction, it is important for accurately describing unselfish
sacrifice.

True Sacrifice is Costly

True Sacrifice always involves the destruction or surrender of something or someone for the
sake of something or someone else. For human life and livelihood sacrifice is the giving up
of something or someone for the sake of someone or something else. This definition of
sacrifice tends to make the assumption that sacrifice is, as a rule, more unselfish or altruistic,
than selfish. Sacrifice in and of itself is value neutral until its context describes its actors'
truly unselfish or selfish motives.

Sacrificial Actions
For example, practical use of the word sacrificial is often tied to doing good deeds. Yet any
human sacrifice that is excessively or exclusively concerned with self or personal interest,
advantage, pleasure or wellbeing is by its very nature selfish. Therefore, suicide, the
deliberate act of killing oneself is an ultimate example of selfish sacrifice, though there are
many other contenders and examples.
In most cases, abortion, the taking of unborn life, euthanasia, which ceases the life of the
aged or infirm, and the human eugenics of selective abortion and breeding, are examples of
selfish sacrifice. As a rule, if the one sacrificing, the Sacrificer, is in a position of power over
the one being sacrificed, the Sacrificed, then a sacrifice is selfish or at the very least selfinterested because of this imbalance of power.
Obviously, the degree to which a sacrifice is selfish or unselfish depends on the motives of
the sacrificer and what is sacrificed. People may occasionally commit suicide altruistically to
protect the lives of others. This, however, is an exception rather than the rule.

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The Purpose of Sacrifice

Answering two simple questions: (Who decides the need for sacrifice and what or who is
being sacrificed?) gives incredible insights into the moral health of a person or people and the
worldview of a nation or nations. By moral I mean the principles of right and wrong that
govern peoples lives. Ethics are the practices that evolve from these moral principles.
Together, morals and ethics become a worldview, which emphasise a personal and historical
point of view about life that become a culture if enough people collectively believe it true
even if it is not. Why sacrifice is such an important measure of humanitys moral health is
because humans are the only beings that sacrifice with an ethical purpose beyond their own
and their offsprings immediate survival.
Given these moral forces, sacrificing selfishly or unselfishly has predictable consequences.
By answering personally and as a people the predominant nature of our sacrifices as being
either selfish or unselfish, a picture--even prediction--of the sort of future we are likely to
have based on the sacrifices we currently make is possible.

Motives for sacrifice

Why is it important to know the need for sacrifice and identify what is actually being
sacrificed? Because applying these two questions to specific cases helps to show the selfish
and unselfish nature of sacrifices.
For example, how is the nature of the sacrifice of Didar Hussein, the young man who
repeatedly entered a collapsed building in Dhakkar Bangladesh to amputate the limbs of
trapped survivors so they could be freed, differ from Dr. Kermit Gosnells actions in his
abortion clinic where babies were aborted (killed) more brutally than was necessary or
normal? Or Augustine Baker of Sierra Leone, who sacrificed his life working for children
who were orphans of Ebola. He and his wife died of Ebola, leaving their three children
homeless.
Answered simply it is their selfish and unselfish motives for sacrifice. At a personal level, it
is obviously compassion and empathy for victims, that the former has and the latter
apparently not. Hussein appears to have viewed his victims with empathy and treated them
with compassion. Gosnell and others in his medical team apparently did not feel much
empathy and acted with little compassion towards their intended victims.
While the emotions and behaviours of these individuals are telling in terms of their selfish
and unselfish sacrifices, public responses to their actions are equally important because
sacrifice always involves interaction between personal and public perspectives of the degrees
to which a sacrifice is judged as being selfish or unselfish.
As Augustine Comte the originator of the term altruism noted, unselfish sacrifice, or altruism,
is about living for others rather than self. Obviously, this sort of expensive altruism also
involves dying to self and for others. Literally and figuratively unselfish sacrifice stands in
stark contrast to the selfish sacrifice of those who prefer that others die, literally, for them
(and much more often figuratively) than they do for others.
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Unselfish Sacrifice
It is only the most selfish and individualistic of sacrifices, suicide, which normally do not
directly involve others in the act. Despite suicides devastatingly personal nature, the terrible
pain of being left behind so suddenly by a loved one nearly always affects others as well.
Placing the interests of others above self-interest is the key to unselfish sacrifice as putting
personal needs before the interests of others defines selfish sacrifices. The social, cultural and
public nature of unselfish and selfish sacrifice cannot be missed here in focusing on the
personal sacrifices of individuals.
In Husseins case, one can expect that his unselfish sacrifice may be looked on as a bit of an
oddity beyond the immediate victims he saved.
This is because culturally these sorts of unselfish sacrifices are uncommon in his part of the
world. Time will tell. Support for this view is found in noting that it was mostly foreign
rather than local media that were calling him a hero.

Right Morals or Methods?

In the Gosnell case the public response has swung back and forth between horror and
revulsion at what he has done personally, to disgust and despair at the public system that
allowed him to do it. Possibly what has been missed by many in this moral mess is the
fundamentally selfish nature of the abortion sacrifice itself, rather than it merely being a
psychopathic practitioner combining with poor quality health care into a perfect storm of
sadistic malpractice.
What the Gosnell case highlights is private-public tension between the morality and methods
of abortion. Because this selfish sacrifice is as much a product of the body politic as it is the
crime of individual perpetrator, a better understanding of the nature of selfish and unselfish
sacrifice is gained through understanding this truth and studying its outworking.
In other words, are people outraged because this sacrifice of the weak and innocent is morally
wrong or is it actually the barbaric method that galls them more? Another way of
considering this question is to ask whether or not this crime would have been committed in a
society that does not condone such selfish sacrifices as abortion? The answer is probably
No, though other forms of barbarism are always possible where humans are concerned.
An equally relevant point is whether this is a crime or should such excesses be accepted as a
natural part of aborting foetuses, similar to some slaughterhouses not slaughtering animals
properly, such as the cases in Indonesia that caused such outrage in some parts of politically
sensitive Australia and stopped the live cattle exports for a period of time. If it is a moral
question then slaughtering animals or aborting foetuses is, in principle, either right or wrong.
Alternatively, if it is not the moral crime that is in question, then it was the inhumane way,
method, in which they were slaughtered that was the real cause of the outrage. Drawing a
clear distinction between right morals and methods is important. For example, many of those
who were morally outraged by these selfish sacrifices used these inhumane examples of poor
slaughtering methods as an opportunity to push their political agendas on morality, such as
stopping live exports of cattle completely.
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Unselfish Sacrifice
Interestingly, some who are morally outraged by inhumanity towards animals tend to be less
outraged about inhumanity towards foetuses than fauna. Their opposition, those who value
human life above animals, tend to be morally outraged in the opposite way favouring the
foetuses over fauna.

Nurtured to sacrifice
What should be obvious from these extreme cases is that while certain individuals sacrifice
more selfishly and unselfishly than others, the nature of these sacrifices are guided and
informed by public perceptions of what morally constitutes selfish and unselfish sacrifice. In
other words, the nature of personal sacrifice is probably most strongly nurtured, influenced
and informed by public perceptions of acceptable and unacceptable sacrifice.
Supporting this observation is the fact that Islamic suicide bombers tend to come from
societies and cultures that accept--and in many cases applaud--suicide bombings as an
acceptable even admirable form of self-sacrifice. Conversely, secular, atheistic societies have
much higher rates of personal suicides and suicidal behaviour than strongly Islamic societies,
which strongly discourage suicide, except in certain cases such as jihad.
Though both are acts of self-sacrifice or suicide, they are highly dependant on how these
individual acts are interpreted and accepted publicly. Note that a sacrifice accepted and even
admired by one culture or sector as an admirable act of unselfish self-sacrifice is, more often
than not, seen by a culture with opposing cultural values as selfishly suicidal.
Admittedly, these common sense observations are difficult to prove scientifically because
anecdotal evidence of selfish and unselfish sacrifice is complex and nearly impossible to
reproduce in lab studies or through role-playing exercises. Obviously, suicidal acts are
impossible to role-play realistically because to be authentic subjects should potentially die.
Further complicating these judgements is the interplay between private and public attitudes
and actions towards sacrifice.
As such, sacrificial factors are nearly impossible to test objectively enough to work out what
emanates from purely personal responses and public attitudes unless played out in real life
situations that cannot be successfully simulated. What is relatively clear from historical
wisdom and serious science is that unselfish sacrifice is primarily a nurtured attitude rather
than a genetic trait such as personality.
In other words, at a basic level, self-sacrifices are mainly driven by greater or lesser learned
rather than organic levels of empathy or concern for others. Greater levels of unselfish
sacrifice are the sorts of altruism that are others-orientated. An others-orientation manifests
itself through leaders putting the needs of followers before their own, as genuine servant
leaders do.
Sacrifice is obviously also driven by personal ego in promoting oneself. For example, men in
particular, are encouraged to (and willingly do) self-sacrifice in war and other extreme
endeavours, such as sports. In this sense men are naturally more inclined to take these risks
and make these sacrifices than women, though this balance changes when it comes to
protecting offspring.
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Unselfish Sacrifice
Importantly, strong nurturing or a lack of nurturing can change this naturally occurring
balance between male and female sacrifices. For example, western women are increasingly
said to be showing greater levels of assertiveness and in some cases outright aggression. A
positive example is Emily Harrington, whose ice-climbing feats on 60 Minutes program
Frozen Waterfalls would leave most men gasping for breath.

Naturally Selfish
Not so inspiring are the online video clips and newspaper reports of young women behaving
nearly as badly as their angry male counterparts. Open aggression, senseless violence,
random rage and murderous massacres are becoming more common amongst western youth.
Observing and reading about these random acts of selfish and apparently senseless violence
makes for a sobering assessment of todays youth.
Equally concerning is the online abuse of and by social media users of their helpless victims
who sometimes are driven to suicide. Though these apparently worsening trends are still
scientifically contested, they are anecdotally accepted as reality. If ultimately proved true, as
it is likely they will be, it is further evidence that nurturing rather than nature has brought
about these selfish cultural changes in civility most starkly observed through selfish sacrifices
such as suicide and random acts of violence.
There is hope in these findings. If selfish sacrifices can be negatively nurtured through
conscience and free will rather than being naturally hard wired in nature, then unselfish
sacrifice can be positively nurtured as an alternative. Since nurturing is most strongly
influenced by close clan and community ties, sacrifice, especially unselfish sacrifice, seems
to be most naturally motivated by relationship, friendship and reciprocity.
That is, people are more unselfishly sacrificial if the ones they are sacrificing for are
comrades who are unselfishly sacrificial in returning the favour. The positive assumption is
that the stronger the reciprocation, that is the likelihood of mutual sacrifice, the greater the
willingness of each party to unselfishly sacrifice for the other. A less positive outcome of
this reciprocity is that there will be an equally strong desire to punish or ostracise those who
sacrifice selfishly.

Generational Effects
Strong reciprocity explains why the fallen in battles with enemies of both the man-made and
natural kind are usually honoured as heroes. Often, their families are cared for by society and
state as a mark of gratitude for their unselfish sacrifices. Because leaders do not, as a rule,
unselfishly sacrifice for their followers, when they do, some surprising and strangely mutual
benefits reward these leaders and followers. For example, unselfish self-sacrifice by leaders
builds up their own self-confidence and that of their followers to cooperatively make further
sacrifices.
The knock on effect is unselfish sacrifices occurring from one generation to the next. Not
surprisingly, this positive or pro-social behaviour is shown to elicit some of the highest levels
of successor loyalty.
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Unselfish Sacrifice

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Unselfish Sacrifice
Such sacrificial acts can also transform average leaders into great leaders. An obvious
question must be what makes such unselfish sacrifices so strangely attractive to followers and
their leaders despite the apparent waste of effort and in some cases life?
In other words, it does not naturally make sense to sacrifice as a leader. This is because his
or her power, authority and ongoing presence are considered vital to the continuation of a
social, political or business enterprise. Despite this being a socially accepted norm
maintained by most leaders, it is actually part of the myth that leaders should not sacrifice
their leaderships. Seeing top leaders as being indispensable can actually retard peoples
ability to change.
In a positively deviant sort of way, the unselfish sacrifice of a great leader actually makes
him or her even greater and, in the process, also empowers the leaders followers. Analysis
of great versus good leaders note that a mix of the apparently opposing qualities of fierce
humility yet iron will are found at the core of great leadership. Similarly, studies of
leadership transitions find that ambassador-like outgoing leaders are the more effective
predecessors. This is because of their willingness to sacrifice their leaderships then stay on to
guide their successors.
Obviously, this sort of unselfish self-sacrifice is not one in which the sacrificer is a victim,
but a hero, even if they die. These unselfish sacrifices transform others around them and the
sacrificer in the process. This transforming power probably is the main reason why the act of
martyria, the willingness to be a witness for Jesus Christ even unto death was such a
powerful yet strange attractor to early Christians and non-Christians alike.

Institutional Authority
Once this unselfish, sacrificial Christianity became institutionalised into Christendom and the
church became a state sanctioned centre of power, the unselfish sacrifices of the early church
leaders were often supplanted by selfish sacrifices as the Crusades and Inquisitions so clearly
demonstrate.
This natural tendency for those in power to sacrifice selfishly is why democratic political
systems have always separated power between those who make the laws, the government,
and those who apply them, the judiciary. The separation of church and state is a similar
example of this principle in practice.
Thus a major problem with the increasingly seamless relationships between secularism and
science is that these boundaries have become blurred between the philosophy of Why it is
done and practice How it is done. These blurred relationships are similar to when church
and state operated almost as one.
Secularists and scientists often fail to recognise (or dont care about) this incestuous
relationship. This is evidenced by the religious zeal with which they selfishly sacrifice to
promote and guard this status quo. As such, they are as equally guilty of selfish sacrifice as
was the church and state.

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An example of this secular scientific nepotism is occurring with the rush to legalise same-sex
marriage. By homosexual activists arguing that laws against sodomy are unconstitutional
because they forbid homosexual intercourse, they represent one action amongst many to force
the normalisation of sodomy as being as natural as heterosexual intercourse.
Biologically, same-sex activities cannot be as normal or as natural as heterosexual
reproduction because homosexuals cannot reproduce. Since many homosexuals want
children, due to this biological limitation, they must adopt or use some form of surrogacy or
donor. Because these practices rightly raise moral issues about the interests and protection of
children, their selfish or unselfish purposes must be questioned.

Intolerant Tolerance
Despite these biological and ethical problems, the selfish sacrifice increasingly being
personally and publically demanded is that those who are morally repulsed by or even just
question the wisdom of such activities keep their opinions to themselves. For those who do
risk speaking out, social and legal sanctions await.
Publically this imposition means not being able to discriminate against homosexuals under
any circumstances in regards to employment, marriage, adoption, etc. So far religious
organisations, in recognition of their almost universal moral opposition to open
homosexuality, have been given some protection from state coercion. Only time will tell if
these now united secular-scientific elites will extend the same sort of courtesy their religious
opponents once gave them under the unity of church and state.
The point here about sacrifice is to carefully consider the quality of the sacrifice in terms of
its selfishness or unselfishness. Because homosexuals are often skilled professionals or
artists and relatively high-income earners, in purely material terms they may well be equally
if not better qualified to adopt and care for a child than two lower income heterosexuals who
do not have these financial resources.
Based on a materialistic secular worldview, the answer is most likely, yes. However, in
terms of selfish and unselfish sacrifice, those who are willing to give up the most for their
biological children presumably make the more unselfish sacrifice. An example of this is
found in the story of a judgement made by a wise king.
One day two prostitutes came to the king, with the first woman saying, Your Majesty, this
woman and I live in the same house. Not long ago my baby was born at home, and three days
later her baby was born. Nobody else was there with us. That night while we were all asleep,
she rolled over on her baby, and he died.
Then while I was still asleep, she got up and took my son out of my bed. She put him in her
bed, then she put her dead baby next to me. In the morning when I got up to feed my son, I
saw that he was dead. But when I looked at him in the light, I knew he wasnt my son.
No! the other woman shouted. He was your son. My baby is alive! The dead baby is
yours, the first woman yelled. Mine is alive! They argued back and forth in front of the
king, until finally he said, Both of you say this live baby is yours.
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Someone bring me a sword. A sword was brought, and the king ordered, Cut the baby in
half! That way each of you can have part of him.
Please dont kill my son, the babys mother screamed. Your Majesty, I love him very
much, but give him to her. Just dont kill him. The other woman shouted, Go ahead and
cut him in half. Then neither of us will have the baby.
The king said, Dont kill the baby. Then he pointed to the first woman, She is his real
mother. Give the baby to her. In this case the biological mother was willing to make the
most unselfish sacrifice.
Similarly, biological parents are naturally, much more likely to make the most unselfish
sacrifices for their offspring. This story explains the process by which this assessment about
the nature of sacrifice can be logically made according to natural laws observed through
human relationships and legacies.

Laws of Relationship, Sacrifice and Legacy

To do justice to this assessment on the nature of sacrifice requires an understanding of its
integral link with two more laws. They are the Laws of Relationship and Legacy.
Together they are connected by the Law of Sacrifice, which mediates selfishly or unselfishly
between the two depending on the quality of sacrifices made. Like a bridge connecting two
banks of a river, the quality of sacrifice determines the structural integrity of the bridge and
the fluency of the passage by which traffic moves between the two banks of relationship and
legacy.

Natural (Self-Evident) Laws

To briefly define these three laws: Relationships are the selfish to unselfish ways in which
people connect or bind themselves to each other. Sacrifices result from the selfish to unselfish
destruction or surrender of people and things connected by these relationships.
Legacies are the effects of the unselfish to selfish sacrifices made by the people in these
relationships. These three elements are essential qualities of human life because, together,
relationships mediated by sacrifices leave selfish or unselfish legacies leading to suicidal
consequences or positive effects.
Understanding these three Natural Laws and our part and place in them can be essential to
life, literally. Natural Laws are principles that are observed in life and nature to be real and
are generally predictable.
Essentially the Law of Relationships finds that, as relational beings, humans naturally seek to
have relationships with other people. It is the selfish and unselfish quality of these human
relationships and their sacrifices that determine legacies. The Law of Sacrifice predicts that
humans act through sacrifice to serve and save themselves and others. Everyone sacrifices
selfishly and unselfishly many times during his or her lifetime.

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It is the cumulative selfish or unselfish nature of these sacrifices that determines the quality
of ones relationships and legacy. The Law of Legacy, flows from the Law of Relationships
through the filter or over the bridge of Sacrifice. The essential prediction of the Law of
Legacy is that humans have an inborn desire to be successful and have successors.
These offspring--children, followers, etc.--whoever they are, are our successors. They
represent the sum total of the selfish and unselfish sacrifices made in an individuals life.
Multiply these selfish and unselfish sacrifices thousands of times over and you have a
worldview.
Tens of thousands of times over and you have a people defined by these selfish and unselfish
relationships, sacrifices and legacies. The base logic here is that unselfish sacrifices are
ultimately more successful both in terms of relationship and legacy than selfish sacrifices.

Sacrifice and Succession

Examples drawn from the altruism of leaders and laity confirm this fact. Compare, for
example, the sacrifices of Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad for their disciples. Who made the
more unselfish sacrifice?
Normally, people who practice unselfish sacrifice are generationally more successful than
those who dont. So as to not get overly technical, using the relationship of a child to its
parents as an example for testing these laws in practice is helpful. Asking some broad
questions about these parent-child relationships is a good starting point.
As a rule, does this child have a better chance of being cared for and nurtured in a
biologically unified family unit than one where a stepparent is a de facto father or mother?
Historical and current research overwhelmingly answers yes in favour of the biologically
intact family unit. A child in an intact family consisting of both biological parents is more
likely to thrive than one living in a family that deviates from this due to experiencing or
choosing divorce, separation, surrogacy or step parenting.
Therefore, a simplistic and idealistic answer to this first question is that an unselfish sacrifice
where both biological parents of a child choose to stay together rather than separate is, as a
rule, a more successful relationship that promises a more effective legacy. The key in this
relationship is the mediatory element of selfish or unselfish sacrifice made by the parents
(predecessors) because the negative and positive qualities of these sacrifices decide their
legacy in the lives of their children (successors).
Another example is to ask whether a parent who sacrifices unselfishly is more likely to
produce unselfish children. Again the answer is in the affirmative. The positive effects of an
unselfish relationship and sacrifices between predecessor and successors have long been
noted as the true succession of successful legacies. A relevant example of true succession
occurred between F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
In practice, a true succession occurs where predecessor significantly influences their
successor by the close relationship they have with each other. This unselfish relationship
played a major part in the sacrificial political succession from de Klerk to Mandela.
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Unselfish Sacrifice
Imagine the consequences of a selfish succession by looking at the political leadership of
most other African leaders, such as Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, for examples of selfish
sacrifices. Many more examples of these sacrificial links in life and leadership are explained
in the following chapters.
Already, the cases of Billy, Renny and Carol, presented as simple expressions of these main
ideas, should confirm this point. In each case, these examples of selfish and unselfish
sacrifices are meant to provoke thoughtful reflection about the consequences of these actions.
It is important that these three interrelated laws of relationship, sacrifice and legacy are
properly understood.
The Law of Relationships predicts that as relational beings, humans will naturally seek to
have relationships with other human beings. The selfish and unselfish quality of the
sacrifices in these relationships determines our legacies. Mediating relationships and
legacies, the Law of Sacrifice predicts that we will sacrifice selfishly and unselfishly many
times during our lifetimes and being more unselfish than selfish will positively influence the
quality of our relationships and legacy.
The consequences of relationships mediated by selfish or unselfish sacrifice is the Law of
Legacy. It also predicts the inborn desire to be successful and have successors. Our
offspring--children, followers, etc., whoever they are, represent the sum total of our selfish
and unselfish sacrifices. Now that the nature of and motivations for sacrifice with regard to
relationships and legacies are better understood, more time can be devoted to each law.
In the next chapter the Law of Relationship is examined for strengths and weaknesses. Since
we all have relationships, even if only with ourselves, exploring this uniquely human
relationship between the self and another or significant others is especially relevant to
eliciting unselfish rather than selfish sacrifice.
<><><>

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Chapter 3
The Law of Relationship
Ones willingness to sacrifice--or rather, the experience of having sacrificed,
and been sacrificed for--was the essential glue of a moral society ~ Merlyn
Myers

Relational Beings
The Law of Relationship is one of the main influences on the nature of sacrifice. As
relational beings, humans naturally seek to have relationships and the selfish and unselfish
quality of these relationships determine our legacies. The point of this law for sacrifice is
that if a worldview leads to relationships that are fundamentally more selfish than unselfish
then it is only a matter of time before the intended or unintended consequences of these
actions will start outworking themselves as selfish sacrifices and legacies.
It is here that the Law of Relationships intersects with the Laws of Legacy and Sacrifice
because, like it or not, the consequences of personally selfish or unselfish actions leave a
legacy of selfish or unselfish children. Literally and figuratively, selfish individuals leave
selfish offspring. Already confirming these observations are the increasing numbers of
selfish sacrifices of which suicide is only the most obvious and drastic.
An important (often unasked) question about the increase in suicides and other selfish acts is
whether or not they are the unintended consequences of more selfish sacrifices? Assuming,
of course, that suicide is an unintended consequence and not actually condoned. This
assumption depends on personal belief in what constitutes selfish and unselfish sacrifice.
Some Islamists may answer that suiciding whilst killing others is virtuous, even redemptive,
therefore is unselfish sacrifice. Almost everyone else, however, disagrees. Sacrificing self to
destroy others is fundamentally a selfish sacrifice, as its antithesis, sacrificing self to save
others attests.

Sacrifices are Costly

As such, acts of personal sacrifice by individuals and how they are valued publicly in a
community are important because they define individual values through social mediums. If
the greatest values of a people are acts of love and service towards others, then their
sacrifices will be characterised by unselfishness.
Conversely, if peoples relationships are based on self-interest, then their sacrifices will be
fundamentally selfish. The consequences of having (or not having), and living out, these
values are selfish and unselfish sacrifices.

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Unintended Consequences
It is important to understand that sacrifices, whether selfish or unselfish, are costly. They
produce unintended consequences that could be desirable because the alternative may be the
greater of two evils. For example, allowing someone to suicide may be a lesser evil, if the
greater evil is fulfilment of his or her plan to commit murder-suicide.
Obviously the logic here is that it is preferable to suicide by only killing oneself, rather than
take many other innocent people to their graves also. Another important point about
unintended consequences is that they can be difficult to undo once started.
Consequences are akin to trying to stop a moving super tanker filled to capacity with its
cargo. Momentum carries consequences much further than first anticipated. Unintended
consequences are especially difficult to stop because oftentimes no one expected these
outcomes to occur.
For example, the unintended consequences of using chemical fertilisers are that run-off into
waterways is causing pollution, even though the intended consequences are improved crop
yields. Because of this initial failure to foresee the challenges ahead, contingency plans are
not prepared in advance due to ignorance.
Even more disastrous are the consequences of intentional actions that promote selfish rather
than unselfish sacrifice, despite being aware of potential danger. Because these actions are
often contrary to traditional moral values, considering a traditional religious moral solution to
solve current ethical problems is unthinkable for the diehard secular scientist.
As such, sexual abstinence, for instance, to solve the problem of sexually transmitted diseases
cannot be an option because it involves religiously inspired moral behaviour. Instead better
sex education and medication and a more permissive social acceptance of promiscuity is the
secular scientific solution.

Ignorance, Apathy and Deceit

The two main reasons for failing to act on the negative effects of (un)intended consequences,
other than apathy, are ignorance and disobedience. Ignorance causes someone to be unaware
of the problem. Obviously, you dont know what you dont know. Apathy results from not
caring enough about a problem to do anything about it.
However, the problem with deliberate disobedience, as anyone with children knows, is that it
breeds deceit. Deceit grows because its practitioners will do almost anything to stop their
disobedience from being exposed. Eventually generational disobedience becomes ignorance
because perversely the untruth becomes regarded as the truth.
The influence of this thinking and these actions on selfish and unselfish sacrifice becomes
more obvious as the worldviews that contribute to such thinking and actions are considered.
To do that it is necessary to understand that the nature of sacrifice is as strongly influenced as
by the worldviews of civilisations or cultures as by its individual practitioners.

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This is because individuals in each culture normally accept and act on more selfish or less
selfish sacrifices that are normal to that culture or society. Human self-sacrifice is never a
valueless exercise, because it is always socially mediated by individual action.

Cultural Self-Sacrifice
Since past behaviour is a good indicator of future action, observing self-sacrifice in cultures
and civilisations is indicative of an underlying moral framework. For example, the way
individuals self-sacrifice in the predominantly Jewish nation of Israel compared to the
majority Arab nation of Palestine is indicative of this collective moral framework.
On the Jewish side, avoiding civilian casualties and not involving civilians in the conflict is a
key objective, whereas for many Palestinians, targeting civilians and using them in the
conflict as human shields is regarded as legitimate. The degree to which these self-sacrifices
are regarded by each party as selfish or unselfish, in a cumulative sense, are influenced by
their respective underlying value systems or world views.

Values inform Worldviews

Worldviews are informed by values underpinned by morals and ethics that together, form a
culture. The fact that not all cultural values are equally good and that better values cause
some cultures to be more successful than others is self-evident, though not necessarily
politically correct.
For example, why is Singapore more successful culturally by most social and economic
measures than Malaysia? Other than size, access to resources and location, about the only
major difference between the two nations is their value systems. Both had a similar history
under British colonial rule. The most obvious difference is their worldviews: Malaysia is
Malay-Islamic, Singapore Confucian-Christian.
Thus, important to sacrifice and its outworking through relationships is the observation that
some cultures do better than others materially and spiritually. They progress more than other
nations because of upholding the moral values and making the sacrifices that support such
endeavours. Examples are the personal responsibility and a strong individual work ethic that
contributes to the apparent cultural success of Judaeo-Christian countries.
Conversely, the lack of these moral values in other cultures is reflected in more limited
cultural and economic progress. Today, Judaeo-Christian, Confucian and Islamic worldviews
are some of the most dominant civilisations. The West, East Asia and the Middle East are,
respectively, examples of these worldviews in operation.
These civilisations are in political and ethical competition and as a result clash, especially
Islam and the West. A limitation of these observations is that not enough credit is given to
Secular Science as a competing worldview that is in many ways now the dominant
worldview in the West. Thus, to assume that Islam is clashing with Christendom is only
partially correct. These main competing worldviews are briefly defined next.

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The Main Conflicting World Views

A Judeo-Christian tradition or worldview accepts basic biblical values such as the Ten
Commandments along with the primacy of the individual and his or her personal
responsibility towards God and their fellow men. This individualised focus on the person and
their personal responsibility has been the dominant worldview in the western world for
centuries.
An Eastern worldview is a pluralistic combination of Confucian, Hindu and Buddhist values
that reflect the primacy and authority of the group over the individual and the individual's
responsibility to the group. This authoritarian focus on group consensus rather than individual
responsibility remains the dominant Eastern worldview no matter what Eastern religion or
ideology such as communism adhered to by practitioners.
The Islamic worldview, whilst sharing a monotheistic, Abrahamic concept of God to JudeoChristianity along with some similar ten commandment values reflects the primacy of
authority, especially Islamic authority, over the individual. This theocratic and dynastic focus
on Islamic authority is the increasingly dominant focus of the Muslim worldview as it
grapples with issues such as terrorism and applying Islamic syariah law in secular societies.
While the secular scientific worldview broadly accepts the Judeo-Christian values of personal
freedom and reasoning, its secular side rejects its religious framework of moral responsibility
towards God. Despite a pluralistic facade, secular science is increasingly authoritarian in its
enforcement of the primacy of the humanistic and atheistic worldview and increasingly
antagonistic towards its partner Christendom.
These four worldviews have always been in competition, yet more recently secular science,
due to its increasing hegemony in the West, is suffering a backlash from Christendom and
Islam in particular. A crisis of confidence is also occurring within secular science itself as the
consequences of its selfish, individualistic relationships, sacrifices and legacies become more
apparent leading to an increasingly authoritarian imposition of its values and laws on the
societies it governs.
Even greater cultural wars and clashes of civilisations can be expected to occur as these more
authoritarian worldviews battle for primacy. The main question for our study is whether or
not the the sacrifices being proposed and made by these world views are fundamentally more
or less selfish or unselfish. This question will be unpacked and answered as the central theme
of our study as we progress through this book.

Fact, Faith or Fiction?

Actually Secular Science is also battling with Christendom. In fact, all religiously derived
value systems in this war for cultural supremacy are the targets of secular science. The
reason for this antagonism is that Secular Science assumes all human values should be
scientifically determined facts. If certain values cannot be determined scientifically then they
fall into the realm of religious faith and should be abandoned due to not being secular or
scientific.
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Because a majority of the elites in the scientific community perpetuate this view it is
becoming increasingly insular towards anyone who does not hold to this secular scientific
even atheistic definition of science. A problem with this world view for self-sacrifice is that
it creates a cultural blind spot towards unselfish and selfish sacrifices by assuming that the
inherent wisdom of science and its secular application to sacrifice provides the only logical
explanation.

Secular Religion
When this bias occurs, Secular Science becomes a religion in its own right, not dissimilar to
the religions it alleges rely on faith rather than facts. Similar to a religion it has its own
priestly class of political experts, its prophetic scientists and laity in academia and business.
Specifically, this clash of civilisations is important to understand, because Secular Science is
becoming increasingly distant from its parents original Judaeo-Christian values.
Evidence of this separation is seen by the radically different sacrifices each side makes.
Abortion and euthanasia and same-sex marriages are relevant examples. Secularism assumes
all sacrifices are ethically unselfish provided the personal freedom of the individual is not
impinged upon whereas Christendom sees such sacrifices as morally selfish due to the ones
sacrificed being in a position of weakness.

Cultural Clashes
The reason these distinctions are important is because they help explain the clash of
civilisations better if Secular Science is separated from Christendom. However, assuming a
two-way cultural clash between all expressions of religious faith and secular science is also
mistaken. For example, Christendom and Science have long been successful partners in
scientific endeavours. In its early history, Islam was also defined by a golden age where
science and religion successfully coexisted.
Emerging out of Christendom, it is questionable whether Secularism and Science will be as
successful a coexistence. Being a relatively new relationship it remains unproven as to
Secular Science's success and durability, however the law of relationships predicts that if its
sacrifices are more selfish than unselfish in orientation, then it will not go the distance. Due
to the separation of Secularism from Christendom, it is more accurate to say that a three or
four-way clash is currently occurring between the civilisations of Christendom, Secularism,
Islam and Pluralism.
Secularism is definitely the newcomer. Christendom represents the culture of Christianity
and Secularism is a culture that separates public life from religious influence. Islam
represents Muslim culture and Pluralism relates to multiple religions such as Hinduism and
Buddhism or more generally a mixture of many beliefs loosely collected as a personal faith.
Given these cultural clashes, most of the new priests of secularism argue eloquently that all
matters of faith should be done away with and replaced by scientific reason. Anything that
cannot be naturalistically explained scientifically is rejected as a matter of faith until it can be
proven otherwise. This is the essence of the scientific-secular argument.
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Competing Civilizations
While there are many problems with this argument, for example that scientific reasoning does
not in and of itself involve faith, especially in terms of sacrifice, these issues are dealt with
later. For now, two main points are especially relevant to the law of relationship.
First, secular science is a competitive civilization and an integral part of this three or fourway battle for cultural supremecy. From secular science's point of view any religion is
scientifically illegitimate and should be rejected, especially if it involves the recognition of a
power higher than Man. Second, not all competing views of reality are equally true. In each
case where truth is required there should be some objective truth e.g. science, that makes
other so- called truths about sacrifice, for instance, untrue.
Applying the rules of sacrifice mentioned earlier to specific cases of (assisted) suicide, helps
to reveal more clearly the truths and untruths of these two main points. To do this properly, it
is helpful to start by considering the selfish to unselfish traditions of sacrifice stemming from
the three great faith civilisations of pluralistic Hinduism-Buddhism, which accepts multiple
gods and philosophies and monotheistic Christianity and Islam that focus on one God.
These historical views of sacrifice provide the context from which to consider secular
scientific sacrifice, since it is a much newer worldview emerging from Christendom and
Pluralism. Traditionally, within these three civilisations, there have been significantly
different philosophies of self-sacrifice, particularly suicide.

Religious Views of Self-Sacrifice

There are three main religious worldviews of self-sacrifice. They primarily originate from the
religions of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. Buddhism has Samadhi, Christianity,
Martyria and Islam Jihad. By starting with the older worldview of Buddhism and proceeding
to the younger worldview of Islam, the chronology of these beliefs is kept intact. It is
important to note in religious terms that Buddhism is an offshoot of pluralistic Hinduism,
whereas Christianity and Islam are Abrahamic faiths emerging from Judaism.

Buddhist Samadhi for Liberation

Samadhi literally means right concentration. Its aim is to empty the individual human self
to such an extent as to enable that person to identify with and be absorbed within the divine
whole. There are various manifestations of Samadhi, with its main elements being some sort
of self-sacrifice such as abstinence from food, drink, sex and other carnal distractions.
In its highest forms Samadhi involves such extreme physical depravation that the physical
human body dies. By seeking to cease existing physically the aim is gain a better salvation or
spiritual existence by freeing the soul. Santhara in the Jain religion involves similar forms of
physical deprivation as Samadhi, sometimes through self-inflicted euthanasia, for example.
Given its goal of spiritual liberation, a desire for suicide or impulse to take ones own life
simply because of wanting to end ones own suffering does not qualify as Samadhi or
Santhara, since both these terms and their Indonesian derivative "sengsara" relate to
unselfishly undergoing suffering rather than selfishly ending it.
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Thus self-sacrifice or suicide simply aimed at escaping suffering is unacceptable Samadhi,
whereas self-sacrifice to gain enlightenment is the right concentration. Where suicide is used
to highlight or alleviate the suffering of others, it is also acceptable Samadhi. Probably the
best know example of this in action is that of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc. He
iconically burned himself to death at a busy Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh city) road intersection
to protest the persecution of Buddhists by the government of South Vietnam during the
Vietnam War.
Self-immolations like this have become common forms of Buddhist protest, especially in
recent times, to express disapproval and highlight the Chinese government's persecution of
Tibetans and oppression of Tibet. Samadhi, whether or not it involves suicide, is a personal
act of self-sacrifice that is non-violent towards others and does not involve harming other
people.
Similar to a suicide attack, an act of self-immolation involves an individual intentionally
killing himself or herself (or at least gambling with death) on behalf of a collective cause.
Unlike a suicide attack, there is no intent or justification in Samadhi to kill or injure others
through this act because even though it is a public act, it is self harm that is not intended to
physically harm others.
Nirvana through the extinction of personal desire and individual consciousness is not
specifically redemptive. Buddha was not redeemed when he achieved Nirvana. Rather,
Buddha achieved the highest level of enlightenment through the sacrifices he made. In other
words, Samadhi does not "save the one that suicides nor do they enter heaven.
However, due to the high levels of concentration needed for this Samadhic self-sacrifice it is
believed to put the sacrificer on the right path to higher levels of enlightenment. This sense
of duty by the individual to commit Samadhi for the greater good of the group or whole is
integral to this religious view of sacrifice as liberation of or from the self.

Christian Martyria as a Witness

Christian martyria or witness is also not directly redemptive. In other words, there is no
biblical teaching that a Christian is saved through martyrdom, which is probably the bestknown form of the word because so many Christians die as living sacrifices or witnesses for
their faith.
Martyria literally means witness, so if a Christian is to die for their faith--and many have
and do--it as a witness of their faithfulness to Christ and his teachings. There are obvious
parallels between Christ's ransom of humankind through his death on the cross and
resurrection to life and Christian martyria.
For example, Jesus reminded his disciples that they should sacrifice unselfishly as he does,
especially in leadership, by serving others rather than themselves and giving their lives
sacrificially for many.
The words servant and minister, from which are derived terms such as public servant and
government minister arise from these biblical terms in the Westminster system.

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This original understanding of martyria as the sacrificial witness unto death of an individual
to the propitiatory salvation of Jesus has sometimes been misinterpreted.
Probably the most infamous misinterpretations or deliberate lies about martyria were
promises of guaranteed salvation to those fighting the infidels (Muslims) during the Crusades
of the Middle Ages. Another example was promotion of indulgences through alms giving
that helped reduce the effects of confessed sinful acts. Even these instances of wrongly
motivated martyria were never intended to promote or to be suicidal acts.
There is nowhere found in the Christian understanding of self-sacrifice room for suicide
because of the belief that it is God who determines the timing of life and death not humans,
particularly individuals. When humans take their lives into their own hands, they are
rejecting God's control of their lives.
With the exception of the misinterpretations mentioned earlier, martyria is not a redemptive
act promising salvation to the sacrificer. Instead it is the willingness of a Christian to be a
witness of Christ by standing up for their faith even unto death. Obviously, salvation is
hoped for in death, however suicide is never the means to that end with martyria.

Islamic Jihad of Struggle

Unlike Samadhi or Martyria, Islamic Jihad does, in its most extreme suicidal forms, promise
immediate redemption and paradise through suicidal martyrdom. An especially effective
form of jihad occurs when infidels are killed in the process of a Muslims martyrdom. It is
important to understand though that jihad does not literally mean martyrdom or suicide but
struggle.
Within the ummah community of Muslim believers or in the life of an individual believer,
jihad is an internal spiritual struggle against carnal desires specifically during prayer and
other religious rituals and Islamic life in general. Jihad is an ongoing battle against the self to
abstain from food and drink during times of fasting, especially during the special fasting
month of Ramadan.
Jihadic struggle against non-Muslim pagans is primarily an external physical battle between
Muslims and non-Muslims. This battle involves a united Islamic struggle against the objects
of paganism, such as idols, pornography and alcohol and, if necessary, warfare with its
agents, non-Muslims.
One non-violent example of jihad against impurity is the purchasing and eating of halal food
and setting up networks of abattoirs for the purpose of sourcing and producing halal meat.
Another example is Islamic or syariah banks which do not charge interest to Muslims,
compared to western banks which do.
More violent instances of jihad involve organisations such as the Islamic Defenders Front
(FPI) in Indonesia, which routinely blockades and ransacks bars and nightclubs as objects of
pagan iniquity. Similar is the jihadic battle against westerners in particular as the primary
agents of pagan decadence today.

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To die fighting in this jihad via a suicide that kills as many infidels (non-Muslims) in the
process guarantees the suicider instant entry to paradise and potential honour amongst the
ummah. Whether or not this activity is a suicide or martyrdom largely depends on its focus.
If a suicide is for individual purposes then it is questionable jihad, however if a suicide is
endorsed by the ummah, then it is acceptable martyrdom and jihad.

Hopeful Sacrifice
As such, jihad is primarily redemptive in its spiritual aims, since through suicidally shedding
ones own blood and the blood of others a suicider believes he or she can be saved and
accepted directly into paradise. Islam is one of the few faiths that confirms murder-suicide in
jihad as a legitimate means of salvation, though many Muslims do not interpret violent jihad
in this way.
It is tragically ironic that both hope--and its polar opposite, hopelessness--plays such a key
part in self-sacrifices, especially suicides. For example, it is often as much a lack of hope in
heaven and help in the here and now that drives young adults to suicide as it is hope in a
better afterlife.
In a macabre way the hope of the suicider is that through suicide they will be freed from their
helplessness and hopelessness. Thus in the secular West it is quite probable that much of this
suicidal hopelessness arises from a secular scientific worldview that is scientifically positive
yet, spiritually hopeless due to its secularism. In the case of Samadhi, it is the desire to
quench the self, that dominates.
The opposite appears to occur with Islamic suiciders because their great hope through suicide
is that their salvations are assured by their self-sacrifice, especially if they take as many
infidels as they can with them when they die. Despite this religious hope and promise of
salvation, there is plenty of evidence from Muslims themselves that similar feelings of
helplessness and hopelessness drive Muslim youth to murder-suicide as it does their nonMuslim western counterparts.
Tragically, fear and frustration in this helpless and hopeless situation dominates the thinking
of many who pay this ultimate price, no matter what their faith. Why murder-suicide, this
most extreme form of selfish sacrifice, is on the rise amongst Muslims and non-Muslims,
particularly American youth is a bit of a mystery, especially in the West.
While there are grounds for these self-sacrifices within Islam, there are none in Judaism or
Christianity. Why young men, particularly in Judaeo-Christian countries and especially in
America, are choosing murder-suicide is a conundrum, because their worldview definitely
does not condone such selfish sacrifices.
Most probably this rise in suicides amongst westerners is mainly due to a changing of
worldviews from Judaeo Christian to Secular Scientific. Emile Durkheim in his 1897 classic
Suicide predicted such changes by noting that social extremes in self-indulgent
individualism, personal freedom and social isolation strongly contribute to increases in
suicide.

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However, Durkheim did not comment on murder-suicide specifically because it was virtually
non-existent in his day. Certainly a loss of hope and faith in the selfish relationships that
many of today's people pursue could be a major cause of suicide as the most extreme form of
selfish sacrifice.

Dysfunctional Worldview
Because the self-sacrifices of Samadhi, Martyria and Jihad stem from diametrically opposed
views of sacrifice in relation to self and others, it is worth examining where the secular
scientific worldview of sacrifice fits. When it comes to matters that are not empirically
observable, such as human motivations for sacrifice, to some extent secular science is
pluralistic.
Many of its proponents are fans of Buddhist philosophies. Bertrand Russell and ardent
evolutionist Aldous Huxley are relevant examples. More recently, new atheist Sam Harris
espouses the virtues of Jainism, a branch of Hinduism. Despite its fondness for pluralism and
eastern philosophies, the reality is that secular science primarily emerged from a monotheistic
Judaeo Christian worldview.
Thus, much of the anger directed at Christendom by Secular Science can be likened to the
angst of a dysfunctional parent-child relationship or the breakdown of a marriage. This
dysfunction at a worldview level reflects itself in a great deal of confusion about identity.
Identity issues are represented at an individual level through the selfish sacrifices that are
made, most obviously through suicide.
Identity confusion, especially when a child is unsure of who its parents actually are is the
crisis facing many in the west who have rejected traditional Judaeo-Christian moral values to
embrace secular ethics based on scientific reasoning. This secular scientific reasoning has
bred unprecedented levels of scepticism and a general lack of hope.
A breakdown in any relationship that has sustained a culture or family is no small matter, yet
these selfish sacrifices are becoming increasingly easy in societies dominated by secular
science, where fast divorces and abortions, similar to fast food, are easy to do. Their
boomerang effect, the sting in the tail, though, remains strong as the law of sacrifice predicts.
Selfish sacrifice in relationships breeds selfish sacrificers who habitually sacrifice selfishly,
yet are unable to escape the ensuing collateral damage and depression.

Narcissism and Suicide

An example of this selfish outworking is narcissism in relationships. Narcissus was a god in
Greek mythology who fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water.
Eventually his nemesis was his own self-centred infatuation. A correlation between
increasingly high levels of narcissism and depression and suicides in western youths and
adults is unlikely to be coincidence.
Observing the plethora of self-centred reality television shows featuring young and not so
young adults desperate for attention and recognition, or the self-portrait 'selfies' photographs
and online videos and blogs are all evidence of this individualistic infatuation with self.
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The irony of narcissism is that it is a malignant and destructive self-love that leaves the
narcissist and their victims feeling empty and alone, hopeless and helpless.
As the law of relationships predicts, selfish sacrifices are ultimately self-defeating and souldestroying both for perpetrator and victim. Understanding that it is more blessed to give than
to receive is the polar opposite of narcissism. There is no doubt that the extreme selfishness
and self-love of the narcissist has suicidal ultimately consequences.
Thus, the direct relationship between these two phenomena is that selfish sacrifices lead to
selfish legacies. Generationally this selfishly symbiotic relationship becomes part of a
worldview and individual personalities. The law of relationships predicts and studies show
that these societal changes drive increases in personal narcissism and vice versa.

Egos and Environment

A real danger of this prediction about narcissism is that its enculturation into worldviews,
national psyches and individual attitudes is causing entire generations to be suicidally selfish.
Given the way we are wired, humans do not run on instinct alone, but choice. Consistently
narcissistic (read: selfish) choices in relationships lead to consistently more selfish sacrifices
and egos.
Couple these significant cultural changes with serious environmental challenges, such as
increased levels of hormones in water supplies, and the physiological changes they bring
could further exacerbate these cultural changes. An example of this concern is evidenced by
the increasing feminisation of some male animals. A specific instance is that some river
otters are now evolving with penis bones so small it is impossible for them to reproduce.
Some scientists conclude that these environmental conditions are causing physiological
changes that are dangerous for all mammals, including humans. The fact is there have always
been people who have not been normal males or females sexually. Current environmental
changes could well be exacerbating this sexual confusion causing more men to be effeminate
and women to be masculine.

Born and Built this way

Whether someone is born this way or that, their sexuality is caused by human intervention,
such as physical or chemical castration, or by personal choice, humans who have the capacity
to choose have freedom of choice. This is where understanding the implications of selfish and
unselfish sacrifice is critical to understanding its outworking through the law of relationship.
The Law of Relationship predicts that this nexus between increasing physiological changes in
sexuality which are being exacerbated by social acceptance of any sort of sexual orientation
and sexual couplings predictably will cause serious social problems if selfishness is the
driving force behind these changes. These man made social changes are equally, if not more
dramatic and potentially detrimental than threats from the natural world because, over time,
the natural world can usually self-correct itself.

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Mankind, on the other hand has trouble self-correcting because of their ability to choose self
control, albeit imperfectly. Probably the most salient example is sexual immorality, which
means sexually choosing to go against what is morally right. All this may sound old
fashioned to the modern reader until the knock on effects, the legacy, of consistently selfish
sacrifices in relationships are considered.
A case in point is the AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) advertisements of the
1980s by the Australia AIDS council. It graphically warned about the dangers of multiple
sexual partners, cleverly captured this idea by showing one couple in bed leading to everincreasing numbers of couples in different beds as victims of this initial coupling. The
physical dangers of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) were obvious.

A Legacy of Selfishness
Less obvious to the secular scientific project are the psychological dangers of individuals
who are safe-sex experts physically, yet in the process become spiritually stunted, thus
harming their own minds and bodies and those of their partners. In a cumulative sense the
harm of these selfish sacrifices at an individual level have major social consequences.
One main legacy of sexually selfish sacrifices is that what is not normal becomes normal, at
least morally. The problem is compounded when these selfish behaviours also contravene
natural laws. Homosexuality is an example of such a contravention. In such cases, where
natural laws are broken, irrespective of whether society condones such actions or not, there
will be a natural reaction. In other words, nature will react against such activities.
Recall the growing evidence that narcissism is being fed by a selfish culture and vice versa.
These unnatural, selfish relationships that are contrary to nature are having suicidal
consequences. Simply put, the cause of increasingly selfish sacrifices, especially suicide, is
increasing selfishness along with the physiological changes that are a legacy of these selfish
relationships.
Suicide may often be an unintended consequence of selfishness, yet it is only one of the most
obvious symptoms. Other forms of selfish sacrifice also contribute to this vicious cycle. If
suicide tends to be committed most often in the middle of life as an ultimate, selfish
expression of free will, then abortion and euthanasia are at opposing ends of this spectrum
both in terms of the agents freedom to choose death and their capacity to carry it out.

The Selfish Prey on the Weak

In other words, the unborn and infants, the infirm and the aged, usually require the assistance
of others to die, hence the term assisted suicide. The most primitive of societies practice
abortion and infanticide mainly out of economic necessity and superstitious ignorance, rather
than by design or default.
Amongst some tribal people, such as the Dayak of Borneo, infanticide, especially of twins or
a baby born out of wedlock was common. The former was more an economic consideration
and the latter one of shame and taboo. Amazon tribes are also known to practice eugenics
through sexual selection utilising infanticide to get more boys rather than girls, for example.
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More recent examples are China's one child policy and social demands in India that have led
to disproportionate numbers of boys to girls. Western nations are not, however, immune from
gender and genetic selection to get the right baby. Remember, Rennys story is based on
fact, even though she is a fictitious person. Supposedly more primitive cultures also
practiced human sacrifice, mainly as a propitiatory measure to gain favour with kings or gods
or both.
Other motivations for human sacrifice are to gain the strength of the slain. This life force is
then used for personal prestige, power and protection, as it is amongst Dayak Head Hunters
of Borneo. Not fundamentally different is the modern creation and destruction of embryos
and even people for the purpose harvesting their organs and other bits and pieces to heal and
help others.

The Price of Selfish Sacrifice

The point of this analysis for sacrifice is to always question whether the price being paid is
more selfish or unselfish and whether or not the one being sacrificed really has a say in the
matter. It should be fairly obvious based on the Law of Relationship that these sacrifices are
more selfish than unselfish.
On this basis it should be obvious that if our relationships consistently produce sacrifices that
are more selfish than unselfish, then our civilisation is fundamentally becoming ever more
selfish even as we increase our technical sophistication. The more selfish a civilisation
becomes the more suicidal the consequences for its individual members.
Include in this equation the clash of civilisations, especially between Christendom and
Scientific Secularism. Multiply this clash by the millions of individuals involved in this fight
and it should be obvious why there are big problems in so many human relationships.
Remember, the Law of Relationships states unequivocally that if human relationships are
consistently more selfish than unselfish then suicidal consequences will follow.
Applying these simple yet profound laws or rules of relationship by rating current
worldviews based on their selfish to unselfish sacrifices is truly insightful. Recall our
headline quote at the beginning of the chapter that ones willingness to sacrifice--or rather,
the experience of having sacrificed, and been sacrificed for--was the essential glue of a moral
society. Obviously, what is being referred to here is unselfish sacrifice, since selfish
sacrifice is a poor quality moral glue indeed.
Thus, an honest analysis of their selfish or unselfish sacrifices help individuals position
themselves correctly in their personal relationships and predict the kind of legacies they are
likely to leave behind, whether selfish or unselfish. It should be clear that unselfish sacrifices
leave a legacy of success and selfish ones lead to failure. A personal analysis of selfsacrifices in relationships and legacies can then be applied publicly to the surrounding society
to gain a better understanding of the sort of dominant culture we are leaving as an inheritance
to the next generation.

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Already, even before delving too deeply into the nature of selfish and unselfish sacrifices, our
next topic, it should be obvious that unselfish sacrifices are far more sustainable and
ultimately successful than selfish sacrifices. Based on these simple laws or rules, rating
current world views based on their selfish to unselfish sacrifices are insightful and helps
individuals position themselves correctly in their personal relationships and predict the kind
of legacies they are likely to leave.
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Chapter 4
Law of Sacrifice
A tribe who sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over
most other tribes; and this would be natural selection ~ Charles Darwin

Purposes of Sacrifice
What or who is willingly sacrificed, destroyed and surrendered says a lot about a person or
people in relation to how they treat others and themselves. Where the unwanted are regularly
disposed of--or dispose of themselves if they can--selfish sacrifices predominate. During this
course of action, foetuses are aborted, children and spouses abandoned, youth and adults
suicide, the aged and infirm are encouraged to die.
Sacrifices are selfish if they are not really for the benefit of the ones being sacrificed. This is
the case even for those suiciding for personal ends. While in no way downplaying or
trivialising the terrible tragedy of suicide and the depths of despair leading to it, these sorts of
suicidal actions are fundamentally selfish, because the suicider more often than not puts
themselves first. Suicides are self-sacrifices of meaninglessness and hopelessness.
Tragically, suicides are a selfish sacrifice that too many people are making today. History
and humanity predicts that as sacrificial beings we make intentional sacrifices. The selfish to
unselfish qualities of our sacrifices determine their quality and sustainability. A prevalence
of selfish sacrifices does not mean the absence or reduction of ultimate sacrifices such as
suicide. It simply motivates others to make sacrifices that are similarly more self-focused
than others-orientated.
Alternatively, unselfish sacrifices for others produce acts of altruism that inspire similar acts
of courageous heroism. Soldiers that save (or give their lives for) their mates are some of the
best examples of unselfish sacrifice. To this day they remain the unselfish heroes of most
sacrificial narratives.

Cultural Anti-Heroes
However, when cultural heroes are celebrated for their sexual deviance or self-serving
desires, selfish sacrifice becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rather than selfless sacrifices,
these selfish acts become the norm not the exception. Individuals and societies become the
poorer, because the standard for unselfish sacrifices fall because the ideal is selfish rather
than unselfish sacrifice.
The reality is such self-focused sacrifices are carried out in stark contrast to unselfish
sacrifices that are made for the benefit of others. The tragic, suicidal consequences of selfish
sacrifice are evident in the breakdown of individuals, families and societies blighted by such
acts. These observations and realities are evidence of the positive and negative outworking

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of the Law of Sacrifice, which predicts that humans act through selfish and unselfish sacrifice
to serve and save themselves or others.

Sacrifice Rules
These sacrificial rules of thumb or Law of Sacrifice predict that humans sacrifice selfishly
and unselfishly many times during their lifetimes. The law of sacrifice says that being more
unselfish than selfish is what always determines the quality of personal and public
relationships and their legacies. Breaking this law by being selfish has tragically suicidal
consequences and living by this law through making unselfish sacrifices has positive effects
for all involved.
So what does this law of sacrifice have to do with suicide? If suicide is a fundamentally
selfish sacrifice, then ironically, the law of sacrifice is broken selfishly by suicide along with
the many other less obvious selfish sacrifices such as divorces, abortions and euthanasia.
When social breakdown through suicidal selfishness is observed to be occurring at an
unprecedented rate, it is right to conclude something is seriously amiss.
For instance, if suicides are highest in some of the most prosperous, technologically advanced
countries in history, then something about the sacrifices being made in relationships and their
legacies must be seriously wrong, despite the affluence. Where similar sorts of selfish
sacrifices are mirrored in former and current atheistic communist states, then more than
coincidence must be the logical and honest conclusion of the correlating facts.

Selfish Lifestyles
It cannot be overlooked that a major cause of these selfish sacrifices is the overwhelmingly
selfish nature of agnostic lifestyles and their self-interested sacrifices. This culture of
selfishness is causing tragically suicidal consequences. Indeed, these selfish sacrifices and
their suicidal consequences are a sign of an even deeper malaise caused by the fatalistic
atheism and agnosticism of secular science.
Reasoning that most of these suicidally selfish sacrifices are a natural part of the evolutionary
lifecycle is faulty scientific logic, even if gift wrapped in seductive secularism. A by-product
of this selfishness is that the innocent are sacrificed more often than the guilty in the name of
tolerance rather than mercy as the potential of future generations are lost to suicide.
Being aware of and acting on these problems with selfish sacrifice are critically important
because selfish sacrifices and their suicidal consequences threaten to destroy human
prosperity and the future survival of mankind. What to do to stop the suicidal consequences
of selfish sacrifice become more apparent as these problems are peeled back to expose their
basic rules.
A simple enough observation to start with is that unselfish sacrifices ultimately bring success,
whereas selfish sacrifices usually have suicidal consequences. The choice to become more
unselfishly sacrificial is radical and personal, yet if extrapolated has the power to transform
whole families and societies.

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Conversely, selfish sacrifices multiplied many times over have the power to destroy lives,
livelihoods and communities. To choose life seems a simple enough option, yet so many fail
to do so, instead choosing death by suicidal selfishness.
Even if physically healthy, the stunting emotional and spiritual power of selfish sacrifices is
only outweighed by one thing--radical unselfishness!

Rules of Sacrifice
Answering three connected questions helps in analysing the selfish to unselfish nature of
sacrifices. Is a sacrifice: 1) Made from a position of strength or weakness? 2) Motivated by
self interest or others orientated? 3) Marked by instinct or conscience in its outworking?
While individually somewhat subjective, taken together, the answers to these questions paint
an objective picture of an individuals or groups sacrificial motivations.
Take for instance the decision or temptation to leave a (once) loved one. Usually the one
thinking about, or doing the leaving is in a position of emotional strength, either because of
feeling aggrieved or because of causing grief. Also, these decisions are not usually mutual,
because the spouse or partner being left is normally not consulted or even aware of the
impending desertion.
The deserters reason for thinking about or actually leaving is usually motivated by selfinterest and dominated by I want...I need thoughts and statements and actions. Even when the
object of desire, the new or other lover, is the focus, the sacrifice is not others orientated,
because their motive is fulfilling self-interest or seeking self-gratification.
Consider for a moment the real motivations for taking a new or another lover. Seldom, in
these cases, is the other person really being saved by the sacrifice of the actor. Instead the
object of desire or lust is a means to an end, not the end itself. In other words it is what the
sacrificer wants for himself or herself that ultimately counts, not the needs of the person
being saved. This analysis answers the second question about personal motivations for
sacrifice, which in this case are fundamentally selfish.
Applying the final question in this sacrificial trilogy involves judging actions based on
instinct versus conscience. Instincts are impulsive, soulish and sensual and often selfish.
Conscience is more considered, even cautious, yet usually more unselfish. The reason why is
that the former relates to soulish feeling and emotion and the latter to spiritual faith and
ethics.
When selfish sacrifices outweigh unselfish ones and instinct dominates conscience, then
expect to find negative consequences. Specifically regarding suicide, the self-sacrifice of
ones own life, even if this trio of questions and answers relates to one and the same person,
others are always involved indirectly if not directly. Self-sacrifice almost without exception
involves a relationship between at least two people.
Even with suicide, the other people affected by or influencing these self-sacrifices, either
victims or perpetrators, such as family and friends or enemies, are legion. These sacrifices
can be judged as being more selfish or unselfish based on whether the one being sacrificed or
sacrificing is in a position of strength or weakness. In other words, if the one for which the
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sacrifice is made is weaker or inferior to the one making the sacrifice, then it is a more
unselfish sacrifice than vice versa.
Again the only real exception or at the very least conundrum is suicide, because the suicider
may feel they are in a position of weakness in regards to others. Ironically by choosing to die
by their own hands they are placing themselves in a position of power because, in their own
minds at least, they are making the ultimate personal choice about life and death for
themselves.
No matter how it is justified or rationalised, suicides remain selfish because of the above rule
about the sacrificer being in a position of power. The three young men in the Aurora movie
theatre massacre demonstrate an opposing example of sacrifice in their unselfish sacrifices.
They died acting as human shields for their girlfriends. They bravely chose to die or at the
very least willingly took the risk to die in protecting loved ones by being the stronger
sacrificing for the weaker.

Selfish or Unselfish Sacrifice?

Conversely, if the one being sacrificed is weaker or inferior to the one standing to benefit
from the sacrifice then it is fundamentally a selfish sacrifice, as was the case with the Aurora
shooter. Another less dramatic (or obvious), yet all too common, instance of selfish sacrifice
occurs when the sacrificer, say a leader, is in a position of strength or power.
The leader who asks his or her followers to make a greater sacrifice on his or her behalf is
enacting a more selfish sacrifice than the other way around. This is mainly because of the
leaders position of power or privilege over the follower. Examples of these sorts of selfish
sacrifices are all too common in leadership today, especially amongst corporate executives.
They are known to far more often than not pursue their own self-interest by sacrificing
stakeholders and followers interests for their own benefit.
One of the worst recent examples of this rule of sacrifice is the ongoing Global Financial
Crisis (GFC), whose effects are being especially in the West. Findings confirm that these
selfish sacrifices were primarily caused by economic greed and moral failures. Without a
change of heart, laws cannot stop the self-interest of those more selfishly opportunistic than
unselfishly principled.
Despite these self-interested norms, leaders that voluntarily sacrifice their leadership for
successor success rather than their own selfish successes are actually more transformational
than leaders who do not. Even mediocre managers can become exceptional leaders through
their willingness to serve and sacrifice by putting their followers first rather than last.

Unmerited Favour
Historical instances of these unselfishly motivated sacrifices occurred when slave masters
voluntarily paid the ransom price for their slaves freedom then forewent all future income
that slave could earn by giving him or her freedom. The loyalty and gratitude of a freed man
or woman towards their master, whether they decided to stay in their masters service or go

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forth as a free man or woman is virtually unsurpassed because of the unmerited favour
received.
Jesus Christ, for instance, willingly sacrificed his life and leadership, rather than calling his
disciples to fight on his behalf, which his foes and followers expected him to do. The
gratitude of his disciples for their leaders act of unselfish sacrifice is also legendary, most
clearly exemplified by the martyrdom of Christians throughout history. Such sacrificial
thoughts and actions related to this martyria form the Christian basis for the outworking
servant leadership.
Similarly powerful sacrificial metaphors occurred historically when family or friends paid the
debts of family members and friends so they would not need to become servants or slaves to
pay off their debts. The Jewish tradition of a man acting as a kinsmen-redeemer by marrying
the widow of a brother or close relative to ensure this widow was cared for and any debts
were repaid is another ancient example of this unselfishly sacrificial metaphor in practice.
Thankfully for many, though not all, these situations are no longer a literal reality requiring
these sorts of costly sacrifices. These sacrificial principles do, however, still apply.
Incredible recent examples of this sort of unselfish sacrifice comes from first responders,
such as Rick Rescorla, to the September 11, 2001 twin towers attack by terrorists who
sacrificed so selfishly, is one of the more recent powerfully contrasting examples of selfish
and unselfish sacrifice.
Unselfish sacrifices such as those carried out by 9/11 heroes are often described as being
altruistic, because the sacrificers (appear to) unselfishly put others interests before their own.
These cases are especially relevant to the rules of selfish and unselfish sacrifice, because it
means making a conscious decision about who real heroes are by honouring them
accordingly. Deciding who were the unselfish and selfish sacrificers depends to some extent
on worldview and how the trio of questions interpreting sacrifice are answered.
Remember, there were both Muslims and non-Muslims who praised the terrorists as heroes.
Though a majority in both camps do recognise the selfish nature of the terrorist sacrifices, the
fact that many do not, highlights that different perspectives about selfish and unselfish
sacrifice prevail. Some sacrificial stories, including the one from 9/11 hero Rick Riscorra are
told later as relevant examples of unselfish sacrifices.

Motivations for Sacrifice

Thus, the degree to which a sacrifice is judged genuinely altruistic rather than selfish depends
on the sacrificers motivation for sacrificing and their relationship to the ones being saved or
destroyed. Since on both counts the terrorists proved to be more selfish than unselfish, only a
deliberate blindness to this truth could allow for the alternative interpretation that they were
really heroes saving their own Muslim people by killing the innocent or striking at the heart
of a malevolent superpower.
Despite this fact, careful assessment of these sacrificers reveals the myriad motivations for
sacrifice. Some are zealots driven by religious altruism, whereby the promise of eternal life
or paradise for good deeds drives their sacrificial acts. For others, such as police and soldiers,
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it is their call of duty to protect and to serve others that motivates their altruism. Others
sacrifice out of love for family members and friends or humanity more generally.

The Saviour and the Saved

Foremost in importance, at least from the perspective of the one being saved, is that someone,
a saviour, is actually saving them. Questioning the motivation of the sacrificer, at least at the
time of being saved is a moot point. For example, if you are on the brink of disaster, for
example you are caught in a flash flood, a wild fire or sexual slavery, you want to know there
is a saviour, not necessarily the saviours intentions for saving you.
At that point, the fact that they are willing to save you is a good enough reason to be initially
thankful and to assume their good intentions in offering salvation. Assessing motivations are
important after the fact though, because intent explains what strings may be attached to the
salvation that motivated the sacrifice in the first place. In other words, ultimately there is a
need to know why it is important to make sacrifices for others and the nature of the sacrifices
being made in order to willingly make them and to be saved by them.
A positive example of this unique relational power between the saviour and the saved occurs
when a person snatched from sexual slavery. His or her gratitude towards their saviours
unmerited favour by freeing them from this bondage and restoring their humanity is virtually
unmatched. This is the essence of an unselfish sacrifice which unfortunately has its equally
selfish equivalent.
A negative aspect of this relationship occurs between captor and captive, whereby the victim
becomes attached to the perpetrator or predator, as evidenced by some of the young women
captured by Boko Haram in Nigeria. Women and girls enslaved sexually who return to their
pimps or abusive partners as moths to a flame also confirm this bizarre yet real example of
selfish sacrifice.
Thus, within this relationship between the sacrificer and the sacrificed for, the saviour and the
saved lies a tremendous reciprocal power. It can be abused or used for great good. As an
unselfish sacrifice, there are benefits for both the sacrificer and the one being sacrificed for in
the mediatory role the sacrificer plays in the sacrifice. By being rescued from a natural
disaster, such as a flood or fire, the rescuers are often putting their lives on the line as the
rescued are entrusting themselves to their rescuers.
A similar illustration is found in the relationship between the one ransomed from sexual or
physical slavery and the ransomer. This slavery may be perpetuated by others or be the result
of the individuals own bad choices. Either way, its self-evident truth is the more unselfish
the sacrifice of the mediator or ransomer, the greater the appreciation for the sacrifice by the
one being ransomed or saved.
Based on these examples, it is vitally important to make a strong connection between the two
banks of Relationship and Legacy by the mediatory bridge called Sacrifice. Its foundations
are constructed on the selfish to unselfish nature of the sacrifices being made. The basic
formula for this interconnection is: Relationship x Sacrifice = Legacy. The two banks of the
river are Relationship and Legacy bridged by Sacrifice.
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This simple yet powerful equation determines how human relationships consistently
mediated by self-interested sacrifices produce selfish legacies that are generationally
unsuccessful. Regular unselfish sacrifices produce the polar opposite: intergenerational
success. In stark contrast to selfish sacrifices, relationships consistently mediated by
altruistic sacrifices produce unselfish legacies. Unselfish sacrifices are a generationally
successful legacy for practitioners.
This interaction between relationship and legacy mediated by sacrifice represents one of the
most powerful, if not the most powerful, map of human interaction. These interpersonal
relationships predict their own legacies through the selfish to unselfish qualities of their
sacrifices. Representing this equation with a slightly more complex formula of this map is:
Unselfish / Selfish Relationship x Unselfish / Selfish Sacrifice = Unselfish / Selfish Legacy.
The reason this is a multiplicational rather than additional model is that in both private and
public, it is a combination of multiple unselfish or selfish sacrifices in relationships that
determine their corresponding legacies. In other words, while selfish or unselfish sacrifices
individually add or subtract from a persons legacy, when compounded across a society their
effects are multiplied ten-fold.

Sacrificial Strings
Obviously most sacrifices and salvations come with some strings attached. The less selfinterest in the motivational strings attached to a sacrifice the more likely it is to be altruistic
and unselfish rather than selfish. As such, motivations are an important rule for sacrifice in
practical terms because sacrifice is usually an individual choice and act underwritten by a
social contract with community approval.
Importantly, most altruistic sacrifices occur when sacrificers are mutually willing to sacrifice
for each other. This is why camaraderie and friendship are so important and encouraged by
armed and emergency services because it is a necessary precursor to mutual sacrifice. The
greatest love and sacrifices of all are from people voluntarily laying down their lives for their
friends.

Emotional Bonds Stronger

Unlike amongst animals, genetic relationships are not the strongest bonds in the human
world. Emotionally close comrades and friends are found more likely to sacrifice for each
other than even family members, unless these family members are also emotionally close. In
other words, mutual friendship and love (fellowship) is ultimately a stronger motivator for
altruistic self-sacrifice than genetic ties.
The key to eliciting a more unselfish sacrifice is having mutually trusting and loving
relationships where those in positions of power or privilege prioritise those normally coming
last to be first.
Such relationships are based more strongly on a conscious faithfulness to care for each other
personally than emotional feelings of public loyalty to certain peoples or places over others.
Second is the motivation for sacrifice.
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If it is out of love for the object of the sacrifice its motivation is much purer and more
powerful than a sacrifice that is a means to a self-interested end.
For instance, during the crusades to recover the Holy Land from Muslims, Christian
crusaders were promised instant admission to heaven if they died in battle. Similar promises
of paradise were made to their enemies by their own Muslim leaders should they die in this
Islamic jihad. Obviously these selfish motivations for sacrifice are inferior to those who
choose death rather than compromise their convictions or comrades.
Examples of these unselfish sacrifices occur under totalitarian regimes to this day, such as
Christians and other prisoners of conscience in Muslim Iran and communist North Korea.
Unselfish self-sacrifices such as these speak strongly even if from the grave. They are the
main reason why unselfish sacrifices are such a strong motivator and testimony for mutual
love and sacrifice. Selfish sacrifices are such a poor imitation that their failure is almost
guaranteed when faced by their nemesis, unselfish sacrifice.
More often than not, this willingness to self-sacrifice for others is most strongly influenced
by the close ties of fellowship with those for whom they sacrifice and the personal beliefs of
the sacrificer. Observations that religious people are generally more altruistically sacrificial
than non-religious people because of these dual factors of faith and fellowship offer strong
confirmation of the faith factor in unselfish sacrifice. One of the main reasons for these
apparent differences in altruistic actions between the religious and non-religious is attributed
to religious altruism.
In other words, the motivation for religious sacrifice is the promise of and faith in a better
afterlife. While religious altruism is admittedly not always pure in its motivations, it does beg
the question why people with no spiritual motivation for religious altruism, such as atheists
and agnostics tend to be more selfish, despite being more tolerant. These observations about
self-sacrifice are a conundrum for secular sciences naturalistic hypothesis that scientific facts
and reason trump spiritual faith and practice.
Agnostic and atheistic practitioners of science in particular find such realities and findings
vexing because such inconsistencies are scientifically illogical due to their worldview.
Unselfish sacrifice is especially unreasonable because it goes against the secular scientific
rationale that due to humans having more logical reasons for self-sacrifice, better qualities of
altruism will emerge from humanist sacrifices than religious ones due to this superior
reasoning ability.

Faith Trumps Reason

A fatal problem with this thinking is that, so far, no viable alternative has been found with
regard to sacrifice that does not involve significant amounts of faith. It is unlikely that in the
realms of secular scientific reasoning an alternative will be found. At the very least faith in
family and friends, which usually includes the conviction that a higher power rewards such
acts of altruism, are prerequisites for consistent self-sacrifice.
Thus, while it is plausible, even reasonable in theory to think that to risk ones life to save
others requires no faith other than faith in reason, so far the evidence is quite the opposite.
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Faith in reason seems to be sorely lacking in its evidence for unselfish sacrifices by its
adherents. Because unselfish sacrifice requires high levels of faith in action to operate, low
levels of faith impede such sacrificial actions.
By destroying the foundations of faith in favour of rational reasoning, secular science and its
agnostic, atheistic expressions should not be surprised that selfish sacrifices abound within
their worldview. Whether an intended or unintended consequence of faith, people of religious
faith, particularly practicing Christians are, generally speaking, more altruistic than atheists.
Thus, while there may be no scientific reason why those lacking religious faith, such as
atheists and agnostics, should be any less altruistic, these facts remain as the rules of sacrifice
predict. Genuine religious faith requires more unselfish sacrifices because it requires active
altruism rather than activism. Even supporters of the case for atheists and secular people
having a stronger sense of social justice acknowledge that it is tolerance for morally
questionable behaviours that their more religious peers ethically oppose, such as abortion,
euthanasia and same-sex marriage that qualifies them as being unselfish.
Whether any of the above social justice issues are genuinely unselfish or unselfishly
sacrificial are as questionable as finding churchgoers are more altruistic because they give
more money to their churches than non-church goers. To get below the surface of these
opposing views of altruistic abilities and actions in relation to sacrifice, requires an
understanding of how humans arrive at these decisions.

Consciousness versus Conscience

To decide how unselfish or selfish a sacrifice is requires a basic working knowledge of
human nature. What makes a person human is their ability to discern, and decide on doing or
not doing, what is morally good and evil, right and wrong. In so doing, most humans can
choose to do one of these things over another, commend or condemn something or someone
by both their thoughts and actions.
When it comes to sacrifice, the selfish and unselfish motives amongst people for surrendering
themselves, someone or, something else, abound. At their core these abilities and actions are
based on and mediated by instinct and conscience. Instinct is the natural drive to do
something one feels like doing whereas conscience is the unnatural caution to consider the
consequences of instinctual actions. Consciousness relates to degrees of awareness about
these actions.
Essentially conscience rather than consciousness is what differentiates humans and animals.
Both act instinctively and sacrificially, yet only humans know they have done so
conscientiously in a selfish or unselfish manner. For example, something is done that natural
desires and instinct drive us to do only to feel remorse and sorrow in our consciences after the
act is an exclusively human condition. Apes may may be conscious of their actions as
humans are, however do not have a conscience to weigh up the relative merits of their actions
as we do.
By reading this book, you are proving that you are not only conscious but have a conscience.
You are not an ape!
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It is this knowledge of good and evil, this spiritual sense of ultimate responsibility and
accountability that causes humans remorse and regret. Because animals are instinctual, they
do not suffer depression and despair as humans do, because they do not have a conscience
that reminds them of past regrets and wrongdoing.
The reality of conscience versus consciousness remains despite the best efforts of secular
science to remove such concerns. For example, the Cambridge University Declaration on
Consciousness, 7 July 2012, from some of the worlds most eminent neuroscientists, points to
the physiological similarities between animal and human brains, not the differences. Their
failure to even note the key spiritual element of human conscience is telling.
Despite this omission, the spiritual problem of conscience or the consciousness of moral
consequences remains, especially when it comes to sacrifice. Due to conscience, when
humans make selfish sacrifices in their relationships, even if secular science tells them that
these sacrifices are naturally instinctive--even normal, they inevitably cause pain and
suffering to the perpetrator and victims if they are fundamentally selfish.
Ultimately, there is a spiritual price to pay when relationships are mediated by selfish
sacrifices that manifest in legacies of profound unhappiness, despair and dysfunction.
Looking at human relationships, sacrifices and legacies in this light give the right sort of
insights into the nature of the problem with consistent selfishness. Generationally, selfish
sacrifices literally kill--physically and spiritually.
Now the secular scientific response usually points out that these insights can be arrived at
rationally via reason using human consciousness. On this basis the rational human can then
use conscious, especially scientific reasoning to make the right rather than wrong moral
choices. To some extent this secular, humanistic logic is true, with one significant limitation,
especially when applied to sacrifice.
Humans have a natural tendency to do wrong rather than right, to act selfishly rather than
unselfishly and know they are doing, or have done it. No amount of scientific reasoning can
right this natural tendency to do wrong, even amongst the greatest minds in history. The
great Albert Einsteins contract relegating his wife to be his housekeeper and philosopher
Bertrand Russell's womanising ways are both examples that human reason alone fails to save
one from making selfish sacrifices, no matter how intelligent one may be.
Thus, it is an undeniable and unfortunate fact of life that the human tendency is to choose to
act selfishly rather than unselfishly more often than not. This core truth about the human
condition is another fundamental difference between humans and animals. Animals may act
selfishly or unselfishly according to human values, yet they do not get depressed or suicidal
about, it does not fundamentally damage their social relationships, nor do their family
legacies become dysfunctional as a consequence because they are not personally responsible
for their actions.
Herein is the reason why young animals are not committing suicide in record numbers, their
families are not breaking down due to divorce and separation and their homosexual and
bisexual unions are having no major social impact. Some mammals, such as the apes, may do
all of this consciously as humans do.
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The fundamental difference is conscience, which makes a moral judgement about such
actions rather than merely having the instinctual consciousness of being aware of what is
done. Humans sacrifice selfishly and unselfishly knowing there are consequences and
ultimate personal responsibility for these actions.
Secular science has done a good job dumbing down and diminishing the pangs of conscience
in favour of conscious reasoning, yet humans cannot escape the moral consequences of
selfish sacrifices. Nor can they rationally reason their way into unselfish sacrifices, without
first recognising their far costlier nature. Unselfish sacrifices in human relationships are more
expensive because they are others-orientated and are based on conscience rather than
consciousness.

Worldviews and Sacrifice

In analysing the nature of sacrifice, matters of conscience and their consequences are the
outworking of the worldviews mentioned earlier. To reiterate, a worldview is the philosophy
that informs or motivates an individuals personal and historical point of view. Obviously a
worldview has a major influence on selfish and unselfish sacrifice. A worldview is the
foundation on which people act. Worldviews inform values and ethics in individuals and
groups and are relevant to selfish and unselfish sacrifice on that basis.
Conscience informs worldviews through sacrificial actions, even if apparently instinctive. In
many cases, sacrifices are made with much less forethought because of the immediacy of the
situation. For example, father of three and lawyer Brendan Keilar, who was shot dead in
Melbourne, Australia in 2007 while shielding a young women being threatened by her gunwielding ex-boyfriend, may have made an instinctive self-sacrifice.
That is, under the circumstances, he did not have much time to think about and reason
through his heroic decision. Suffice to say, whether or not Mr. Keilar, a much-loved family
man and work colleague, had time to think through the consequences of his actions or not, his
will to act was based on a conscious decision informed by his values and conscience.
Confirming the importance of his personal values were the tributes and testimonials that
flooded in for Mr Keilar from his former mates in the Melbourne Age newspaper, June 20,
2007 titled Tributes to slain Samaritan. Brendan was acknowledged as a character with a
deep morality and concern for the wellbeing of others. While his actions based on conscience
may have been instinctive, they were caused by an unselfish rather than selfish nature that
would have developed over his lifetime.
Healthy humans learn more unselfish ways of acting and reacting as they mature and these
higher levels of consciousness are objective signs of maturity. Interestingly, it is through
learning to serve others that a person understands service and develops a mature conscience.
Importantly, these stages of maturity start selfishly in childhood and only become more
unselfish if the subject is able to overcome this natural tendency for self-love during
adolescence and into adulthood. Failing to mature unselfishly results in narcissism.
An easily relatable example is that of children, who speak, think and reason like...children.
Adults are expected to give up childish ways and become mature.
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Maturity means acting more unselfishly and sacrificially than children tend to. If this is
happening less and less as more and more people become increasingly narcissistic and
selfish, then as the rules of relationship, sacrifice and legacy predict, more and more
selfish sacrifices will be made rather than unselfish ones.
Because human sacrifices are matters of conscience rather than instinct, their outcomes and
outworking are a result of faulty and more flawless worldviews. Humans sacrifice because of
their faith in each other and in their beliefs. When this faith is eroded through selfish
sacrifices and reasoning, the capacity for unselfish sacrifices becomes emptied of its reason
for being. Its replacement is the hopelessness and helplessness of despair.
This erosion of unselfish sacrifices due to selfish sacrifices in humans is unlike the instinctive
actions of a weaver ant, for instance. It instinctively and consistently sacrifices both in its
reason for and action of self-sacrificing. Weaver ant soldiers, when their line is broken
instinctively sacrifice their lives to defend their nest, comrades and queen. They do this
naturally, whereas humans need to learn to do these unselfish things because they do not
come naturally.

Unnatural Selection
Equating the instinctive altruism of weaver ants and other animals with the conscientious
unselfish sacrifice of one human for another is poor at best because it fails to encompass
human conscience formed by worldview and culture. Understanding these rules of sacrifice
are important to guard against the assumption that humans merely sacrifice instinctively as
animals do.
While this may happen occasionally because the sacrificer reacts with little time to think
rationally through his or her actions, normally even these apparently spontaneous acts of
human altruism are morally based, therefore requiring forethought that informs subsequent
actions. Obviously, the army ant does not sacrifice altruistically on the same basis as a human
does because the army ant acts instinctively whereas the human altruist acts based on
conscious will and moral judgement.
Human self-sacrifice is morally based on what the individual sacrificer and their society hold
to be right and wrong. That is why one human can give his life by flying a plane into a
skyscraper to self-detonate and another can give his life to save those the other is trying to
kill. Neither are motivated purely by instinct or reason. Instead, humans are uniquely
motivated by values that translate into selfish and unselfish sacrifices in the personal and
public spheres.
Renowned evolutionist, Charles Darwin, insightfully understood this factor as exemplified by
his observations of tribes in the quote at the beginning of this chapter. Here, Darwin is
saying societies that sacrifice more unselfishly will eventually be more morally successful as
a group than those groups that dont sacrifice with similar levels of unselfishness. In other
words, unselfish sacrifices, despite costing more, especially for the sacrificers, ultimately
improve group selection and success.

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This is presuming, of course, that unselfish sacrifices are of fundamentally greater value than
selfish sacrifices, which is based on a moral worldview not naturalistic instinct. In other
words, the foundations of unselfish sacrifice must be worth intrinsically more than unselfish
sacrifice. These are group values that are unnatural at an individual level unless endorsed
and practiced by the group.
Thus, Darwins statement is both right and wrong and representative of the conundrum faced
by many secular scientists when dealing with sacrifice. It is indeed correct that societies,
which sacrifice unselfishly more than selfishly, will ultimately outperform their more selfish
counterparts. The reason for this outcome is because unselfish sacrifices inevitably
outperform selfish ones. Unselfish sacrifices are inherently more powerful than selfish ones,
because the unselfish perfection of faith, hope and love for others casts out their selfish
opposites as categorically as light ousts darkness.

Values are Taught rather than Caught

It is mistaken, however, to assume that such unselfish sacrifices are a result of natural
selection. That is, they occur naturally and spontaneously. In fact, they are the opposite.
Unselfish sacrifices are not naturally selected. Humans are naturally selfish, especially among
the powerful, therefore generosity and altruism must be taught rather than caught and must
operate at both an individual and group level to succeed generationally.
This group selection of individuals acting sacrificially is not natural selection and assuming
that it is one of the most common mistakes made by secular scientists relying on evolutionary
theories to map human behaviour. Relying on evolution to run its course of natural selection
will not right the imbalance of selfish versus unselfish sacrifices. If anything, it will
exacerbate the imbalance towards selfish sacrifices because of human nature.
Unselfish sacrifice is unnatural selection because human nature tends to sacrifice selfishly
more than unselfishly, unless by mutual agreement the group agrees and takes action to do
otherwise. When the balance shifts from unselfish to selfish sacrifices in a group or society,
there are suicidal consequences is the main point of these observations. The only realistic
way to change is through greater acts of altruism or increased authoritarianism.
Given these realities, secular science argues that these special conditions of unselfish, mutual
cooperation are usually unrealistic in the natural world, yet recognises that religions in human
tribal groupings foster just such otherwise unrealistic special conditions. What most secular
scientists deliberately do not dwell on is the reason why Darwin came as close as he did to
acknowledging group selection in his discussion of altruism.

Morals not Reason Inform Values

It is because Darwin understood that morals inform selfish and unselfish sacrifice, especially
at a group level even though individuals carry out these sacrifices. Individuals do sacrifice
altruistically of their own accord but are more likely to do so if their moral code and ethical
practices--and communities--support such actions.

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Having grown up in a non-western culture, I can personally attest to this reality from
observing and treating people in serious accidents.
For example, the number of people who crowd around to stare without assisting coupled with
self-important organisers unwilling to risk personal harm is sickening to those accustomed to
passers-by acting as first responders until trained professionals take over. Consider it this
way: where would you prefer to be injured and treated? An initial response might be that
these non-western people are less compassionate and altruistic than westerners.
The truth is, though, that if there is anything separating them from westerners in terms of the
quality of their sacrifices it will be found in their worldview of sacrifice and subsequent
selfish or unselfish actions. It is certainly not that westerners are naturally more unselfishly
than selfishly sacrificial, rather it is the way someone has been nurtured. This is crucially
important to having a genuine understanding about sacrifice. We are not naturally inclined to
be unselfish, but selfish and our worldview and culture guides our actions.
Left to our own devices, we will naturally choose selfish rather than unselfish sacrifices.
More often than not, unless our group mutually agrees to practice and reciprocate unselfish
sacrifice by rewarding those who do and punishing those who dont, we will always tend to
sacrifice selfishly. Obviously this is not natural selection but unnatural selection because it
goes against human nature and what humans do naturally without being taught to do
otherwise.

Action rather than Acknowledgement

In other words, individuals do not naturally sacrifice altruistically unless there is mutual
agreement amongst their group or tribe to do so. Despite the fact that certain individuals may
of their own accord act more altruistically than others, in an overall sense, it is the worldview
of societies or tribes that determines selfish or unselfish acts not the random actions of
individuals. This is why not all people serve and sacrifice altruistically for others equally,
even if most people equally acknowledge that unselfish sacrifice is superior to selfish
sacrifice.
Just because a tribe mutually agrees that altruism is better than selfishness does not mean that
they will necessarily do anything about it in terms of sacrifice. Apparently selfish sacrifices
may not immediately damage a tribes social relationships, nor do their family legacies
suddenly become dysfunctional as a consequence. A tribe not personally taking
responsibility for their selfish sacrifices does not usually suffer immediate harm.
Instead, the suicidal consequences of selfish sacrifices may take some time, even a number of
generations, till their acute effects take hold. By then, it may be too late for a tribe to notice
the impending peril because most of its members have become so desensitised to the problem
they no longer see it as an issue. To be effective, a tribe must mutually agree and act on what
it knows is right.
Simply agreeing that unselfish sacrifices are superior or even valuing such altruism does not
make people altruistic.

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Worldwide there are far more cultures and communities that have faith in the humanity of
unselfish sacrifice than those that actually work at sacrificing unselfishly. Indeed, most
cultures aspire to a humane orientation where the wellbeing of others comes first, yet far
fewer cultures actually put this humane orientation into practice.

Obedience, Ignorance and Disobedience

Here the gap between knowing whats right and doing it is wide. Obedience, doing what one
knows is right even when it hurts, is the problem rather than ignorance, which is not knowing
the right thing to do. An example of ignorance occurs amongst some Dayak tribal people of
Borneo. Children with vomiting and diarrhoea have fluids withheld because their parents
wrongly believe that giving them solids such as rice was a better option. Many children died
until their parents learned to give their children fluids rather than solids.
Thankfully, their ignorance has been replaced with knowledge and to their credit, they are
acting on the new knowledge they now have with many young lives now saved as a result.
Where deliberate ignorance occurs, the darkness and hopelessness is greater because people
have chosen to be blind to what they know is true. Deliberate disobedience results in selfish
rather than unselfish sacrifice when what is wrong is called right and what is right is called
wrong then approved--even applauded. Many people accept abortion as a necessary evil, yet
now some who sacrifice the lives of unborn children want to be called heroes.
Others who are more honest, express regret and sadness about their actions. The challenge
with adopting the woman having the abortion or the doctor performing it or the man who
walked away as a hero in the abortion narrative is that these people are not particularly heroic
or unselfish. How these patients and practitioners value themselves and their decisions about
sacrifice when they are more often not the saviours is an important question.
The rhetoric that physicians have used about saving the womans life or that it is better for
the womans life to abort the baby has not really helped either manage their stigma or guilt.
They are recognising that because abortion is more often than not a selfish sacrifice they
dont get to be the heroes in the story. The only way around such a conundrum is to totally
change the narrative to make selfish sacrifices unselfish to suit a changing worldview.
An example of these narrative changes is the rewriting of the Hippocratic oath that originally
forbade abortions and euthanasia to now allow for them. Similarly, some of the new heroes
are sports stars coming out publicly due to their sexuality rather than their exploits on the
field. To receive a personal phone call from a president is usually reserved for more
sacrificial acts of bravery than publicly announcing ones sexual orientation.
The point here is not whether it is courageous or heroic or not for an individual to come out
as being gay. Rather, it is a question about whether announcing ones sexual orientation is a
sacrifice worthy of the honour of being called courageous or heroic. Instead, the appropriate
question is: are these actions ultimately selfish or unselfish and will the relationships that are
birthed by these sacrifices leave a successful or unsuccessful legacy?

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There is a failure to grasp that having as a folk hero someone whose sexual choices selfishly
destroy the moral code of heterosexual monogamous marriage and procreation must be
classified a different sort of hero, maybe even an antihero. Secular scientific bias is obvious
in the hero worship of selfish sacrifices even if the sacrificer is brave in making the sacrifice.
A selfish hero can certainly be brave. So is the abortionist who caters to the often selfish
relationships that lead to the selfish sacrifices of the unborn.

Selfish Sacrifices are Unsustainable

Historically, no successful society has ever been sustained by the heroism of such selfish
sacrifices nor lauded these sorts as heroes. Unfortunately, this fact seems to escape the
reasoning of otherwise sharp secular scientific minds. These modern day heroes pale into
insignificance when compared with the unselfish sacrifices of antislavery advocate William
Wilberforce, civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King or anti apartheid champion Nelson
Mandela.
To counter the championing of such unselfish heroism, secular science subtly attempts to
dilute unselfish testimonies by championing their own selfish heroes. In tandem with this
replacing of the unselfish hero narrative with a more selfish one is the retelling or restricting
of unselfish stories, remembrance rituals and religious holidays as old fashioned even
potentially threatening to tolerance and unity.
Consider the secular scientific attacks on celebrating Christ in Christmas, disdain for overt
displays of patriotism for returning and remembered soldiers and attempts to destroy past
heroes by cynically trying to expose any of their possible flaws. All are attempts to discredit
unselfish sacrifices so selfish heroism can become more acceptable.
The reason for this concerted attempt to discredit and destroy unselfish sacrifices is simple.
Freely and independently compared side-by-side, unselfish sacrifices are much more likely to
register positively than selfish sacrifices. Unless deliberate attempts are made to subvert
these unselfish stories by replacing them with testimonies of selfish sacrifices, unselfish
sacrifices are superior.
There is an explicit intent behind much of this traditional cultural destruction of heroes. It is
to replace traditional heroes with new heroes that better suit the new religion of Secular
Science. By replacing one sort of hero with another, the vital question is does this promote
more unselfish or selfish sacrifices. To put it another way, is promoting sexual equality by
championing the coming out of a homosexual sports stars and celebrities really on the same
par as other acts of heroism such as sacrificing oneself for others, as 9/11 heroes did?
Ultimately, the question in terms of sacrifice is this: Do these changes promote selfish or
unselfish sacrifice and what are the implications of these changes for individuals and society?
For example, monogamous marriage between a man and a woman was once considered a
sacrosanct cornerstone of western society. Now, it is no longer. Any sort of coupling is now
considered okay and even normal provided it is between two consenting adults.
In fact, those who stand for traditional Judaeo-Christian values now stand accused as bigots.

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With laws being drafted and enacted to protect people from such sexual vilification, there is
already evidence of reverse discrimination occurring against traditional religious values. For
example, western government agencies and commissions are increasingly intending to
deregister or disqualify organisations established to promote monogamous marriage. Because
of their 'intolerance' towards "marriage equality" these charitable organisations are seen as
biased or political, thus having no public benefit.
Similar biases have occurred towards non-profit organisations that are considered
conservative rather than liberal. Regarding it as in the public interest to deregister, bar from
public schools and forums more traditional family organisations, while actively supporting
their opponents is a particularly dangerous trend.

Encouraging Authoritarianism
By not allowing the free flow of ideas, opposition and debate that have been the basis for
democratic and scientific discourse for centuries is strangled. The danger in this selfishly
biased approach should be obvious. Secular science is encouraging authoritarianism.
Another example of this bias are scientists and academics who have been removed from or
are unable to get research and teaching tenure at universities due to their religious beliefs,
which are viewed as being unscientific.
These philosophical decisions come despite the fact that these scientists and academics are
qualified researchers with a track record of successfully using the scientific method in an
unbiased way. It is true that a majority of secular scientists reject the existence of a personal
God. Similar views abound amongst technocrats and bureaucrats, so it is no surprise that
people of religious faith are excluded by these new elites.
Whether or not these cases are resolved in favour of the discriminated is almost irrelevant in
terms of selfish sacrifice, because it shows that leaders currently in power are making selfish
sacrifices by their actions. These selfish sacrifices will, over time, result in more
discrimination, even if the aim of these actions is to prevent people from being discriminated
against. Consider the outcry if liberal groups opposed to these conservative groups were
targeted in this way.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his 1973 masterpiece, the Gulag Archipelago a true story of his
life under the secretive Soviet Communist system of oppression and imprisonment makes
some salient points that are relevant to the selfish sacrifices currently being made by secular
authorities in the West.
During Solzhenitsyns time, church leaders were complaining against local authorities who
were crudely attacking their religious beliefs and violating their freedom of conscience.
Instead of assisting the churches with their complaints, local authorities actively persecuted
them by taking them to court and imprisoning them. Similar examples of such crude
harassment abound with attempts to stop workers sharing their personal faith publicly or
forcing business owners to carry out work they find morally offensive.

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Delusions of Grandeur
These examples demonstrate the ease by which whole societies can be deluded by a few bad
ideas or people. This myopia or short sightedness toward more important and immediate
challenges can lead to dangerous delusions about reality. For example, in the U.S. seventythree per cent of all black children are born out of wedlock, with violent crime much higher
between blacks than from whites on blacks.
Despite these troubling trends amongst black folks, the focus of most activists remains on
cases personally pertinent to their political agendas yet publicly less important to the real
social tragedy of so many young black lives lost through violent, selfish sacrifices. Such a
sobering statistic is but one of the many that have been presented to point out the dangerous
delusion that consistently making selfish sacrifices has no major consequences. Suicides are
another example of an epidemic that is underreported because it does not suit activist
agendas.
Secular science has failed to prove that its vision of the world is any better than previous
versions. Only this time selfish sacrifices that have never before been approved of by
civilised societies such as same-sex and multi-sex marriages, abortion and euthanasia are
being openly applauded as normal. Any person standing against this juggernaut of selfish
sacrifices is persecuted or prosecuted for being bigoted and intolerant.
This arrogance comes despite the fact that these selfish sacrifices are leaving a suicidal
legacy of people who cannot stand to live the life they are encouraged to lead. With these
selfish sacrifices come three particularly dangerous delusions, especially with regard to our
relationships and legacies. These selfish delusions occur in three main areas.
In our families, the basic building block of society, the natural environment that sustains us
and personally, in relation to conscience as the knowledge of good and evil that informs our
actions. Because of their importance to unselfish sacrifice each selfish delusion and their
corresponding truth obtained through unselfish sacrifice are explained in detail.

Biological Families Stronger

Families need each other: husbands need wives, wives need their husbands and children need
their parents. Since time immemorial this basic family relationship has been the most
effective collaboration in history, especially in terms of producing a successful legacy. With
the breakdown of the family unit through divorce, cohabitation, remarriage, same-sex and
multi-sex relationships, the dangerous delusion that family is whatever you want it to be and
make it is a particularly risky hypothesis.
Already, research proves that it is a dangerous and selfish delusion to assume that any
combination of parental relationship will produce unselfish legacies in their children. The rise
of increasingly selfish generations is a testament to this falsehood. For a legacy of healthy
offspring to grow into mature men and women, parents must become much more sacrificial
and intentional in nurturing and disciplining their children. This requires both parents and
particularly fathers to be directly involved in a child's life education process.
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Obviously this is challenging with the enormous demands on parents' time from work and
leisure activities that do not involve their children. Yet investing time and effort into
children's lives is arguably one of the most important contributions a dad can have in the life
of a child, whether or not that child is their progeny. That is why child sexual abuse in
particular is such a heinous crime and sin, because it robs a child of this important
relationship and replaces then perpetuates it with one of the most selfish examples of
sacrifice known only to humans.
To put your family first requires parents and fathers in particular to teach their children
diligently and repeatedly. This means intentionally using each situation as a life education
opportunity and exercise. Talk with them when you are sitting at home, instead of just
watching a screen alone or together. Go out walking with them, rather than walking alone (as
I admit preferring to do) or not at all because so many parents are now sedentary or too busy
with personal agendas. All these sorts of activities take extra time and supreme effort because
they are countercultural to our current ways of life.
Unlike previous generations who trained up their children by involving them in the hunting
and gathering and farming of the family and community, current generations have a much
more virtual and abstract connection to the world around them. Elders spent hours with their
charges by taking opportunities through daily activities to impart their tribal lore and local
knowledge.
Blessed to grow up in a tribal Dayak society, I learned many of my life skills from tribal
elders who took me fishing and hunting, in the process showing me how nature worked, what
was edible and inedible, names of plants and animals, their use and part in nature. They spent
hours with me by taking opportunities through daily activities to impart their tribal lore and
local knowledge.

Environmental Enigma
After family, a direct relationship with our environment, the world around us is equally vital.
So many people these days are divorced from a direct relationship to nature that they are
unaware of the real environmental issues facing our natural world. While populist, political,
secular scientific causes like global warming capture public attention, especially in the West,
the enigma of such environmental activism is that people genuinely care and are more likely
to act unselfishly about things with which they have a direct relationship.
Environmental degradation and destruction on an epic scale is occurring in the developing
world. Within a generation, in my living memory, the forests and rivers that I grew up and
lived in on the island of Borneo, and learned to survive from, are mostly gone. Burning
jungle for palm oil plantations, the main culprits of recent haze blanketing Singapore and
Malaysia, is continuing at a record rate.
Consumers are buying palm oil despite the environmental dangers even when there are
alternatives. For example, the Arenga Sugar Palm, long cultivated by tribal people for palm
sugar is far more sustainable than oil palms with the potential to replenish and rehabilitate
degraded environments.
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Despite these possibilities, in West Kalimantan of Indonesian Borneo, gold mining dredges
the rivers and its banks of gold whilst clouding the once clear water with sediment.
Because of the chemical cocktails of phosphates from palm oil tree fertilisers and pesticides
and mercury from gold mining leaching as run-off into rivers, the water in many places is no
longer drinkable and far fewer fish than before are being caught. Of those fish still being
caught, many locals suspect they are contaminated. The animals that once filled the forests
and fed the people such as bearded pigs and rusa deer are almost unheard and unseen.
Thankfully in the West, due to stronger laws and better enforcement, and more limited
corruption, the situation is not so bad. That being said, so many people today no longer really
know where their food comes from and how it is made that much of what is known is second
hand information. Humans have a natural inclination towards protecting or pillaging the
environment, because it is in our natures to tend to nature and manage it.
Our penchant for gardening and growing things has a deep resonance in our spirits, giving a
sense of peace and fulfilment well beyond most of what we can and do produce to feed
ourselves. Unfortunately, this intimate relationship between humans and nature has been
broken in so many ways by our industrialised lifestyles that many of the younger generations
have no real association with nature beyond the virtual worlds of their computers.
The relevance of this separation from nature for sacrifice is that those that are divorced from
or do not have a close relationship with the natural world are unlikely to take concrete steps
to protect it. Thankfully efforts to educate kids in gardening and greening up our suburbs and
being involved in small-scale school agricultural projects are working to sensitise kids
somewhat to the natural world. However, because of their attachment to technical gadgetry,
especially interactive screens, this environmental enigma where children know lots about
their environments yet have little direct relationship to their natural world is growing.

Dangerous Devices
Knowing about something or someone is not the same as knowing them in a relational sense.
Again, Bahasa Indonesia, the national language of Indonesia, captures this distinction well in
the saying tak kenal maka tak sayang. Loosely translated it means you cannot love what
you do not have a relationship with. Young people today with instant access to information
from their hand-held devices such as smart' phones and tablets are arguably one of the most
knowledgeable generations to ever walk the earth. These screenagers are also tied to their
devices in some rather unhealthy ways. They are obsessed with their screen time and become
grumpy and disruptive if their access to these devices is curtailed.
Some of the first intelligible words of my 18-month old was iPud and, if permitted, is
already adept at playing baby games. Though cute, the inherent danger of these devices
should be obvious. Because these dangerous devices allow children almost instant and
unlimited access to information, their potential for abuse and encouraging selfish sacrifices
are enormous.

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The first selfish sacrifices usually come from us as parents in allowing them more
unsupervised time online and on-device because when they are otherwise entertained they are
not encroaching on our precious time. Thus, a subtle yet clear message is sent to our children
that such selfish sacrifices are okay. I must admit I am guilty as charged.
In response kids act out selfishly when their device use is curtailed because they recognise
the inherently selfish sacrifice made by their parents in allowing them to overuse these
devices in the first place. A second device danger is the delusions of grandeur and
intelligence that virtual information and knowledge conveys to the device user. This virtual
information, no matter how 'real time' cannot replace direct contact with the physical world.
Because kids cannot process such enormous amounts of information into genuine knowledge,
they naturally overestimate their capabilities. This is especially obvious in basic
comprehension of more in-depth topics that requires processing and understanding blocks of
information not just bits and bytes of it. Studies show that many higher education graduates
today do not have the ability to comprehensively analyse literature, despite being adept at
accessing it.
It is also worth noting that the children of many Silicon Valley scions such as Apples Steve
Jobs are banned from using the very devices that their parents fortunes are built on. The
reason for their cautions is that these parents recognise the inherent danger of virtual devices
to their childrens personal and academic development.
Beyond that, with so much virtually available knowledge of good and evil, without the user
having any direct relationship to or with it is also dangerous. It mentally desensitises and
demystifies topics such as sex, spirituality and science that young people are not yet
emotionally mature enough handle or deal with maturely.
Also, most virtual online relationships are not mediated by the elder-initiate communitas
relationship, whereby elders who have already gone through an initiation rite guide the next
generation through this ritual. Instead, in most cases, online social media relationships are
between peers, children led by children. The fact that these virtual Oliver Twists, Dickensian
child leaders, get up to no good is no surprise.
In most cases, there is no real mature mediator in this media relationship other than
technology or extra vigilant parents. One of the questions that must be asked is whether
virtual communities are on the same par as the communitas between people more directly
linked through closer physical encounters. The simple answer is No. Because more
information and contacts can be accessed via the Internet than through virtually any other
medium, it is easy to become deluded about your own knowledge and popularity.
Virtual worlds are not the same as real worlds. Until we can recognise this reality, virtual
knowledge in all its online forms could be a much greater contributor to selfish sacrifice than
first thought. Because virtual images mirror, yet cannot replace real life experiences and
relationships, the potential for an unnatural selfish desensitisation is very real, as the creators
of early video gaming in the U.S. military realised and intended.
Desensitisation, due to the virtual worlds created along with the overwhelmingly selfish
sacrifices of secular science, is resulting in the suicidal consequences being seen today.
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Today is the day to start making changes that can start reversing the selfish sacrifices in your
life and reorient yourself towards unselfish sacrifices.
The dangerous delusion that selfish sacrifices are of equal benefit to unselfish sacrifices must
be dispelled. When you start objectively looking at this evidence with all your heart and are
willing to take the necessary, concrete steps mentioned in this book to bring about unselfishly
sacrifice in your relationships, your legacy will be more successful. History guarantees it.
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Chapter 5
Law of Legacy
A society dominated by the scientific outlook will take over all of the trappings
of propaganda and organized pressures developed over the ages by religions,
and, later, political systems. The secular society is then in being ~ Albert
Grazia

Unreasonable Reason
Last but by no means least in this sacrificial and unsacrificial trilogy of Relationships
mediated by Sacrifice is Legacy. Relationships mediated by selfish and unselfish sacrifices
inevitably lead to the law of legacy. If relationships are the subject and sacrifices verbs, then
legacies are the object of these life sentences (pun intended). The life sentences created by
the selfish and unselfish relationships and sacrifices leave their intended and unintended
legacies.
In a world dominated by secular science the mantra is that everyone must be reasonable and
everything can be reasoned through. What cannot be reconciled by reason will sort itself out
through evolution and other natural and secular scientific processes. This secular scientific
way of thinking and acting about life and living is a vain attempt to unite what previously
was separated and separate what has been united for millennia.
If homosexuality, for example, does not work in nature, then even if it can be made to work
in mans world, due to homosexuality being a fundamentally selfish sacrifice it is a legacy of
self-interest. And, even with evidence of a human practice working in nature, for example
polygamy, if historical evidence finds against polygamy amongst humans, then it cannot be
made right by pointing to animal behaviour as a human benchmark of morality.
If this grand social experiment is fundamentally failing at its core because the basic rules of
life and living are being broken due to selfish relationships and sacrifices, then despite its
glitter and glamour, techniques and technologies, its legacy will fail. Chronic depression and
suicidal unhappiness are symptoms of an unnatural and unsustainable separation, not the
cause.
Divorce, on the other hand, is a separation between things that ought to be connected.
Separating things that should be connected is even more dangerous. Divorce is normally used
to describe the dissolution of a marriage. To properly understand selfish and unselfish
sacrifice, this division can be applied more widely than the dissolution of a marriage because
of divorces implications for the quality and success of sacrifice.

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Healthy Separations of Power

For example, the separation of church (organised religion) and state (political institutions) in
the West was not originally intended to be a divorce, because the founding fathers of most
western democracies recognised that religious freedom helped protect democratic freedom
even if they were not personally religious.
An objective reading of the United States of America Declaration of Independence is a
relevant example of separating Church and State rather than divorcing them.
Today, this is no longer the case as secular nations divorce religion from politics and science.
The problem with this approach, similar to other divorces, is that the absence of one
relationship requires the formulation of another. This self-evident rule or law in relationships
is evident in Science becoming the new god of the West at the expense of Christendom.
Secularisms new partner or lover is Science and the now separated, though not-quitedivorced partner is Christendom. Similar to divorcing sexual partners, this separation causes
all sorts of conflicts and jealousy. Furthermore, divorces cause paradigm shifts. Anyone in or
observing a new romantic relationship knows how inevitable even necessary it is for partners
to change the way they do things to suit this new alliance.

Paradigm Shifts
These fundamental changes in allegiance cause a paradigm shift, because one worldview
must first replace another in the process of consummating a new relationship. Thomas S.
Kuhns description this particular process of paradigm shifts in scientific revolutions is
pertinent to our study of social revolution. His particular focus, scientific revolutions, is
especially relevant, even prophetic to selfish and unselfish sacrifice because Science is the
new partner of Secularism.
Kuhns findings from paradigm shifts in scientific revolutions notes that for a new paradigm
to come about a previous worldview must be supplanted. Returning to marriage
relationships, as even a casual observer or actor in a human divorce knows, it is the children
(the legacy) rather than the parents who are most effected by this relationship breakdown.
Children who are products of divorce suffer negatively from this family breakdown and
consider divorce in a much more negative light than their parents.
Ironically, despite their aversion towards divorce, children of divorce will tend to make
similar mistakes to their parents as these problems become genetic and generational.
Evidence for the Law of Legacy coming back to bite most viciously the hand that feeds it
selfishly is strong. Similar problems outwork over a longer period in civilisations, as their
societies are a mirror of individual actions extrapolated on a grander scale.
The best example of this truth is the long marriage between Christendom and Science that has
arguably produced some of the worlds great scientific innovation and inventions within a
strong Judaeo Christian moral framework. With the trial separation and ultimate divorce
between these two long-term partners ever more obvious, what are the children of this new
union of Secularism and Science going to be like?
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Sacred Science
Evidence of an increasingly narcissistic and suicidal younger generation certainly suggests
that these offspring of an adulterous relationship between secularism and science
consummated by selfish sacrifices is leaving its predictable legacy.
This marriage or de facto relationship between Science and Secularism is bearing selfish,
unhappy children, even though the parents seem relatively satisfied in their new relationship.
To assess the fruit or legacy of such changing relationships, wise observers of human
behaviour know that the only objective and accurate method of analysis is to observe the
children rather than parents for clues to the quality and success of a marriage. Self-reporting
by the perpetrators are always clouded by self-interest, so a rule of thumb in research is that
these findings are tenuous at best. Far more accurate is to observe the reactions and actions
of victims based on research by scientists unbiased by the process.

Dangerous Divorces
Why this is so is simple enough to explain. Divorce results in a breakdown of trust and to
cope with these selfish side-effects adults must become hard-hearted. Children who are
products of divorce also suffer with similar emotions because they too must cope somehow
with the pain of unnatural separation from birth parents despite having less mature coping
mechanisms. The potential for selfish sacrifices and suicidal legacies are self-evident in these
relationships.
Given these negative outcomes of divorce the question is, should humans be in committed
monogamous relationships or does any combination suffice as marriage? Secular science
through evolution points to examples of same-sex, polygamous and polyamorous
relationships in the animal world to prove its acceptability to humans. These animalistic
instincts are however disproven in human practice. People with multiple sexual partners,
especially those who start becoming sexually active whilst young, experience far more
relationship problems than those who are faithfully abstinent.

Animalistic Behaviour
Even in the animal world similarly erroneous are the arguments about same-sex couplings
amongst animals, with a context for such behaviour. When same-sex unions do occur in the
animal world, they predictably occur in unnatural situations where animals are under some
sort of stress. An instance is animals that do not have access to preferred opposite sex
partners will choose same sex partners.
Another example is where people incorrectly attribute homosexual traits to animals. Red
deer stags spend a large part of their year together in same-sex groups, showing a preference
for each others company over spending time with females. This has been described as
homosexual or unisexual behaviour. These humanistic assumptions are questionable, since at
other times of the year stags are attracted to female hinds, which could constitute bisexual or
heterosexual behaviour, depending on how it is defined. Surely neither finding should be a
rationale or reason for similar human behaviour.
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Thus, when homosexual unions do occur naturally amongst animals in nature, drawing
comparisons and applying them to human sexuality is foolish. This approach is as spurious
as applying an amoral animal activity, such as being carnivorous to justify the immoral
human activity of cannibalism.
A clue to the tenuous nature of such connections is evidenced by the fact that same-sex
marriage proponents are primarily interested in promoting these couplings as monogamous
partnerships. In other words, faithful, lifetime commitments are being sought through
relationships that, in the animal world, are neither monogamous nor last a lifetime. Similar
difficulties arise in arguments made about polygamy, marriage by one to more than one
partner, in the animal world applying to human nature.

Social Engineering
Having grown up and lived amongst Muslims for much of my life, I have met no women and
children in polygamous marriages, other than the first wife and children, who embrace this
lifestyle wholeheartedly without reservation. Yet once any sort of marriage is acceptable, the
institution of marriage becomes devalued. Those in polyamorous marriages express similar
sentiments, with not all partners equally satisfied with this social and sexual arrangement.
Another example is where practices such as selective abortion and infanticide are justified as
social experiments in controlling population growth or in selecting one gender over another.
China, for example, which has a current history of secular socialism, now has rising rates of
divorce and narcissism. To their credit the Chinese government belatedly recognises that
social policies, such as the one child policy encourages sex-selective abortions resulting in
more men than women being born.
China is trying to address this gender and age imbalance by allowing all couples to now have
two children. India faces similar gender imbalances, though is less proactive. Many men,
unable to find female marriage partners in their own country, go abroad on sex tours or seek
wives from other cultures creating a gender imbalance, such as is occurring in Indochina due
to demand for women from Chinese men.
Unsurprisingly, the social problems created by this social engineering program are massive.
With marriage being redefined in the West to accommodate any sort of gender couplings and
combinations, the question in terms of sacrifice is what are the implications? Are these
marriages primarily for selfish or unselfish purposes? Given that marriages almost without
exception are designed to produce children, this relationship creates a family, first through
the parents and then, through procreation or adoption, children.
Obviously, where same-sex couplings or solo parents are concerned, then another person
must be found to provide the child, either through procreation be that in vitro fertilisation,
surrogacy or adoption. Given the incredible technological advances and rapidly changing
moral values the possibilities and problems are endless. Remember Ronnie and Carol's
stories?
With Science now the dominant partner in the relationship with Secularism its views are
sacrosanct and the spurned partner Christendom becomes increasingly irrelevant even a
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nuisance. This situation is partly Christendoms own fault because it has often not practiced
what it preached nor paid attention to the problems and pain its own practices have caused.
High levels of divorce amongst Christians, for example, are similar to those of nonChristians.
However, the strong desire of atheistic Science to replace Christendom as the new partner of
Secularism has its own relationship risks. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, the founding
fathers of communism astutely recognised certain theories of Science, particularly Darwinian
Evolution, as an especially effective ally of Socialism and Communism.
The reason for this understanding is that all these theories rely fundamentally on a
materialistic and deterministic worldview. Materialism rejects any relationship or religion
not immediately evident and provable by the scientific method of direct physical observation.
Determinism assumes that the way things are in the natural world is they way things will
always be.
In its most extreme forms, materialism rejects any belief that cannot be currently proven by
science. This rejection happens even if historical evidence, moral wisdom and common sense
appear to make more sense than the science. An example is an argument from the field of
neuroscience that states there is no apparent evidence for individual free will in making right
and wrong decisions. This argument says that apparently conscious action is actually an
illusion caused and thus preceded by unconscious chemical and genetic processes.

Free Will and Choice

On this basis, free will does not exist until it can be proven materially to be so by some
causative link. Based on this interpretation of free will, many individuals lack the ability to
think and act independently of their instincts. A logical conclusion of this reasoning is that
many people do not have enough free will to overcome their basic impulses and instincts.
Consequently, one cannot be responsible for what cannot be controlled, right? If these
deterministic findings were purely scientific without secular faith and reasoning thrown in,
then these truths are incredibly liberating. Similar to the incredible promises of a weight loss
recipe or regime that requires no personal effort to lose weight, the premise that we are
directed by unconscious chemical reactions rather than conscious free will are too good to be
true.
Bold pronouncements such as these are unnatural and untrue because there is not enough
naturalistic evidence to prove them true. When this deterministic recipe is tasted and tried its
faulty reasoning becomes obvious by its harmful effects. Predictably, people who have a
diminished view of free will do so because of these false teachings. They are more inclined
to do the wrong thing because these deterministic teachings encourage a lack of personal
morality and responsibility for ones own actions.
Conversely those with a greater appreciation of free will and its consequences are more
inclined to do the right thing. For example, in social experiments giving participants the
opportunity to cheat increased cheating behaviour was observed amongst participants. This
inclination to cheat was found to be primarily mediated or motivated by participants with a
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decreased belief in free will. Unsurprisingly, those with an increased belief in free will and a
conscience about cheating, were less inclined to cheat.
These realities of a secular scientific worldview are especially relevant to sacrifice because a
diminished view of free will naturally encourages people to make selfish sacrifices rather
than unselfish ones.
Due to these selfish choices, people who make these choices become hapless, helpless and
hopeless--even suicidal--because perversely such thinking is a burden rather than blessing. In
other words, the more people feel they have no moral freedom to choose their behaviour, the
less likely they are to modify that behaviour. Ironically and tragically, this moral freedom
does not produce hope but hopelessness and fatalism. The potentially suicidal consequences
of such thinking and behaviour should be obvious to the unbiased observer, scientist or
otherwise.
The problem with these selfish consequences of this dominant worldview is that the scientific
community believes human behaviour is materialistically caused by genes underlying
personality dispositions, brain mechanisms or environmental factors. So one who has
suicidal, sexual or sensual tendencies that are destructive to themselves or others in most
cases may not be able to overcome them, without some sort of chemical intervention if severe
and legalisation if less severe.
Cases of black men being chemically castrated because they were presumed to have
insufficient free will or moral reasoning to restrain themselves sexually is a relevant example.
Aborted foetuses becoming laboratory rats and guinea pigs for testing purposes is another
example. These findings show how a materialistic and deterministic worldview dominated by
secular science can be detrimental to life and liberty.
Note how quickly and consistently deviant or immoral behaviour, such as alcohol abuse and
sexual promiscuity and homosexuality is now tagged a disease so its victims can be treated
medically and a choice so their activities can be legalised to legitimise its practice. Where
did free will and / or conscious go
Tracking the history of debate over any of these issues provides a case in point as the sacred
becomes scientific then morphs into a secular response. The sacred (religious) world regards
choosing to act on practices such as homosexuality and promiscuity as being morally wrong,
which means people can and should change their choices to avoid or cease such deviant
practices.
Science argues, though is unable to prove, that practitioners cannot choose what is not a
really a choice but a chance hardwiring of nature. Secularism, similar to religion, uses
science in its argument yet ultimately makes a value judgement by saying that irrespective
of the science it is a choice. The only difference between secular and sacred religion is that
secularism makes the opposite value judgement by saying that all moral choices must be
accepted as being legitimate.
In fact, those who take the sacred moral approach by regarding such behaviour as sexually
deviant are now the targets of re-education to help them accept these practices as legitimate.
As predicted by the law of legacy, legitimisation of selfish sacrifices, no matter what the
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rationale, sacred, secular or scientific, does not free practitioners from the suicidal
consequences of their actions.
If their relational and sacrificial rules are fundamentally selfish and soulless, then their
outworking will be suicidal, as the rule of legacy predicts. It is worth noting that throughout
history, humankind has achieved every imaginably bad society except one of lasting
soullessness. These politically correct labels may obviate personal responsibility for immoral
actions and legalise deviant behaviour. They do not, however, free practitioners of these
selfish sacrifices from suicidal consequences of their actions and these activities bring.

Moral Authority
Following the triune rules of relationship, sacrifice and legacy to their logical conclusion as
either being selfish or unselfish in orientation help sort out some of this confusion. When it
comes to matters of moral authority in relation to sacrifice, scientists are increasingly making
the sacrificial rules that more and more secular and even spiritual people live by.
However, if their relational and sacrificial rules are fundamentally selfish, then their
outworking will be suicidal, as the rule of legacy predicts. Despite this reality, secular
science continues attempting to broker and break in a new order or marriage that is soullessly
based on secular reasoning. Since faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the
conviction of things not seen, it has no place in this brave new world of soulless secular
reasoning.
Using this logic, faith is equated to the soul and spiritual, whereas reason equals the scientific
and secular. On this basis many secular scientists claim that faith is sacred so unscientific
and must be excluded from the secular, whereas science is rational therefore scientific. An
immediate flaw with this worldview is the obvious evidence that there is religious faith
aplenty in science, especially when it comes to moral authority about right and wrong, selfish
and unselfish.
One of the problems with the apparent moral authority of secular science is its exclusion of
what cannot be measured by these standards and its tendency to draw specific conclusions
about certain phenomena when only general principles apply. For instance, with regard to the
matter of an individuals free will to make moral choices, thoughts may well be initiated by
chemical reactions in the brain that occur before conscious thought is initiated.
Consider the power of a womens perfume to elicit physical responses to chemical stimuli
that obviously started in the mind. Some women say the same thing about mens aftershave
and others about their sweat having the power to stimulate. At first glance, these
observations do offer evidence that human decision-making and behaviour can be explained
and predicted in terms of these underlying neurological mechanisms.
To conclude, based on this evidence, that free will is in fact largely an illusion is a leap of
secular scientific faith equal to any religion. Human actions are not normally determined by
physiological mechanisms beyond personal control, because having the free will to choose
whether or not to act on these impulses and instincts is what makes people human. The truth
is that free will is not an all or nothing phenomena anyway.
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Obviously there are people who are restricted in their ability to make moral choices by
mental illness, for example.
For the most part, though, honest reflection acknowledges that temptation is a natural part of
human desire and choosing to act on or react to it is an individual choice well within the
personal faculties of most human beings. Desires arise involuntarily, even accidentally, for
example sexual attraction. When a physically attractive person (according to the beholder)
walks by, involuntarily attraction occurs.
Voluntary action, however, is dwelling on these fantasies by acting out these natural sexual
impulses as deliberate actions. What may well start involuntarily requires free will and
freedom of choice and conscious effort to act on or abstain from such temptations. The best
neurological and historical evidence concludes that while humans may unconsciously initiate
a voluntary act by preparing to carry it out, each consciously has the free will to control
whether the act takes place or not.
Ultimately, decisions and actions flow from desires and beliefs. These observations are vital
to understanding that the source of selfish and unselfish sacrifices are beliefs and experiences
and proof that few humans are genuine victims of their our own physiology and
circumstances. Take for example the examples of self-sacrifice most evident in Buddhist
Samadhi, Christian Martyria and Islamic Jihad.
The fact that Buddhist Samadhists and Christian Martyrs almost never sacrifice others in
sacrificing themselves is the opposite ideal to death in Jihad. These extreme actions are
obviously voluntary and intentional.
Muslims nations on the other hand have low suicide rates when compared with
atheistic/agnostic countries. Obviously this has more to do with nurture than nature and
supports the premise that selfish and unselfish sacrifices are the products and by-products of
the worldviews people are raised with not the way they are born nor are most people the
victims of chemical reactions in their brains robbing them of their free will.
In terms of sacrifice, selfish thoughts result in selfish actions that become negatively selfsustaining and potentially suicidal. While these thoughts apply to individuals, this mindset
and worldview can be taught and caught collectively by a culture. There is a predictable
outcome for cultures whose individuals collectively make more selfish than unselfish
sacrifices. Its people are more likely to become depressed and suicidal.
Destroying this viciously depressive and oppressively suicidal life cycle are unselfish
thoughts and actions that replace the negative with the positive. To do this effectively
requires more than positive thinking. Positive action is also needed. It has long been known
that the suicidal potential of selfish toxic thoughts and actions find their nemesis in
positive, unselfish thoughts and actions. It is more blessed to give than to receive, to love
than to hate, to have hope than be hopeless, faithful rather than faithless are all practical
outcomes of this thinking.
Toxic thoughts trigger negative and anxious emotions, which produce biochemical reactions
that cause cells in the body and mind to stress. Physically, thoughts are a collection of
electrical impulses, chemicals and neurones working together to produce abstract thoughts.
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How thoughts are combined physiologically into negative and positive reactions and actions
has a strong bearing on physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing.
Similar by analogy are computer programs and their operating systems. Computer viruses,
for example, are different combinations of similar programming codes programmed to harm
rather than help an operating system. Malicious programs can destroy an operating system
just as effectively as anti-virus programs can help protect these same systems from
destruction. Essentially viruses and anti-viruses have the same underlying code, yet one saves
and the other destroys.
Some medicines play a similar role in treating disease. Too much of the right medication can
destroy as completely as the right dose of the right medication can treat and cure. Similar
though even more complex interactions and relationships arguably occur within and between
humans that so far have eluded secular science. Yet this uncertainty and wonder does not stop
its scientific prophets and secular apostles from limiting the scope discussion to naturally
observable causes.
Usually, with secular science, when something cannot be explained rationally, the rationale is
moral justification from nature. The danger of such naturalistic explanations is that morals
and ethics in human behaviour become tied to the natural, animal world because of the faulty
assumption that these laws are directly linked due to physical similarities between animals
and humans.

Lawful but unhelpful

Laws or rules about human relationships, sacrifices and legacies are generalisations about
human nature. Theories about such rules are specific explanations and findings of these
general rules. As such, there are always relationships between laws and theories even though
the two are not identical. An appropriate example comes from a law of biology: Humans are
made of similar materials (matter) to animals. Given this universal principle of biology, some
secular scientists wrongly assume that the theory of evolution should apply as universally as
the law of biology.
In other words, because humans are made of essentially the same materials as animals they
must have evolved from these lower life forms. Great care must be taken when assuming that
because of this cellular relationship, one is the other and vice versa. For example, by applying
this secular scientific reasoning to cells comes the conclusion that there is no crucial
difference between an animal and human blastocyst other than their genetic makeup or
DNA.
No matter how much scientific evidence is amassed, making judgements about moral laws
through current scientific theories and findings is risky. Some things may be lawful even
scientifically plausible, but not all things are helpful and, if fundamentally selfish, are
suicidal, literally and figuratively. Remember the Rule of Relationships? In the absence of
unselfish relationships selfish ones will predominate.

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Universal Moral Laws

For instance, secular science may say that there is no fundamental, material difference
between same-sex and heterosexual relationships.
In theory this may be true, but to make this into a moral law or universal principle based on
such a scientific theory is faulty science if what is made lawful is fundamentally selfish in
practice. Even with these secular rules, same-sex relationships are unnatural on this basis
because they cannot produce offspring.
When same-sex couples selfishly try to get around this universal law by having children
unnaturally, whilst scientifically possible, this universal trio of laws are broken with their
inevitable consequences. Because secular science and legalisation can now solve this
problem through marriage, adoption and surrogacy, the impossible becomes possible. But
lawful can be unhelpful even deadly. Just because it is scientifically possible to do something
does not make it natural or morally right.
A case in point is when the laws of nature are violated to serve selfish secular and scientific
ends and the consequences are obviously disastrous and suicidal. No matter what the experts
of the day may say, this is strong evidence that something is seriously wrong with the
reasoning behind such thinking.
Another example of this wrong thinking is human embryo stem cell research. Evolution of
species is based on a universal principle of biology that all complex life forms consist of
similar cells which makes them biologically similar. The theory of evolution is that all
complex life forms evolved from simpler ones because of this law of biological similarity.
Because this universal law of biology exists, some secular scientists wrongly assume that the
theory of evolution should apply as universally as this law of biology.
Having this assumption, dare say faith in this biological connection leads to incorrect
research findings and moral judgements. For example, by applying this secular scientific
reasoning to cells comes the conclusion that there is no crucial difference between a fly and a
human blastocyst. The latter's potential to become a fully developed human being is
irrelevant because potentially every cell in the human body is a potential human being given
recent advances in genetic engineering.
Here the law of biology that notes organisms have similar cellular structures is directly
applied as evolutionary theory. Thus, as this argument goes, given the cellular similarities
between human cells and those of flies, there should be no moral qualms about experimenting
on human stem cells and embryos, because they are essentially similar to any other cells.
Most secular scientists hold to these philosophical beliefs despite scientific evidence that
even young foetuses can hear and make sense of sound. At the very least this is scientific
evidence that these foetuses are living beings or potential human beings. The fact that they
are growing inside a person should also contribute to making them human.

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Laws are not Theories

While obviously ludicrous, this is the logical outcome of such secular scientific reasoning. A
logical problem with the science of this argument is that if the stem cells of flies and human
embryos are as similar as is claimed, then scientists could be using the cells of flies and
human embryos interchangeably in their research.
The flawed logic of this argument is found in intentionally and unintentionally misguided
attempts to directly correlate biological laws with scientific theory.
Another even less logical assumption more akin to religious dogma is that, by implication,
everyone who thinks otherwise are unscientific faith bound religious fools. Here the fervency
of faith in secular science is no less dogmatic than full-blown religion. Based on this
reasoning only the prophets (scientists) are qualified to produce this knowledge and only their
priests (secularists) can reproduce such knowledge. Lay people (everyone else other than this
secular scientific elite) must accept this dogma to be regarded as intelligent.
Predictably, when everyone else is expected to acquire and accept this knowledge of the
secular scientific sages then a secular scientific society is born and another religion has come
into being. The clue that it is no longer purely secular science but involves religious faith and
fervour comes when self evident biological principles are applied seamlessly to scientific
theories which become as factual as the universal principles on which they were originally
based.
A common secular scientific mantra is that, due to these biological similarities, complex life
on earth must have developed from simpler life forms over billions of years. The dogma is
that this theory, often presented as fact, no longer admits of intelligent dispute. Doubters of
human beings evolving from prior species may as well doubt that the sun is a star!
Another contemporary example of this secular scientific coupling of environmental principles
with theories presented as facts is the distinct probability that manmade, global warming is
occurring. The theory that it is the burning of fossil fuels caused by human consumption is
often presented as fact and its doubters and sceptics lampooned as idiots.
The problem with such an approach is that it stifles the innovation and inventions that just
may help solve the problem of global warming, because it attempts to exclude all who do not
accept such theories as fact. Similar to established religion secular science integrates a
system of belief and faith in its system that is as strong, if not stronger, than the traditional
marriage between church and state.

Secularism and Science

This lack of critical separation between secularism and science is a selfish relationship and
equality borne of selfish sacrifices that is breeding selfish offspring. This fundamentally
unhealthy, selfish, secular scientific intimacy makes other faulty connections between
biological principles and scientific theories too. One of its most serious fallacies is the law
of scientific inevitability.

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Based on this law once a relationship between secularism and science has been
consummated, there is plainly no way back to any previous states or relationships. Its zealots
assume, similar to religious fanatics, that mankind will, inevitably, come to terms with
secular science and fully recognise its beauty and its power. Here, in spiritual as well as in
practical matters secular science has become for all intents and purposes a religion.

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The issue with this approach is that common sense, traditional wisdom can be discarded in
the name of scientific reasoning with little thought of the consequences because they do not
fit this materialistic worldview. What this thinking does is narrow down the field of truly
moral and ethical individuals to rational secular scientific thinkers unencumbered by religious
faith and the consequences of free will.
On this basis it does not take too much imagination to work out that the scientific and secular
elites are the ones most eligible to run the world and individual lives. This is dangerous
thinking at a personal and public level because it takes away the individuals onus for
personal accountability for their selfish actions. Publicly it stifles debate, because only
secular scientific reasoning is allowed. Strong currents of this fatalism are evidenced in the
increasingly selfish sacrifices being made by individuals in regards to marriage, abortion and
euthanasia.
Due to public acceptance, such elitist thinking naturally concentrates power in certain elites,
such as secular scientists, who start becoming the sole arbitrators and mediators of science
and morality. Their versions and visions of scientific rationalism and secular materialism
become the only acceptable education available. In many ways secular science is already
winning this public battle for hearts and minds.
Similar battles between church and state, science and religion have been fought in the past
and continue to rage. The importance of continuing to have the freedom to freely debate these
truths and untruths has been the unselfish constant that has underpinned democratic and
religious freedoms since their relatively recent inception. Of particular concern is that this
freedom to debate is increasingly being suppressed by a scientific-secular juggernaut that was
facilitated in its development by these freedoms of religion and expression.
Based on the rules of selfish versus unselfish sacrifice, unsurprisingly this secular scientific
bloc is producing selfish sacrifices by their very action of suppressing debate in the name of
politically correct moral tolerance and secular science. Because of these obviously selfish
sacrifices, secular science, in spite of its technical expertise and political authoritarianism has
had great difficulty convincing most people of its moral authority. This is primarily because
of the tenuous link between universal laws and theories that secular scientists so often draw
with such religious faith and zeal.

Blurred Lines of Authority

When a practical line cannot be clearly drawn between scientific authority and moral
authority people become rightly sceptical. The public should be especially sceptical when
suicidal consequences continue appearing unabated, despite the primacy of scientific secular
authority. No matter what secular science says, this situation is a warning sign that universal
moral laws are being broken.
A thoughtful person and genuine scientist should start by questioning some of the selfish
causes of the suicidal effects being observed. Do this by observing the universal laws of
relationship mediated by sacrifice and their selfish or unselfish legacies.

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There are certain tell tale signs and symptoms. Because non-secular views are considered
heresy to most secular scientists, they wrongly view this bias as a scientifically sound basis
for exclusion.
Numerous scientists are unemployed or underemployed today primarily because their
scientific views are not acceptable to the secular status quo. Despite their ability to use the
scientific method, theistic scientists are excluded on the basis of their beliefs rather than
abilities. Some perfectly capable scientists assume human life, or the universe, cannot have
arisen by chance and was designed and created by some intelligent entity such as God.
Because these views are considered heresy to most secular scientists is not a scientifically
sound basis for exclusion, yet despite their ability to use the scientific method, they are
excluded on this basis. The fact that these equally valid scientific theories counter and
challenge currently established secular science (read: theories) that life and the universe arose
by chance and has been evolving ever since is their philosophical reason for exclusion, not
science per se.
How ridiculous these arguments about origins have become in terms of genuine science is
revealed when secular scientists are willing to be candid. Whether biological similarities are
evidence of the creativity of a superior being or random genetic selections is really a matter
of faith and philosophy, not serious scientific inquiry or evidence-based research.
Rather than being forced to admit that evolution by chance does not provide all the answers,
many secular scientists prefer to believer in bizarre theories that aliens seeding planet earth
caused these biological similarities. This infatuation with finding other life forms on planets
like Mars in secular scientists are as zany as the zeal and faithful fanaticism of any religious
folks.
So where do aliens came from? Were they created or did they arise by chance too? Does this
not sound like a religious person of faith? The only difference is their god. Believe it or not
this thinking that alien life forms helped create life is not a joke. Secular officials and
scientists regularly must retract wildly optimistic statements about apparent origins of
biological life, for instance Rover finding life on Mars, that they are spending billions of
taxpayer dollars to find. The public has every right to be sceptical.
Another example is the destruction of human foetuses through abortion or scientific research.
While recognising their genetic potential for becoming human beings, they are regarded only
as a collection of cells until they do. This logic makes their potential humanness subservient
to the needs of scientific research if their stem cells, for instance, can benefit the health and
well being of the living.
Based on this sort of secular scientific reasoning many scientists and officials will only
accept the humanness of a foetus if science can prove it. Most secular scientists hold to these
beliefs despite evidence that even young foetuses are sensitive to sound, which assumes that
they are sentient and can make sense of some sounds which suggests a human in the making.
Despite these findings, along with their unshakable faith in secular science, most secular
scientists are increasingly unwilling to accept any other sorts of faith in such as religion,
except their own secular scientific religiosity.
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This is particularly problematic to accept in good faith when there is such strong evidence
that this relationship between Science and Secularism is so selfishly sacrificial.
Already, examples of these suicidal consequences are outworking in increasing narcissism
and hopelessness. These suicidal tendencies are not only occurring amongst generations of
young adults. Increasingly, these suicidal tendencies are also outworking themselves
amongst middle-aged people who are not traditionally suicidal. Suicide, divorce, same-sex,
polygamous and polyamorous marriages, abortion, gender selection, eugenics and euthanasia
are all examples of selfish sacrifices. The more selfish sacrifices are encouraged, the more
selfish sacrifices will be made is the inevitable logic of these actions.
Calling these selfish consequences to account requires genuine reflection and introspection
and ultimately, honesty and humility. None of these unselfish sacrifices, the latter in
particular, are easy for anyone to do. It is especially difficult for the secular secularist who,
now in a position of power and authority, is in no mood to admit an error of judgement or
give up their power.
Predictably, most secular secularists are preferring to make a selfish sacrifice by refusing to
consider alternatives. There is no real difference in the nature of this sacrifice to the religious
bigots secularists use as examples of selfish sacrificers. Instead, the natural, selfish human
tendency, particularly from the secular scientist, is to vehemently attack Christendom for its
intolerance. Bringing up the Crusades and the Inquisition, etc., as examples are old
favourites. Few could disagree that these were terrible examples of religious intolerance.
Surprisingly, most of these same scientific and secular critics fail to appreciate that their
worldviews were able to develop through benign Christendom precisely because this
environment allows and encourages freedom of thought. They also fail to acknowledge or
accept the terrible excesses of secular scientific fascism, socialism and communism as having
equally terrible consequences.

Dont be afraid to think!

Inevitably, the quality of a persons relationships and sacrifices will determine their legacy. If
sacrifices stemming from most relationships are self-interested, then a selfish legacy is
assured. From the selfish and unselfish stories shared it should be obvious that selfish
sacrifice, no matter how pragmatically justifiable, is suicidal in its outworking from one
generation to the next. Because getting these laws of relationship, sacrifice and legacy right
is a matter of survival, people must not be afraid to think and question.
Be aware that apathy is the greatest obstacle to action. And so is blindly trusting the advice of
experts. Just because the secular scientific status quo says there is no evidence of suicidal
consequences beyond the observable material and physical world, do not take this confidence
for granted. Because something cannot be measured or mapped does not mean it does not
exist. Recent history, that is documented history, consistently shows that when selfish
sacrifices dominate, individuals and cultures ultimately fail and fall.

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In the evolutionary grand scheme of billions of years, the selfish sacrifices of today may
appear trivial for tomorrow, yet collective and individual responsibility must start right here
and right now for relationships and legacies to be saved from selfish sacrifice by unselfish
sacrifice. Time and again, throughout history, nations that have sacrificed selfishly by not
protecting the lives of the weak and innocent, as excessive abortion and euthanasia does,
have failed and fallen. Their scattered ruins lie exposed in the sands and pages of
documented history.
To normalise and condone all sorts of deviant behaviour through same-sex and multi-sex
relationships there must also be recognition that these relationships are inherently selfish.
Those who practice selfish, destructive relationships such as multiple divorces and
separations, who damage the environment with so little regard by polluting and damaging it,
will have a price to pay.
The price paid for selfish sacrifices--at a personal and public level--is costly, despite it
initially appearing to be like easy credit. Paying by credit card separates the pain somewhat
from the pleasure until the ease of regular repayments starts being overtaken by charges of
excessive interest. Consider the financial and human price of selfish sacrifices through the
unfolding global financial crisis as a direct cost of too easy credit.
Be aware, too, of the environmental price that is being paid. Millions are struggling to live
and work in places like China, because of air pollution. On an almost daily basis people are
being sacrificed selfishly and reacting with equal violence and selfishness. The human
tendency to default to selfish sacrifices as the far easier option to the much tougher
alternative, unselfish sacrifice is obvious for all to see who want to see this reality and change
it.

Breaking Natural Laws is Suicidal

Breaking the natural laws or rules of sacrifice is suicidal no matter what the majority of
secular scientific pundits may say. Do not listen unquestioningly to the soothing words of
secular scientists maintaining that everything is okay. Suggesting that humans can behave
morally however they like provided the environment is cared for is patently wrong.
That there is a price to pay for both environmental and human degradation is a universal truth
obvious to all who are willing to look and learn. People are being destroyed because they are
rejecting realities that are before their very own eyes. Humans have the consciousness to help
inform their consciences about what is right and wrong. Access to almost unlimited amounts
of information and knowledge untempered by understanding is a dangerous, ultimately lethal
burden.
Here, the ability to interpret reality--that is understanding--and wisdom--the willingness to
act on it-- is desperately needed yet more often than not a commodity in short supply. This
sort of common sense understanding and wisdom is, unfortunately, not that common.
Drawing conclusions about scientific theories through universal laws is about as dangerous as
the art of separating truths that should not be separated.

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For example, secular scientists make many valid points about humanitys emerging global
ecological crisis, yet often fail to apply these universal principles to human behaviour. For
instance, consider the risk of applying genetic engineering derived from hereditary laws
within species to the transfer of genes between species. This is the main difference between
traditional breeding methods and Genetic Modification or GM.
Another example is the overuse of hormones by humans leaching into river systems. It is
suspected of causing hormonal problems in animals such as male otters and male humans. A
similarly concerning example is the decline of bees. Their decrease may well be due to
similar genetic and chemical manipulations and modifications the consequences of which are
difficult to immediately determine or predict yet already appear to be potentially catastrophic.
It is perplexing then is it not that committed secular scientists can recognise the inherent
dangers of environmental engineers mixing genetics between kinds and species, yet
apparently miss similar risks in the human world. So many of their counterparts are breaking
similar universal laws with apparent impunity by socially re-engineering moral laws with
little apparent forethought to their consequences.
This wanton blindness suggests at worst a conspiracy of silence and at best a conflict of
interest. Recall the earlier prediction that once Science is separated from Christendom in
favour of Secularism, these two new lovers will be much less critical of each others
shortcomings than the divorcees from the previous marriage. For example, trying to make
same-sex marriages a normal part human society by encouraging its acceptance and
legalising its practice does not make it right or nullify its consequences any more than does
the breaking of the ecological laws mentioned earlier.
By making same-sex unions a human right as though not being able to have same-sex
relationships is akin to being a victim of racism or slavery is melodramatic. Rather than
acting to legalise and legitimise such deviant behaviour by penalising and silencing those
who speak out against it and praising and publicising those who support it as modern day
heroes, a more realistic stance is to recognise homosexuality as a choice with potentially
suicidal consequences. The fact that proportionately more Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and
Transgenders (LGBT) suffer from depression and suicide than their heterosexual counterparts
is telling. Something is wrong when choices result in suicidal consequences.
The uncomfortable truth is that many secular scientists are unable (or maybe unwilling) to
acknowledge the dangers of challenging natural moral and spiritual laws. Either they dont
believe these dangers exist or they are waiting for scientific proof of their existence. While
they fiddle an otherwise affluent generation are committing suicide in record numbers.
Partly, this blindness comes from the secular scientific worldview. In the evolutionary
scheme of things, a reasonable conclusion is that nature will ultimately work out any
problems through natural selection while scientists use technology to plug the gaps. A
common sense review of selfish sacrifices, disputes this secular sense of misguided calm and
overconfidence in science.
Evidence of this secular thinking is the suppression of the spiritual side of human nature by
scientific arguments and reasoning against evidence for its genuine existence.
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The fact that eternity is in human hearts is evidenced by the continuing need to figure it out
or deny its existence. Even though humans are unable to fully fathom its implications, it is
the main reason why the ongoing battle between secular science and other religions is
occurring and why sacrifices, both selfish and unselfish will always be made. This natural
law of sacrifice has been observed historically at all times and among all nations.

Modern Malice
People will always sacrifice themselves and others, because it is an integral part of human
nature to do so. They will do this more selfishly than unselfishly unless they are intentionally
altruistic and unselfish. When suicides occur and the victims of suicide suffer, the terrible
reality of these selfish sacrifices hits home. The increasingly malicious nature of these selfish
sacrifices through online bullying, for example, is absolutely horrifying.
What drives adults and youth to befriend a vulnerable young person online by pretending
they are someone who cares about--even loves--him/her? To then proceed to use this
relationship as emotional blackmail to drive them to suicide is malevolent. The fact that
online profiles and persona, beautiful avatars so to speak, are created with the express
purpose of destroying others is premeditated evil at its worst. How this selfish waste of
beautiful young lives full of potential is leaving such a bitter legacy!
What selfishly evil enemies these young people have, especially when it turns out the main
culprits often bear grudges due to childish disagreements. These victims' inability to cope
with being bullied and betrayed in such an awful way often leads to their depression and
suicide. This sort of sadistic pleasure in gaining someones confidence only to crush him or
her is an awful example of selfish sacrifice. Bullying like this is happening every day to even
young children, causing them to feel hopeless, helpless and suicidal.
Imagine the damage these selfish sacrifices are having on the perpetrators and victims, their
relationships and legacies. These sorts of selfish sacrifices are becoming all too common in
online social spaces. Unfortunately, they are not new. This murderous intent, even if not
always acted upon by the planner, is found in the most primitive of tribes.
Similar sadism and treachery was found amongst the stone age Sawi people of West Papua,
who regarded their greatest heroes as being the ones who could gain an enemys confidence,
called fattening with friendship, then murder them in cold-blood. Today this knowledge of
good and evil and the murderous willingness and intent to use it is extended by social media,
yet is not fundamentally different in principle to the primitive, pagan Sawi of Papua. Some
of our present day social media tribes and trolls operating online right now are of a similar
disposition to the Sawi people yet should--and do--know better.
Just as the Sawi people needed to recognise that their treacherous culture was wrong and
change it, which they did, so must this culture recognise how wrong it is to accept such
virtual malevolence that so often results in suicidal consequences. No wonder so many of
todays generation has so lost faith in life that they are seriously considering ending it and are
doing so in record numbers.

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When advanced cultures start returning to their primitive roots through the common
denominator of selfish sacrifice, the source and root of the problem should be obvious.
Tragically, many are so desperate and feel so helpless and hopeless that they are choosing the
worst possible selfish sacrifices rather than changing things for the better through unselfish
sacrifice. Thankfully there is hope. Coming to understand and accept that many of the
sacrifices being made are selfish and suicidal is the first step back from the abyss of selfdestruction.
Next is recognising how selfish sacrifices need to become unselfish ones. Some of the
unselfish sacrifices of people like Kajun, Eric Lidell and others, shared in the final chapter
cannot but inspire. By re-righting and rewriting relationships and legacies through unselfish
sacrifice, the opportunity to change and be changed is always there for mankind. This is
what makes us human. This promise and potential comes with a caveat or condition requiring
that selfish sacrifices are exposed as being the wrong sort of sacrifice and replaced by
unselfish sacrifices.

Solomons Story
When considering the power of positive change through unselfish sacrifice, the story of a
former self-confessed terrorist comes to mind. Steeped in radical Islamic jihad from an early
age, the overriding aim of Solomons life was to purge all non-Muslims and non-Islamic
influences from Muslim nations to liberate them from these pagan influences.
To that end he planned and conducted terror operations in the Middle East, Southeast and
Central Asia. It was only when he began to be personally convicted of all the blood he had
shed that he started to realise the awful truth about his selfish sacrifices. His practice of jihad
and willingness to give his life and take the lives of others was a vain attempt at propitiating
his own salvation through selfish-sacrifices.
Fortunately, Solomon realised that this macabre form of religious altruism was cursing him
and his jihadist colleagues and the lands they were supposed to be liberating by the blood
they were spilling. Unfortunately, many of his jihadist colleagues in Daesh or Islamic State
continue with these vain attempts to gain peace and paradise.
Examples of these sorts of selfish sacrifices are found in the Arab Springs occurring in
countries like Egypt, Syria and Lybia. It is right to condemn these selfish sacrifices, yet many
other forms of selfish sacrifice abound in the backyards of western homes that need equal
consideration and action. It has always been much easier to point out the problems in a
neighbours yard than deal with your own mess at home.
Closer to home are the socialist-communist experiments of the last 50 years or so in the
former Soviet republics. To some extent their societal breakdowns in marriage, substance
abuse, suicidal tendencies, corporate corruption, etc., precede what is now starting to be
mirrored in other secular democratic western countries. A tragic example of this societal
breakdown is found in the abandoned children orphaned by abusive alcoholic parents and
states unwilling or unable to help them.

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A Common Denominator
Perhaps these parallels are a coincidence? However, this is extremely unlikely where there
are common denominators. One obvious indicator is selfish sacrifices. Most secular scientific
commentators rightly reject any parallels between the socialist-communist-fascist regimes of
Stalin, Mao and Hitler and their current secular scientific regimes in the West. Certainly the
cults of personality that these egomaniacs cultivated are not as evident at the moment in the
West.
Thankfully democratic process stops most of these individual excesses, at least for the time
being, while the freedom to debate and choose remains sacred and sustained. What should be
noted soberly and realistically are the similarities between these underlying secular-scientific
systems and the naturalistic and materialistic worldviews they create. In the battle of ideas,
there are not many fundamental differences between the secular-scientific worldviews of
today and the philosophies of socialist communism and biological evolution as its own
pundits acknowledge.
Since these materialistic systems of scientific and political evolution are acknowledged by
their founders as being philosophically linked, it is circular reasoning at its worse to entirely
blame individual tyrants for systemic failures, without examining the inherent strengths and
weaknesses of the political and religious systems that sustain and encourage such selfish
sacrifices.
Evidence of this faulty secular-scientific logic comes with vehement attacks on Christendom
collectively for the Crusades and the Inquisition or the inclusion of Christians with other
religious fanatics carrying out terror attacks. Yet, when it comes to the even more brutal
effects of socialism and communism, only individual tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao
are to blame, not the underlying philosophical systems that spawned these tyrants.
Remember, Marx and Engels viewed Darwins evolutionary theory as confirming and
building on their most fundamental concepts of Communism. This was because the Origin of
the Species formed the basis in natural history for their view of human socialism as a natural
formation of economic and political history. The facts are unavoidable: Materialistic and
deterministic theories of the natural world are the lens through which many selfish sacrifices
have been made and justified in human history.
This irrefutable evidence proves that the secular scientists of today who align themselves
with these evolutionary views yet refuse to acknowledge their suicidal consequences are
complicit in the cover-up. Deliberate blindness such as this is worse than the mistakes of the
so-called men and woman of faith who organised the Christian Crusades, courts of Catholic
Inquisition or Islamic Syariah because mostly they carried out these acts in ignorance. All
these suicidally selfish sacrifices are the rightful targets of criticism and critique by all
unselfish, thinking people.

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Something from Nothing

In relation to theories of origins, human and otherwise, a sacrifice cannot arise from nonsacrifice. Put another way, something sacrificial cannot come from nothing being sacrificed,
because sacrifices are, by their very nature expensive. Sacrifice must come from something
or someone being sacrificed. When it comes to unselfish sacrifice in particular, it is costly
and must come from something significant and expensive being sacrificed unselfishly.
The reason that secular scientific theories about origins are especially pertinent to sacrifice is
that assumptions about humans--and the earth--arising naturally from non-matter to matter to
mankind strongly influences personal motivations for selfish and unselfish sacrifice. Whereas
secular states can and do commend or coerce high levels of public altruism as tolerance, there
is no evidence that such scientific secularism elicits more unselfish sacrifices at a personal or
public level than religious altruism. These observations about altruism are especially evident
when secularism is compared to Christianity.
Sacrifice always requires an agent who sacrifices either themselves or others for their own
gain or someone else's benefit. Assuming that something, in this case sacrifice, can come
from nothing e.g. no sacrifice, and that altruistic sacrifices are randomly generated or
naturally arise within a given population is a logical outcome of materialistic and
deterministic secular scientific reasoning that simply does not prove to be true in practice.
Instead sacrifices are intentional, personal acts, whether selfish or unselfish. Sacrifices do not
arise by accident, though selfish sacrifices are more natural and instinctual. Unselfish
sacrifices require more discipline, consistency and commitment. Consider for a moment the
laws of sacrifice, relationship and legacy in terms of family and friends. The strange
attraction of sacrifice is that it encourages mutual sacrifice. Selfish sacrifices follow selfish
ones. The legacy of unselfish sacrifices is more of the same, unselfish sacrifices.
Consider how rescuer Rick Rescorla was regarded by the trapped survivors of the collapsed
World Trade Centre Twin Towers in New York when he rescued them and to his family,
despite the grief of losing him in the process. In his memory are these people rescued by his
unselfish sacrifice more or less likely to sacrifice selfishly or unselfishly? Obviously being
true to Rick Rescorla's name is to sacrifice unselfishly like him. While sacrifice is relatively
simple in its various forms, it is becomes complex because of its underlying motives.
At the very least, unselfish sacrifice requires faith, hope and love in something or someone
else other than the person making the sacrifice to make it unselfish. Complexity in nature
may appear chaotic, though in most cases it has an underlying order through various interrelationships. With human sacrifice its complexity is mediated by the underlying order of
relationships and legacies.
Often these points of interaction or relationship strangely attract even though they technically
should not because they deviate from expected norms. The unselfish sacrifice by a leader to
save or protect followers is the most powerful example of the underlying order in a chaotic
situation because of the high levels of trust and loyalty generated by this unselfishly
sacrificial act. This unselfish sacrifice leaves an unrivalled legacy of mutual care and
commitment amongst groups touched by such sacrificial altruism.
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Negative and positive deviance

Deviance from tried and tested scientific, social or sexual norms, traditionally regarded as
being wrong or abnormal, for example, homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, etc., have now
been made right and normal. Historical use of this word confuses somewhat the use and
understanding of the word 'deviance'. Positive deviance explains actions that are counter
intuitive and cultural yet, strangely, despite conventional wisdom work.
For example, simple villagers found and applied local solutions to child nutrition problems in
Vietnam that were overlooked by foreign experts as an alternative, until local knowledge
was seriously considered and consulted. Similarly, unselfish sacrifice is a strangely attractive
and positively deviant attitude that when combined with concrete actions brings about
dynamic change at an individual and group level.
Consider for example the rise of early Christianity. Its leader, Jesus Christ, ransomed his own
life for his followers by being crucified, even though they were ready to fight for him. The
amazing absurdity of the situation was strangely attractive even to the mighty Roman consul
Pontius Pilate, despite him being agnostic towards any sort of ultimate truth. Early
Christianitys positive deviance from pagan norms was strangely attractive to people living in
a selfishly moral vacuum much like many do today.
Of an equally strange attraction was the martyria witness of its adherents to Christ unto
death, despite the inhuman persecution of mighty Rome. Obviously Christ's unselfish
sacrifice and the gratitude that his followers felt towards him is what motivated many of them
to become martyrs themselves. Selfish and unselfish sacrifices fundamentally deviate from
each other negatively and positively as polar opposites, yet unselfish sacrifice is the most
strangely attractive.
Those who sacrifice or have been sacrificed for selfishly are strangely attracted to unselfish
sacrifice because they recognise it as a positive deviance from selfish norms. Despite this
strange attraction by mankind towards unselfish sacrifice, human nature is more naturally
drawn to practice selfish sacrifice. This tendency towards the lowest common denominator
of selfishness or self-interest equilibrium is an observable rule of human nature.

Strange Attractions to Unselfishness

Despite mankinds propensity to act selfishly in terms of sacrifice, this strange attraction to
unselfishness remains consistently at the core of humanity. For example, the saying
opposites attract comes from common sense observations that people with conflicting
personalities seem to work especially well together. They even fall in love with each other.
The strange human attractor is that these opposite personalities attract, like the opposing
poles of a magnet. In business, this positive deviance from norms such as top-down
leadership and technical expertise to include grassroots participation and local knowledge are
strange attractors that can bring about innovative change.
Human relationships, particularly sacrificial ones, are far less deterministic than the purely
instinctual ones found in animals or cosmic ones such as orbiting planets.
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Humanly speaking, it becomes much more difficult to predict exactly what strange attractors
work together best with unselfish sacrifice. For example, with leadership, the natural
inclination of leaders and norm in leadership is to call on followers to make the greater
sacrifice. This cult of the hero leader is pervasive.
The naturally selfish sacrifices of those in authority exercising this authority over
subordinates through intermediaries can be observed in virtually every system of human
order, barring those that turn this structure on its head. Such an unselfish system would
require a leader to make the greater sacrifice, as with the slave masters mentioned earlier who
paid the ransom price so their slaves could go free and no longer be indentured to them.
A modern day example of this thinking occurs in organisations that esteem servant or
transformational leadership. Leaders that are more inclined to serve than rule their followers
are found to be most likely to transform their followers and themselves in this sacrificial
process. However, it is incorrect to assume that some people have certain traits that are more
unselfish than other people and this can be predicted. These deterministic assumptions often
cloud the outworking of genuine servant leadership.
Instead the reality is everyone naturally prefers to make selfish sacrifices, though some
people may be more naturally selfless than others. People can, however, be nurtured to
unnaturally commit to unselfish sacrifices. The reason why such positive deviance is
attractive is that it is unnatural and unusual. As such, a positive deviance such as unselfish
sacrifice appears strangely attractive to those seeking salvation and is an anathema to those
who know that this positive deviance endangers normal (read: negative deviance such as
selfish sacrifices.) The reason for this strange attraction to unselfish sacrifices, despite their
apparently chaotic nature is due to the hope that unselfish sacrifices inspire.
Despite this strange attraction to unselfish sacrifice, it is much more difficult to bring about
unselfish changes once selfish sacrifices dominate.This is due to the natural pull towards
equilibrium attractors, the attraction to the status quo, the normal way of doing things. So
strong is this pull towards the way things are that, unless the system exists in an environment
ready for change, it will more naturally return to equilibrium than move away from it.

Failing to Succeed in Transitions

In other words, once selfish sacrifices become the norm, it is much easier for relationships
and legacies to continue in this mould rather than break it. Recall the unintended
consequences of self-sacrifice through suicide becoming culturally acceptable. While killing
only oneself is obviously preferable to trying to take others with you, the selfish sacrifice of
suicide has, unfortunately, intended or not, become a cultural reality in many developed
nations.
Here, the tendency is for something like suicide to eventually become culturally and
politically acceptable, despite this not being the original intent. Because of the extreme
complexity and obvious crisis of the problem, and the lack of a solution, the unintended
consequence of suicide is reluctantly accepted. Acceptance is followed by tolerance then
indifference and, ultimately, normality.
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Unselfish and selfish sacrifice is complex, in other words, has many layers, because it is one
of the most fundamental of human values, yet within it there is an underlying order.
For instance, in a complex system such as leadership and succession what may initially
appear to be chaotic or unconnected can actually have an underlying order. Leaders often live
their lives as though succession is unnecessary, despite it being as inevitable as death.
Examples abound of great leaders who led well yet handled succession badly. Robert
Schuller of Crystal Cathedral fame who, despite being a great Christian leader, failed at
succession by eventually passing on leadership to one child then another while never really
letting go till it was too late.
Similar stories abound in African countries and the wealthiest of western corporations.
Consider for instance the transition from Nelson Mandela to Thabo Mbeki in South Africa or
John C. Maxwells successor at Fannie Mae, Franklin (Frank) Raimes. In both these cases,
these successors of unselfish leaders undid much of the good unselfish work done by their
predecessors by their selfish sacrifices. Each leader is only one selfish sacrifice away from a
bad succession.
These problems of selfish successions are pertinent examples of selfish sacrifice because
some leaders make mainly unselfish sacrifices whilst in power yet are selfish when it comes
to succession by not handing over leadership when they should or not preparing sacrificial
successors before their deaths. The successions of Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad are
relevant historical examples to ponder. Both Buddha and Muhammad were outstanding
leaders, yet failed their immediate successors by not handing over leadership in a timely
manner.
Buddha died suddenly from accidental food poisoning due to eating a bad piece of pork and
only handed over leadership to his successor, Ananda, on his deathbed. Despite having a
collective leadership through his Sangha, they were not aware of his imminent death or of
being his chosen successors, which caused much unnecessary uncertainty. Muhammad, too,
died due to being deliberately poisoned without clearly appointing a successor. This
uncertainty caused conflict between family members who assumed his son-in-law, Ali, would
succeed Muhammad whereas Muhammad's religious inner circle led by Usman, assumed he
should be Muhammad's successor.
Jesus, on the other hand, despite being betrayed then crucified, had apparently chosen a
successor in Peter, who was recognised by the early church as leader along with at least 11
other apostles. Finding this underlying sacrificial order in successional complexity--even
apparent chaos--can help provide unique solutions to apparently intractable problems such as
succession crisis. Complexity does not imply that everything chaotic necessarily has an
underlying order.
Most systems, however, do have an underlying order that tends to keep reproducing, unless
some agent or activity intervenes to change the status quo. For example, selfish sacrifices are
also chaotic yet will not normally beget unselfish sacrifice unless someone changes the status
quo to sacrifice unselfishly.

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Thus the exception to the rule about chaotic events usually being detrimental is when
apparently chaotic events occur that do not appear to make logical sense yet are strangely
successful. One of these unusual exceptions and strange successes is the sacrifice of
leadership by incumbent for successor.
To enact this strange exception, the sacrifice of incumbent for successor success must
outweigh the self-sacrifice of successor in their efforts to gain leadership. The unselfishly
successional example of Jesus is relevant. His willingness to sacrifice his life for his
successors, while appearing chaotic, was a catalyst for unselfish sacrifice in his followers that
defined the early movement called Christianity. The underlying system for selfish and
unselfish sacrifices is human relationships mediated by selfish and unselfish sacrifices that
leave selfish or unselfish legacies.

Unselfish Relationships Required

Of course, unselfish sacrifice does not and should not necessarily have to be this dramatically
sacrificial to be effective. In fact, to be most effective, unselfish sacrifice needs to be made in
all key areas of our relationships: on battlefields and in boardrooms and bedrooms. Finding a
balance within and between these public and private worlds is probably the most difficult yet
important aspects of unselfish sacrifice. Failure in one area can lead to breakdowns in other
areas.
Examples of this public/private divide or dualism, is of men and women who excel
unselfishly in their chosen fields of endeavour, such as in business, science, sports and even
philanthropy, yet make exceedingly selfish sacrifices in their own families. For instance,
brilliant physicist Albert Einstein's marriage agreement with his first wife, Mileva Maric,
essentially relegating her to a live in maid is one pertinent example.
Another example is narrated by world-renowned atheist philosopher, Bertrand Russell. He
suddenly realised while out cycling one day that he no longer loved his wife, Alys, so left
her. Nelson Mandela is another testament to a great man who excelled as a sacrificial
statesman yet honestly admitted failure with his own wives and children. Christendom, that
is institutional Christianity, is as much to blame as is Scientific Secularism for this dualism.
Because people are mainly expected to adhere outwardly and publicly to these religions,
rather than personally and privately, dualism is the result.
In any religion, including Secular Science, dualism usually manifests itself as hypocrisy,
acting or saying what is expected of you in public yet doing the opposite in private. In
Christendom it is being publicly horrified by adultery but privately acting the opposite by
being personally adulterous. Secular science is equally hypocritical when it knows how to
scientifically interpret much of the natural world, yet fails to interpret or deliberately ignores
the present times and the observable suicidal consequences of selfish sacrifice in the moral
world.
Another problem with dualism, especially in relation to sacrifices, is the tendency to separate
and demarcate relationships between the worlds of family and firm, sacred and secular,
public and private.
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This dualism wrongly assumes that a person can make unselfish sacrifices in one world and
selfish sacrifices in another or vice versa without consequence. A similar misconception of
dualism is that relationships between these worlds are unimportant because the public and
private can be kept separate.
In other words, public and private worlds can and should be kept separate and there is no
overlap. Separating the two can be done about as well as separating an adjoining salty spring
from a fresh one. One will always contaminate the other and the stronger contaminant, selfish
sacrifice, usually wins. The incompatibility of this thinking with reality is reinforced through
observing the preparation and placement of executives in multinational companies.
As a rule, when family or home life is unstable then, more often than not, senior executives
cannot cope, long-term, with both the professional and personal demands of an executive
placement or position. An unordered or selfish private life impacts directly, and negatively on
professionalism because the pressures from one field impact upon the other.

Liminal Opportunities Needed

Another dualistic example is the way many people are educated today. Traditionally, children
have been trained and mentored by their parents and other adults in their communities.
Today, this is occurring less and less. Education is outsourced to professionals with minimal
personal involvement by parents. As a result, children have less meaningful relationships
with their parents and adults in general and vice versa, to the detriment of both.
Tribal cultures, often described by moderns as primitive, are familial, with strong clan ties.
Children have many fathers: tribal elders who spend many hours talking about and showing
young men how to do things for the tribe: track wild boar, trap fish in traps, stalk monkeys
and make their own weapons. These adults adopt youths, acting as their life coaches.
They understand the importance of teaching in action and expect active learning so youths
watching them them then learn by doing. Such close and developing human relationships are
a communitas, that models and encourages liminality or transition from one threshold such
as adolescence to youth to adulthood. This normally involves rituals specific to this time of
preparation for the next stage in life.
More often than not, such initiation rights involve sacrifice, because elders realise that
transition from one world to another must be memorable and final enough so there is no
going back, no possibility of returning from the way things are (adulthood) to the way things
were (childhood) is permitted. In tribal groups this is done through initiation rites and rituals
that permanently mark initiates as having undergone this transition.
Today in this age of modernity these sacrificial rites of passage, this liminality is almost nonexistent. Young men are just not growing up, because their elders are not guiding them
through and forcing them into these liminal situations that require unselfish sacrifice. The
problem of sacrifices, relationships and legacies being informed more by peers and
professionals than parents and patriarchs, is the lack of liminal relationships.

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The danger to both predecessor and successor who lacks these liminal relationships is that
they are the poorer for not making these unselfish sacrifices and are more likely to sacrifice
selfishly as a result.
A tangible result is that mere boys act as leaders of online tribes and immature infants rule
over social media empires. A consequence of this lack of emotional maturity is people have
countless guides through their social media contacts, professional counsellors and friends and
access to almost unlimited online information, yet do not have many fathers and mothers as
genuine role models. The main outcome is that many youths possess the technological power
to make selfish sacrifices without the emotional maturity or intelligence to make unselfish
ones.
This dualism becomes particularly pertinent when it comes to unselfish sacrifice, because
successors learn best directly from predecessors rather than peers or professionals. There are
now so many absent fathers and male role models, especially amongst teachers, that young
men in particular are often confused about their identity. For example, today male teachers
only make up about a quarter of the teaching force in most western schools.
Given this dearth of male role models, it should come as no surprise that so many young men
continue to sacrifice themselves in selfish and suicidal ways, rather than unselfishly because
they have no fathers modelling these unselfish sacrifices for them. These trends continue
despite the fact that history and research shows young men learn better from older men and
younger women from older women.

Successional Relationships
Philosophically, this close relationship between predecessor and successor are genuinely
successional or a true succession because the legacy of the former continues through the
latter. A Hebrew saying perfectly capturing this liminal philosophy says, May you always be
covered by the dust of your rabbi! This phrase emerged as a saying because rabbinic
disciples followed their leaders so closely that they were literally covered in their rabbis
dust.
Unfortunately, these sorts of disciplic and successional relationships are few and far between
in most secular scientific families and foundations. Where it does occur, mainly in business,
mentoring and coaching is primarily seen as a team activity rather than one-on-one. Teachers
are often expected to play the role of parents, which they are not. This parent-child
relationship, whether biological or not, is vitally important, yet has become largely lost in the
busyness and business of materialistic western life.
Responsibility for such deliberately developmental relationships should involve fathers
particularly, because men are so often absent from them. In other words, you cannot expect
children to obey parents or honour them when they do not have close relationships with them.
The quickest way to exasperate a child is to expect them to do something without having a
relationship that supports such expectations. Children cannot be started off in the way one
wants them to go by bringing them up as well disciplined and instructed people, without
mothers and fathers having modelled unselfish sacrifices as parents, especially as fathers.
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Therefore, one of the most important, if not the most important, relationships that model such
unselfish relationships occurs between husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. Children
largely model their relationships on how their fathers treat their mothers and their mothers
respond to that treatment. The selfish and unselfish sacrifices that children see their parents
make will be the model for their future generations relationships and legacies. Their futures
are being predicted right now in their present relationships.
With the urgency of hindsight learned from the destruction of marriages and dysfunction of
its children, unselfish sacrifices in families are about parents doing what does not come
naturally. Husbands must love their wives by being willing to unselfishly sacrifice for them
when all men naturally want to do is just the opposite. Conversely, unselfish sacrifice for a
wife is respecting her husband, even though she, too, also wants to do just the opposite.
One thing that can be guaranteed is that without these unselfish relationships being modeled
in this way by their parents, young people will become exasperated and fall back on the often
equally selfish and immature sacrifices of their peers. Unless there are committed unselfish
relationships between parents and children--and others--modeling unselfish sacrifices from
one generation to the next, more selfish than unselfish sacrifices will become legacies with
increasingly suicidal consequences.
Unless...unless, unselfish relationships and sacrifices become the legacies left behind, this is
the future facing a secular scientific world, because it is already the present reality of many.
The challenge for secular scientists is instilling hope in a sceptical public that continuing this
selfishly sacrificial status quo will deliver a positive outcome when deterministic reasoning
doubts this possibility.
It is only by acting upon the belief that unselfish sacrifices can actually turn this tide of
selfish sacrifices towards their nemesis, unselfish sacrifices will this selfish status quo of
secular science change. Since secular scientific reasoning in both nature and the economy
conclude that evolutionary processes are expected to run their course with few people able to
rise above them, the outlook for unselfish sacrifices is bleak. Suicidal selfishness is the most
promising legacy of secular science unless unselfish sacrifices are given the chance to freely
operate.

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Chapter 6
Suicidal Selfishness
Suicidal behaviour indicates deep unhappiness but not necessarily mental
disorder ~ World Health Organisation

Escaping Depression
The choice for those tangled in a web of selfish relationships and sacrifices is to get out of
them. Yet many are doomed to failure in their escape attempts to escape depression because
in escaping one web they normally become entangled in an even stronger web of selfish
sacrifice the next time and the next.
Doing nothing differently than before is a good recipe for more of the same. Because the
same selfish recipes are being used with the same ingredients with different outcomes
expected, the odds are poor to terrible at best of any positive deviance from these suicidally
selfish norms.
If more of the same dishes of suicidal selfishness are intended then business as usual should
do fine. To totally change course from a shipwreck on the rocks of selfish sacrifice,
depression and suicide requires a complete turnaround and commitment to make unselfish
sacrifices. Already, the picture of this recipe for death by suicidal selfishness is becoming
clearer.

Suicide equals Selfish Sacrifice

Sadly, what is causing the obvious rise in suicides both in terms of data and demographics
and why is it occurring amongst some of the most affluent yet apathetic generations who
have ever lived is primarily self-inflicted. If life is so good, for example being blessed by
living in a country ranked happiest in the world like Australia, then why does this lucky
country have so many people trying to permanently depart it due to some of the highest
suicide rates in the world? Something must be seriously wrong, right?
When rates of depression and death by suicide are so high among such a significant
proportion of an affluent population--from youths to young and older adults, men and
woman--then they are warning signs that something is severely wrong with their quality of
life. Increasingly selfish sacrifices in the form of rising secular scientific reasoning that
divorces moral values from their traditional religious belief systems is a primary suspect.
Once traditional religious and moral belief systems have declined they cannot easily be
artificially re-established.
Thus, the secular scientist inevitably calls on the religion of naturalistic and materialistic
evolution to answer this problem by objectively stating that, like it or not this is the true
nature of this new religion of evolution and science. Suicides are now some of the leading
causes of death among all age groups, not just youth, in the developed world. Similar trends
are observed in communist or former communist countries.
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These suicide statistics are unprecedented in terms of the large numbers and scope of
different demographics intentionally killing themselves or trying desperately to do so.

Suicidal Consequences
There are of course many theories about the causes of such suicidal consequences, though
none can quite capture the tragedy and horror of it all. That suicide is just the tip of a
growing iceberg of suffering is an acknowledged fact. The growing number of negatively
deviant social identities and attachments and unrealistic expectations of personal freedom and
autonomy are the main causes of these suicidal consequences.
If pressed, a common secular scientific argument is to blame religion and Christianity in
particular for making people feel guilty about their selfish sacrifices of choosing to go against
natural, moral laws. The rationale for this argument is that if people were not made to feel
guilty about doing wrong by religion then they would be less depressed and suicidal because
they would have nothing to be guilty about. This rationale is similar to the emperor who
claimed that he was wearing clothes even though everyone could see he was stark naked.

Public Shame versus Personal Pain

Secular scientific logic assumes that once people are freed from the shackles of faith based
religion and embrace the reason based religion of secular science, they will no longer suffer
the same levels of guilt, hence depression and suicide should diminish rather than increase.
This reasoning only holds true to a point.
As worldviews towards selfish and unselfish relationships change, sacrifices and legacies do
change according to these moral norms. The more publicly accepting people are of selfish
sacrifices, the less likely they are to personally feel guilty about carrying them out is a core
part of secular scientific reasoning.
This secular scientific reasoning is the main reason tolerance of almost everything consented
to by adults is now the rule of law in many western countries. The only intolerance
encouraged--even mandated--is against those who are intolerant of this tolerance. Since
humans are by nature religious, these dogmas of secular science become the new religious
rules of thumb, similar to the religious rules of Judeo-Christianity that previously existed in
the West.

Breaking Natural Laws

Religion, secular science or otherwise, does not, however, take away the after effects of
actions that flout or fail the test of natural law. Selfish sacrifices in relationships are a
relevant example. The intended or unintended consequences of such selfish sacrifices are
unavoidable and historically evident in cultures and communities, families and individuals.
For instance, though legally or culturally acceptable, selective abortions and infanticide
creates gender imbalances between males and females. China and India are pertinent
examples of gender imbalances caused by selective destruction of foetuses. The social
consequences of these selfish sacrifices are obvious.

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So is the matter of conscience during the process of carrying out selfish sacrifices, which scar
and scare people, no matter what their religion tells them is acceptable.
Evidence for this revulsion is the backlash by moderate Muslims against radical acts of terror
claimed by Islamists as pure Islam is a relevant example. While there are difficulties when
interpreting or observing selfish or unselfish sacrifices in individuals and assuming they
apply to groups or vice versa, a scientifically helpful way of doing this is finding
relationships between things.

Finding the Faults

By studying patterns amongst similar or sequenced properties or elements, a neighbourhood
selection can be identified. Presumptions and even predictions can be made about the
relationships between these elements. It is not always possible to interpret or observe selfish
or unselfish sacrifices in individuals and conclude they apply to groups or vice versa, unless
there seems to be a close neighbourhood relationship between cause and effect, for example,
with suicide and beliefs. For example, suicide rates continue to rise amongst increasingly
secular, agnostic and atheistic individuals and groups.
Because one (suicide) occurs in the others (secularisms) neighbourhood or backyard, a
cause and effect relationship between the two can be presumed, especially if both appear to
feed off the other. This selection and connection could make them neighbours and subject
to the predictable laws of cause and effect: an action causing a reaction.
A valid point of caution is making false assumptions about the neighbourhood, especially if
there is no clear connection between these three selections of two neighbours and a
neighbourhood. However, if these three points or elements can be linked and connected
together, then there are strong grounds for assuming cause and effect.
In other words, if selfish relationships and sacrifices appear to be leaving a legacy of
successively selfish relationships and sacrifices then it is logical to consider that it is the
selfish rather than unselfish connections between these elements and entities that are
exacerbating these selfish sacrifices. For example, selfish sacrifices such as multiple
divorces and acts of unfaithfulness among adults, increasingly early sexual intimacy and
partners amongst teenagers and the availability of safer and more effective contraception are
noted as contributing factors to profound unhappiness, dangerous depression and increased
suicide amongst these practitioners.
Based on the above truths and logic, then these factors must be regarded as suspect causes
and effects of selfish sacrifices and relationships in adults becoming a legacy of their
offspring. Serious students of the social and mental sciences confirm these selfish sacrifices
in relationships as primary contributors to suicidal depression that exacerbate narcissism.

Backtracking is Difficult
As the scholar of suicide Emile Durkheim predicted a long time ago, the damage of these
intended and unintended consequences of selfish sacrifices are hard to repair.

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Once traditional religious and moral beliefs have declined, they cannot be artificially reestablished nor can they be easily rediscovered after being lost.
Similar to extinctions in the animal world, it is nearly impossible to bring back a species from
the brink of extinction, unless radical and intentional steps are taken to save it and its habitat.
If the best habitat for unselfish sacrifices in humans is found in the heterosexual,
monogamous family unit, then trying to stave off the extinction of unselfish sacrifices in
other habitats is doomed to failure.
A similar analogy can be applied to the efforts of secular science to solve the selfish
sacrifices of its own making. Because of rejecting traditional wisdom and religious
knowledge, secular science cannot provide the answers needed to reorient these more selfish
sacrifices into unselfish ones because it has rejected the only habitat that could save the
subject from extinction.

Limiting Science to the Secular

Thus secular scientific knowledge and morality become the only resources available to solve
the suicidal causes of selfish sacrifice, because other more traditional solutions, such as those
offered by religious morals and common sense wisdom are disqualified. The irony of this
situation is that the secular-scientific worldviews responsible for encouraging such selfish
sacrifices are now expected to solve the very problems they created.
This is like asking computer hackers and car thieves to find solutions to the problems they
intentionally created to steal and destroy peoples things and lives. Indeed this is a
conundrum for selfish sacrificers who now must use their secular-scientific resources to solve
suicidal consequences potentially caused by their very own actions and worldviews. The
public shame and stigma of many of these deviant acts may have been removed through
legalisation and legitimisation, but the private pain caused by the breaking of these natural
laws of relationship, legacy and sacrifice continue to have suicidal consequences.
Probably the best public exponents of the suicidal consequences and intensely personal pain
of divorce, abandonment and casual sexual encounters are its victims, the successors of these
selfish sacrifices. Those who express this pain most poignantly are rockers and rappers
because, as social muses, they are much more honest about the damage that is being done to
them and their offspring.

Personal Pain, Public Rage

Secular scientists, on the other hand often appear to be objective yet have a subjective, vested
interest in keeping the truth about these selfishly suicidal consequences locked up rather than
set free. There are two reasons for this honesty amongst rappers and rockers. First, many are
genuine victims who express their personal pain and angst through songs that poignantly and
angrily share their sense of alienation.
Despite their animosity towards authority, these young men and women are crying out for the
strange attraction of unselfish sacrifice from their parents and peers.

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This tech savvy generation knows, no matter what secular science is telling them, that
something is seriously wrong with the western world today and their dirges and diatribes are
a desperate cry for help.
This narcissistic generation is behaving like spoiled yet neglected children. They do
insightfully understand, however, something secular scientists cannot see or are unwilling to
admit. Selfish sacrifices are having suicidal consequences that are killing their generation as
fast as any natural disease and eating away our humanity slowly but surely despite protests to
the contrary.
Unfortunately, as the Law of Legacy predicts only too well, the unforeseen and unintended
consequences of selfish relationships and sacrifices are now bearing their bitter, rotten fruit.
The wisdom of selfish and unselfish sacrifices is justified by their offspring and many of the
current generation are uncomfortably more dysfunctional, depressed and suicidal than their
predecessors.
The shine of secular science is starting to wear off when it comes to selfish sacrifices in
relationships because of the suicidal legacies left behind. Contrary to the bold promises made
by secularism that its scientific techniques and technologies could offer freedom from
traditional mores and birth a brave new world through reason, the realities are tarnished and
soiled.

The Magic in Secular Science

The consequences of selfish sacrifices such as suicide and abortion on a grand scale are that
individually and collectively human life is devalued and the value of unselfish sacrifice, such
as in defending ones fellow citizens becomes devalued. Its selfish outworking weakens a
whole society and culture. A recent example of this selfish legacy are the greater numbers of
volunteers joining Daesh or Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East than volunteering to defend
their own western countries from this terrorist threat.
Similar to a magic show with numerous amazing acts that start to become tired and trite, its
allure starts to wear off when real answers to problems in lifes relationships are desperately
needed yet remain unanswered. Here is where dry secular reasoning is found wanting and
falls short. This is especially so when it comes to unselfish sacrifice, because the human
motivations for such expensive altruism are unique to man.
There are no genuine comparisons in the natural or animal world. Unselfish human sacrifice
goes beyond family ties to the deep, emotional human relationships of friendship and
fellowship. Some of the more powerful examples are of men who self-sacrifice for their
friends or leaders--and most powerfully and least often, followers--in times of crisis such as
in man made or natural disasters. Some of these stories of sacrifice are truly inspirational. A
representative handful of these testimonies to unselfishness are shared in the final chapter.
Because there are no real life parallels for human self-sacrifice in the animal world, even
current biological evolutionary theories cannot adequately explain or predict altruisms
sacrificial patterns in people. In other words, based on its own scientific methods, secular
science cannot adequately explain exactly what motivates people to sacrifice unselfishly.
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This reality comes despite the fact that it is a naturally observable rule that some individuals
sacrifice altruistically and others do so selfishly and that some societies do more of one than
others. Because the ledger of sacrifice is naturally weighted on the side of selfishness,
unselfish sacrifice is its nemesis, yet only occurs in people and places where these values are
cherished and practiced.

Religious Secular Scientists

Similar to other established religions, when secular science is faced with these uncertainties
or realities about being unable to understand particular phenomena, such as unselfish
sacrifice, it does not admit defeat. Instead, its prophets and priests normally do four things. If
possible the existence of a particular conundrum is denied or its relevance questioned, it is
called by another name, or is ridiculed as irrelevant, usually in that order.
Because unselfish sacrifice is impossible to disprove scientifically, the altruistic purity of
such actions are often questioned. For example, unselfish sacrifice can be religious altruism
aimed at attaining salvation for the sacrificer. From a secular scientific standpoint its
sacrificial purpose is really selfishly motivated despite the fact that the sacrificers and those
being saved may mistakenly believe its practitioners are altruistically orientated.
Thus, even if the sacrifice appears to be unselfish and is believed so both by the saved and
saviour, for a secular scientist such faith-based motivations for sacrifice are suspect in both
form and function because of their spiritual dimension. Obviously, not all faith-based
motivations for self-sacrifice are unselfish. Murder-suicide, when the suicider aims to kills
others in the process of killing themselves is fundamentally selfish.

The Problem of Altruism

However, if the altruistic outworking of a self-sacrifice is unselfish, then whether it is
religiously motivated or not, it should be appreciated for what it is. The problem for secular
science is its analysis of sacrifice and its emphasis on interpreting the scientific method using
a secular approach. Regarding secular science as the only pure, unbiased way to find an
explanation, blinds and biases it to probable non-secular alternatives.
Obviously this approach is neither unbiased or pure if it is skewed by secular reasoning
which says that pure unselfish sacrifice cannot be contaminated by faith based logic of a
spiritual or supernatural nature. Based on this logic, the most pure secular scientific
alternative is idealistic altruism driven by nothing more than the desire to see the wellbeing of
another human promoted before self-interest. On this basis, presumably atheists are the
purest altruists because they have no underlying selfishness derived from any external or
internal spiritual sources.
While this sort of secular altruism is possible, it is highly improbable without some
underlying immaterial, invisible spiritual cause because unselfish human sacrifice has,
without exception throughout human history, been based on spiritual values.

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This improbability is frustrating for atheistic and agnostic secular scientists because people of
faith and particularly Christians, have been consistently shown to be more altruistic than their
secular counterparts.

Secular Scientific Limitations

A prediction of the rule of sacrifice is that unselfish sacrifices motivated by the evolutionary
values of secular science are likely to diminish not increase and be supplanted by
increasingly selfish sacrifices. The suicidal consequences of selfish sacrifices in secular
societies are a sad testament to this truth and reality. To get around this obvious problem,
another secular scientific approach is to limit such unseen, spiritual motives to purely
mechanical biological reactions attributed to evolutionary development.
Based on these speculations, altruism is explained as an outworking of human intelligence
and reason, which recognises the need to override basic animal instincts of selfish sacrifice
with more evolutionary advanced unselfish forethought. Obviously, this reasoning raises
some major evolutionary and ethical dilemmas. For example, if most humans have gained
these faculties by chance, to what degree do these faculties make human beings responsible
for their actions? In this regard more thoughtful secular scientists are rightly cautious, even
caring, in their assessments of free will versus chance.

The Drive of Human Conscience

They recognise that what makes people human is conscientious care for other humans driven
by conscience rather than pure intellect and reason or mere chance. Some of the more radical
secular scientists assume, however, that because these altruistic actions appear biologically to
be chemical reactions preceding thoughts and actions, that most human behaviour is
ultimately deterministic rather than planned, despite the illusion that free will actually exists
and operates.
Not surprisingly, with both these arguments, it is secular scientists who presume that they are
the best-qualified interpreters of sacrificial phenomena, despite the fact they are not really
able to explain it properly in scientific terms nor are they the best practitioners of it in human
terms. By these observations alone secular science is not adequately qualified to make
assumptions or judgements about sacrifice, especially unselfish sacrifice.
Notwithstanding the fact that unselfish sacrifice is one of the most positively deviant
phenomena known to man with some of the most powerful, positive influences on
humankind, it is often regarded by secular science with contempt or as being unimportant,
because they have difficulty explaining it within the limits of their secular scientific
reasoning. Unselfish sacrifice exists, is important and that is an observable scientific fact.
Given these differing interpretations, even amongst secular scientists, it must be
acknowledged that much uncertainty surrounds motives for, actions and reactions towards
unselfish sacrifice. Unfortunately, despite this uncertainty, most secular scientists refuse to
consider spiritual probabilities because they are a matter of immaterial faith.

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Most secular scientists miss the fact that by restricting their scope to materialistic possibilities
also involves similar leaps of faith. By presuming that these secular limitations are scientific,
they are making the same mistake that they accuse their spiritual counterparts of making.
The fact that these complex interactions within and between humans can be related to nature
and animals does not necessarily mean that they are natural or normal for humans. This is an
incorrect application of neighbourhood relations between humans and animals. Because
certain human behaviours and physiology are similar to some animals, especially apes, the
secular scientific assumption is that one is the physical descendent of the other.

Instinctive Action
Based on this faulty logic, with behaviour for example, it could be assumed (and often is) that
apes and humans are psychologically similar. However, apes act instinctively, whereas
humans act morally, because there is a fundamental difference in the makeup of their minds
and wills. Humans have always had a conscience, which enables them to weigh up the rights
and wrongs of their actions, whereas apes do not and have never done so.
Therefore, gender identities and roles in monkeys, such as homosexuality, paedophilia, etc.,
are not applicable to humans due to superior human reasoning and self-awareness abilities
such as conscience. This reality creates a problem, because humans are culpable for their
actions due to these faculties, whereas animals are not. No amount of secular scientific
massaging of the fact that human conscience responds negatively to selfish sacrifices and
positively to unselfish ones will suffice.

Moral Responsibility
The normal secular scientific slight of hand or magic is to, first, claim normality. In other
words, such deviant behaviours are natural, therefore normal human behaviour. Second, is
that mutual consent amongst adults, with the proviso that practitioners are able to mutually
consent to these acts, makes these actions ethical. Finally, and usually in this order,
decriminalising of the act ultimately makes it legal, therefore morally acceptable.
These scientific-secular slights of hand are truly magical even mystical. Skilled magicians
and secular scientists are united by their aim of subduing or subverting reality to their own
wishes. Their magical secular scientific solution has been that techniques, technology and
reason can control reality.
In contrast, the wiser sages of old recognised the core problem with humanity was how to
conform the soul to reality. The reality is that once the world of facts is encountered, we step
into a world of limitations. There are natural laws and limits on selfish relationships,
sacrifices and legacies that cannot be bent or bounded, no matter how sophisticated the
technique or technology or reasoning. Natural laws of their own nature cannot be freed from
their own natures.
Encouraging people to be free from the fear of failure due to making selfish sacrifices by
reasoning that without these fears they will be free from the consequences of selfish
sacrifices is an example of secular scientific reasoning that goes against these natural laws.
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Similar to trying to paddle a canoe up a fast flowing stream or refine wood by going against
its grain are attempts to subvert natural laws through magic or science. There are always
hidden costs with selfish sacrifices because they are opposed to natural law.

Costs of Chance and Choice

Notwithstanding this reality, good magicians can almost convince an audience that their
magic is real, yet leave an element of doubt and mystery. Truly great magicians wow an
audience to believe that apparent illusion is in fact reality. Despite its chaotic nature the
underlying order of the world seemed real enough to the ancients to imply choice rather than
mere chance ultimately governing life.
The prevailing worldview was that since man makes choices, a higher power as gods or God,
ordain choice, even if such choices can appear arbitrary. The ancients and traditionalists were
either good magicians or wise men. To this day they have convinced a majority of people
they are accountable to a higher power in the future for their current and past actions.

Chance Complexity
Initially, secular sciences magic appears superior, because it seems to prove that what
appears to be real actually is not. They are truly master magicians. Whether or not they are as
wise as the sages of old is debatable. Despite obvious order emerging from chaos, according
to the secular scientist, complexity emerged by chance, rather than choice. Instead of choice
creating complexity, apparent complexity came about by chance.
Even the arguably most complex beings, humans, must be careful not to fall for the illusion
of choice and free will when it may not be real is secular science's answer to order in
complexity. Based on this logic, if a person has the same mental makeup as a serial killer,
then they have no more choice in the matter than the self-confessed serial killer. The fact that
the secular scientist can choose to reason through this problem whereas the serial killer
presumably cannot, due to chance, is the conclusion that must be drawn based on this
reasoning.
Similar to a good magical slight of hand, at first glance, these conclusions seem reasonable.
If by chance, a person can reason their way through life, then they can choose to make the
right moral choices about life. Unfortunately, this secular, scientific finding is flawed
because it is based on the false assumption that everything that needs to be grasped by this
logic can be done so by scientific reasoning alone.
Ultimately, this makes the findings of secular science truly magical. The magic moment is
that despite chance rather than choice governing ultimate reality, choosing to understand and
embrace this truth is liberating rather than terrifying. Their illusion is the rationale that
anything that cannot be grasped in this manner by this secular scientific logic is unimportant
to human progress. That making such assumptions involves choice rather than mere chance
seems to escape these otherwise sharp, secular scientific minds.

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However, believing the truth of their own magic makes its practitioners, the secular
magicians vulnerable, because they are more like the religious shamans they claim to despise
than they think. Their magic is in fact an illusion and reality is more terrifyingly real than
they can reasonably imagine. Believing in their own tricks differentiates secular scientists
from master magicians who actually know where fact and fantasy end.

Healthy Competition Needed

The founders of secular science recognised these risks better than their offspring, because
they had more robust competition spiritual scientists. Competition, rightly, causes caution in
ones own conclusions and is the basis of the scientific method. Because secular scientists
were comparing their techniques with religious scientists who opposed some of the
foundational theories of secular science, they had to compete with more traditional forms of
knowledge and reasoning primarily based in Christendom.
Here is an example of the correct and unselfish separation between Religion and Science that
promotes healthy competition between, and caution about, conclusions. Like a good marriage
each spouse played different roles that were equally important yet contributed different
strengths at the same time. Religion nurtured and challenged human nature and science
analysed the natural truth of these beliefs and actions.
With her divorce from the Church, Sciences new partner, Secularism does not play the same
healthy role of keeping the other accountable and honest. Instead, theirs is a selfish,
incestuous relationship that bitterly rejects the former spouse and promotes complete equality
in their marriage. This so-called equality results in a lack of accountability and transparency
due to both spouses playing interchangeable roles. Equitable it may be, accountable, it is not.
Genuine science suffers because anything beyond the realm of the secular is out of scope due
to this selfish new relationship that excludes the supernatural by limiting science to the
natural. By killing God, secular science is in the perilous position of not being able to get
him back again. Now, many secular scientists may say good riddance, without thinking
deeply of the consequences. More serious scientists recognise the danger of this loss is
already manifesting itself through selfish sacrifices.
Whilst selfishly liberated by relying on basic instincts and senses to interpret nature, the
human world pays a price through the loss of higher culture and moral tradition. The cost of
choosing chance as a worldview is its potential for selfish fatalism and fear rather than
unselfish optimism and hope. Because of mankinds insatiable appetite for spiritual solutions,
secular sciences selfish limitations will never suffice and people will always search beyond
this limited scope for answers.
Consequently, people may choose even worse religious solutions because of these secular
scientific limitations. For the younger generation who are the legacy of secular science, not
having had to compete so rigorously with traditional knowledge and religious wisdom has
been liberating in one sense yet deadening in another.

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The mantra that scientific reasoning, the ultimate in human consciousness alone, can solve
any technical and ethical problems as they arise misses one fundamental point. That point is
conscience and the consequences of regret and remorse over selfish sacrifices.
Despite the almost universal acceptance of the magic of chance in secular science, there is a
niggling sense amongst the audience that something is not quite right. The magicians may
accept the reality of their own magic. Their audience, however, is more sceptical and rightly
so. It recognises that the evidence, literally screaming out in the increasingly depressive and
deadening world of real life, is disproving the magic and tarnishing the lustre of secular
science.
Even if chance caused human consciousness, mankind's individual and collective conscience
is the thorn in their side. No amount of secular scientific liberation from choice due to chance
frees consciousness from conscience. In man, the two are inexorably linked. Due to this
inalienable link through these unbreakable natural laws, for every action there is a
consequence makes the boomerang effect of selfish sacrifices telescope into ever more
painful problems for its practitioners.

Dangerous Determinism
Unselfish sacrifice is especially problematic because it nearly always occurs in public
settings yet outworks itself as a personal choice. This interplay between public and personal
responsibilities, group and individual selection all strongly suggest that something more than
determinism drives unselfish sacrifice. Despite humans uniquely displaying a spiritual
essence that senses eternity and is conscious of moral consequences that could well be the
main motivating force for unselfish sacrifice, the existence of such faculties are normally
denied by secular science.
This denial occurs because these immaterial aspects of sacrifice cannot be tested thus must be
a matter of faith not reason. Such a worldview has serious implications for selfish and
unselfish sacrifice. By removing an integral aspect of reality and sense making because of its
immaterial aspects does not mean it simply disappears from peoples minds due to them
being told it is not really there or that it is something else entirely.

Rational Religion
Herein is the conundrum for secular science. Whilst disclaiming religion as a matter of faith,
it takes religions place by offering secular science as the only rational alternative. Secular
science as a society comes into being similar to religious movements. Those qualified and
permitted to speak on behalf of the movement, secular scientists, play similar roles to
religious leaders. This secular social structure of politicians, scientists and celebrities is
similar to a traditional religious hierarchy of priests, prophets and laity.
Similar to religious leaders, secular politicians decide what is politically correct and scientists
interpret this knowledge to control the laity through their secular classes and codes. This
religious approach excludes people who do not interpret the world as they do.

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The obvious danger of this exclusion in terms of sacrifice is that if this limitation is
fundamentally selfish, it will promote selfish sacrifices that are ultimately suicidal for its
adherents.
Thankfully, amongst most humans there is still the natural fear and faith and hope in the
supernatural that is sceptical of untested or risky naturalistic, secular scientific facts and
philosophies. In other words, especially with sacrifice, people can observe through natural
laws that unselfish sacrifice is superior to selfish sacrifice and are rightly concerned when
secular science encourages more selfish than unselfish sacrifices.
Even if the reasons for unselfish sacrifices are unscientific, this reality can be accepted
because of its powerful attraction. It is highly probable that no amount of secular scientific
change can erase this anxiety about the eternal and supernatural except the eradication of the
human in man. If humanness is based on immaterial faith, hope and love, attempting to
eradicate or empty it from the human being made with this image in mind it is impossible no
matter what scientists and secularists may say and do.
Sacrificially unselfish hope and courage and sacrifice, even if irrational in scientific terms, is
more powerful than any of the scientifically rational arguments against its existence. Even if
unselfish sacrifices challenge the enforcement of secular scientific moral equality, if they are
the pinnacle of humanity, then they will continue to resonate with humanity and will remain
the thorn in the side of secular sciences attempts to eradicate unselfish sacrifice

Spiritual Eradication Fails

On this basis it is quite possible that attempting to eradicate the spiritual human from the
material person could be one of the reasons why selfish sacrifice and its ultimate expression,
suicide, are such endemic problems in societies that have embraced scientific secularism.
This divorce of the spiritual from the material, while reasonable and rational ultimately fails
the test of time and reality in the context of the human condition.
In other words, human history and its collective wisdom do not support scientific secularism.
When it comes to unselfish self-sacrifice, the secular scientific argument that spiritual
motivations do not really (or should not) exist, in other words are an illusion or irrational,
despite appearing to be real or are something else entirely predetermined by natural causes,
become hollow.
By denying the existence of such soulishness and sacredness, and suppressing or ridiculing
anyone who questions this reasoning as being unscientific, secular science can dominate the
debate almost unopposed. If secular-science had its way it would, but for the nagging
problem that demands a response: selfish and suicidal sacrifices continue to increase in this
environment of scientific secularism. Thus the malignant growth of selfish sacrifice continues
despite secularisms claims that scientific reasoning should put an end to it.
A final weapon in the arsenal of secular science if all else fails is to blame religious faith for
its own failures. For example, the reason people are suicidal is because they believe that their
material actions may have immaterial consequences causes them to needlessly worry and
become suicidal.
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Therefore, the real culprit for selfish sacrifices is a by-product of religious repression that
encourages guilt at moral failures (sin) instead of secular science that could arrive at similar
moral conclusions through reason without the associated religious guilt.
Herein is the fundamental problem with secular scientific logic regarding unselfish sacrifice.
Unselfish sacrifice does not really make sense in a secular scientific sense, yet is shown to
work remarkably well in real life. In fact, unselfish sacrifice is the pinnacle of humanity,
precisely because it cannot be arrived at by logic but works amazingly well in practice.

The Blame Game

One of the most common secular-scientific responses to this epic crisis of selfish sacrifices is
to go on the offensive by blaming religious beliefs and people of faith for these problems or
trying to silence or marginalise any voices raised in objection. It is a crude and effective
tactic of circular logic, but does little to solve any genuinely scientific problems or bolster the
moral authority of secular science.
Most people are rightfully sceptical of the bias of secular science in favour of selfish sacrifice
and are suspicious of its motives. A much wiser and effective course of action is to be more
introspective. Ask instead whether or not certain sacrifices such as divorce and separation,
multiple remarriages and sexual relationships, abortions and euthanasia, and their
legitimisation and legalisation facilitate selfish or unselfish sacrifices.
Observing these sacrifices first-hand based on the simple rules of sacrifice should answer this
question unequivocally. Such selfish relationships mediated by these selfish sacrifices do
lead to selfish legacies that have suicidal consequences. Applying the laws of relationship
and legacy mediated by sacrifice should further clarify the wisdom or folly of such sacrifices
and firmly place them in a selfish or unselfish category for further action. An analysis of the
selfish, self-interested sacrifices that are accepted and even promoted by secular science
exposes a dangerous pluralism and paganism that has become an unsustainable and
ultimately suicidal humanist religion.

Pluralistic Paganism
All religions arrive at these three universal laws of relationship and legacy mediated by
sacrifice in similar ways. Religion is faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or
Being. Theists, those who believe in a God or gods, recognise that their relationships are with
each other and with this ultimate reality. Religions recognise this reality by attempting to
regulate these relationships through moral responsibilities to each other and to this ultimate
reality.
Human legacies are a consequence of these two-way religious relationships and human
sacrifices reflect this reality. All the great world religions of Abrahamic Judaism, Christianity
and Islam, along with pluralistic / pantheistic Hinduism and Buddhism--and their offshoots-recognise that the spiritual qualities of these three universal laws of relationship, sacrifice and
legacy are determined by an ultimate reality in the next life that is profoundly influenced by
our actions in this life.
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Up to this point secular religion, as a child of Christendom, is similar. Its ultimate reality is
Nature, that is the natural world. Science is the moral arbitrator and scientists the mediators
of this relationship. Similar to other religions, the selfish and unselfish legacies and sacrifices
made by its practitioners are a consequence of this naturalistic worldview. Here, secularism
parts company with its parent, Christianity, and other religions that believe the natural to be a
product of the supernatural by reducing reality to the physical world.

A God called Nature

In other words, the understanding that the universe was created by the word of God or gods,
so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible is not part of the secular
scientific worldview. Instead, secular science understands that the universe produced itself
from nothing and continues to reproduces itself, despite being unable to prove this
hypothesis. On this basis secular scientists assume they are not religious because their god
Nature worshipped through science does not require faith only facts therefore does not
qualify as a religion of faith.
This is a false assumption because human beings are inherently spiritual, therefore religious
and fallible, thus naturally rely on faith where facts are unavailable. Evidence for human
spirituality is found in the sense of profound eternal responsibility and culpability in every
persons heart and the yearning to find it remaining undiminished despite secular sciences
iron, icy grip.
Suppressing these spiritual tendencies by denying the eternal in favour of the temporal is
inherently selfish and unsustainable requiring more and more selfish sacrifices to sustain the
unsustainable. This spiritual suppression and repression produces a deep and profound
unhappiness that leads to suicidal behaviour. Evidence of this human fallibility through faith
in secular science is its rejection of the invisible in favour of the visible only because the
latter can be deduced scientifically whereas the former cannot.
On this basis, secular science is, in religious terms a sophisticated form of Animism,
because it attributes and limits conscious life to the physical world and phenomena of nature.
Unlike traditional animism, secularism denies the supernatural, eternal and divine as invisible
aspects of life that influence the visible natural world through Nature.
Secular sciences rationale for this assumption is that this spiritual world cannot be
scientifically determined or deduced, therefore is irrelevant until scientifically proven to be
relevant based on these rules. The problem with such a secular worldview is that
scientifically excluding the existence of these invisible aspects of life does not make them
disappear from human experience if they actually exist.
Secular sciences denial of the immortal is ultimately a foolish form of paganism and, similar
to traditional animism, leads to an unhealthy, selfish focus on the physical and natural worlds,
because by denying the supernatural by default the natural world becomes their god. By
serving the created rather than the Creator and wrongly assuming that this relationship and its
sacrifices leaves a similar legacy, pluralistic paganism has become the new religion of most
secular scientists.
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Traditional animists worship and make offerings and sacrifices to Nature: inanimate rocks
and trees and animate objects such as animals as totems, believing that in so doing, they are
able to spiritually influence their physical world. For example, Dayak tribespeople sacrifice a
chicken and spill its blood over rice seeds to be planted in the hope of a better harvest.
Secular scientists act in similar though ever more sophisticated ways through their ongoing
quest to control their own and others destinies through studying and manipulating the natural
world. A number of intended and unintended consequences emerge from this pluralistic
paganism within a secular scientific context. Pluralism assumes that there are many forms of
ultimate reality and paganism rejects religious values in favour of sensual and material
pleasures.
An unintended consequence of pagan pluralism is the chronic unhappiness and despair that
comes from habitually selfish sacrifices. These factors are evidenced by the high levels of
depression and suicide observed in these societies. While secular science ultimately does not
accept this hedonistic reality because research shows that these sacrifices are unsustainably
selfish, an intended consequence of this sorry state of affairs is that secular science gets the
opportunity save the day by imposing its authoritarian religious values.

Religion of Secular Science

One unintended consequence of secular sciences religious status is its role as a moral
arbitrator. Because ethics have traditionally come from its parent, Christianity, by rejecting
its moral principles, secular science is now faced with the challenge of developing an
alternate ethical reality based on reason. So far, this alternate secular morality based on
humanistic reason has not kept pace with its scientific advances.
For example we now have the technology to select a fetus based on its gender, then choose to
dispose of it or use it for research purposes or keep it as a baby. The morality of secular
science accepts all three options as equally valid even proper to comply with secular
scientific reasoning. Similarly, same-sex relations and marriage, previously regarded almost
universally by most higher world religions and cultures as deviant and dishonourable
behaviour is now regarded as not only tolerable but honourable.
However, as secular science takes over from pluralistic paganism, its tolerance for teachings
that challenge its hegemony will become increasingly curtailed. One only has to listen to its
high priests, the scientific elites who, if they have their way, will curtail religious freedom to
such an extent that freedom of worship will be permitted provided secular scientific morality
is rigidly adhered to.
In other words, people can worship however they like provided their religious values do not
challenge the morality of secular science. This regime includes curtailing the teaching of
Christian religion because its presence challenges secular religion, hence the argument that
religious Christian morality is a form of child abuse when compared to the tolerant
rationalism of secular science.

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One of the problems with the religion of secular science and its god, Nature, is that the
worship of the created and creative becomes limited to objects visible in nature such as
human sexuality and man-made objects such as technology, because the invisible is irrational
and irrelevant. While this bold proposition sustains many a secular scientist, it is questionable
whether such reasoning, no matter how rational is naturally sustainable. If something is
naturally unsustainable, then not matter what is done to sustain it, it cannot succeed. The
unselfish sacrifices of a secular scientific worldview are naturally unsustainable.

Naturally Unsustainable
Naturally sustainable laws are those unselfish relationships, sacrifices and legacies that have
sustained just societies since the beginning of time. In so much as they are practically proven
to work they are by their very nature sustainable. Before technology was available to
circumvent these natural laws they operated relatively unopposed because people accepted
their self-evident rules.
For human populations to increase sustainably a basic requirement was sexual intercourse
with a member of the opposite sex to procreate. Following this same natural logic the best
quality (least selfish) social unit was a family consisting of children procreated and cared for
by their biological parents.
An (un)intended consequence of secular scientific morality is that these naturally unselfish
laws of relationship, sacrifice and legacy are called into question. This is due to the rational,
secular scientific assumption that because it is technically possible to circumvent natural
sexual laws then it should be equally possible to circumvent their moral equivalents. This
reasoning is only possible to maintain if one has faith in its logic.

Denial of the Spiritual

Based on this secular scientific logic a spiritual and supernatural world not detectable or
divisible by the senses means that selfish sacrifices that break supernatural laws are irrelevant
because secular science is limited in scope to observing phenomena in this natural world. In
other words, any moral implications of selfish sacrifices beyond these limitations are deemed
irrelevant. The inherent danger of such an assumption is obvious...what if it is wrong? Just
because something is doable does not make it right.
Often, this awful realisation comes only after some terrible calamity occurs that proves the
salience of keeping natural laws rather than breaking them. A global example is the
probability that burning fossil fuels combined with excessive deforestation is similar to a
person smoking cigarettes excessively with a continually reducing lung capacity. A similar
situation is caused by a parent whose smoking leads his or her child to become ill due to
being a passive smoker. Polluting ones environment to the detriment of other peoples health
is another example.
Obviously such behaviour is a more selfish than unselfish sacrifice. Based on the laws of
relationship, these sorts of sacrifices will not leave a successful legacy.

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Thus, a logical question is why can evidence of these selfish sacrifices in the natural, physical
world be identified by secular science when similar examples of selfish sacrifice in the
spiritual, moral world are missed?
One reason for this blind spot occurs because the acknowledged ultimate reality Nature is
actually not nature or science or even secularism but humanism. Humanism is the ultimate
reality for this secular scientific reasoning because mankind is the highest visible being able
to manipulate and manage nature. When any invisible ultimate reality is denied in favour of a
visible ultimate reality that is its own master subject to no other then this is arguably a selfish
sacrifice with unintended consequences if an invisible ultimate reality in fact exists that
influences the visible yet its existence is denied.

Rejecting the invisible

Because secular reasoning does not recognise the existence of the invisible and indivisible
due to its rules of scientific evidence being limited to the visible and divisible world, its
social engineering experiments are highly suspect, especially if such invisible moral laws
exist as all the worlds great religions attest. An easily relatable analogy comes from children
who are adopted or abandoned by a parent.
Many an abandoned child has a yearning to know their birth parents or parent even if they are
happy with their adoptive parents or blended family. This reality attests that children want
and need to know their progenitors, despite this not being rationally necessary. To some
extent the invisible influence of a procreator drives a visible need in that child to know their
birth parents even though it does not seem necessary or make sense.
Now if a similar dynamic applies to humankind as created rather than evolving beings, it
helps explain why, despite the belief that humankind does not need to have a relationship
with its Creator because it evolved from Nature, there is an inborn desire to know this parent
that no amount of secular scientific denial will soothe. Natures role as an adoptive rather
than biological parent, helps explain why this selfish sacrifice influences the children who
naturally want to know their birth parent, Creator, because they recognise that they are not
the offspring of Nature because she is not their original parent.
The relevance of this unintended consequence of secular science claiming Nature to be the
birth parent of the children is that this selfish sacrifice is recognised as a lie by the children,
even if they are not permitted to find their birth parent. Thus, telling the children that their
birth parent does not exist or cannot be found as secular science does in this case is small
comfort for the children instinctively desiring to know their birth parent.
Normally a denial of the existence of a birth parent results in some sort of dysfunction or
depression in these adopted offspring. Evidence of this dysfunction and depression abounds
through the selfish relationships, sacrifices and legacies that have become so common a
consequence of this blindness in the children of secular science. Denying children the right
to search for their birth parents is almost as selfish a sacrifice as denying their birth parents
existence.

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Again, the denial of a progenitor or creator does not make this need to search for one go
away, it simply causes the child unnecessary depression and dysfunction because their
deepest relational needs remain unmet. Initially, these unmet relational needs result in selfish
sacrifices in the adoptee as they mature. Over time these unmet relational needs lead them to
make similarly selfish sacrifices with their own offspring. This vicious cycle of
generationally selfish sacrifices is now in force until it is broken by unselfish sacrifice.

Sustaining the Unsustainable

Another issue with the denial of the invisible, Creator, influencing the visible, Nature, is that
morality is reduced to visible reality. An example of this problem is found with same-sex
relationships. Given that they are contrary to Nature, despite homosexual relationships
existing in nature, it is obvious that same-sex unions cannot even sustain the natural, animal
world. Neither can such relationships sustain the human world.
Even if their existence in nature is proved does not mean that human same-sex relationships
are naturally sustainable because they exist amongst animals. The same argument applies for
bisexuality or any other deviant act. Since when has mankind founded decisions about
human morality based on the animal world? Only since secular science has come to the fore
has such selfish reasoning been acceptable. Due to this natural unsustainability and selfish
reasoning, same-sex relationships are, by their very nature, more selfish sacrifices than those
of their heterosexual counterparts.
Given the problem of being naturally unsustainable, deviant relationships must seek religious
legitimacy to survive. Because nature does not support them, society must afford them
equality. An example of this desire for religious legitimacy is found in the creeping
legalisation of same-sex civil unions and marriages that go beyond secular recognition of
equal rights to forcing established religion that is morally opposed to such deviant
relationships to accept them as being morally legitimate.
Same-sex couples that already have the secular, legal right to marry in most western countries
are not satisfied with state sanctioned unions. Now they are seeking to have religious
recognition of their unions and are willing to take legal action against religious organisations
that are morally opposed to marrying them. Even business men and women and individual
employees can fall foul of this vitriol if they claim their human rights by refusing to support
same-sex marriage through their work activities.
The reason for this extreme selfishness is another symptom of the deliberate attempts by
secular science to force a complete separation or schism between church and state because
science has now become the new religion and its moral foundations must triumph over all
others. Here is yet another example of selfish sacrifice that has major implications for
societies beyond natural, visible unsustainability to invisible moral consequences in other
parts of life and liberty.
For example, freedom of religion, in most secular, democratic societies, has traditionally
meant that the invisible is the domain of religion whilst the visible is the domain of science.

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The two, Religion and Science had acted as healthy competitors by keeping each other
accountable. This relationship has worked well and arguably contributed to the enormous
technological advances in countries that have had this relatively unselfish legacy.
However, this separation of spiritual church and secular state is no longer possible now that
secular science wants to be an all encompassing religion in its own right. For a genuine
separation to exist between the two, then marriage equality, for example, would be limited to
same-sex secular unions and civil marriage ceremonies. It is not. Instead, some same-sex
couples are seeking marriage equality by demanding that churches marry them.
If they dont comply, churches and Christians opposed to such behaviour are threatened with
legal action and lampooned as bigots. Thus a major problem with this relatively new religion
of secular science are the limitations imposed by its secular mores and scientific methods,
which limits its scope to the natural rather than supernatural and visible rather than invisible
worlds. An initial response echoed by so many secular scientists today is, So what! The
problems with this response may not be immediately obvious, but will become more so over
time.

Visible and Invisible Reality

If the invisible and supernatural exists to influence the visible and natural, claiming that the
invisible and supernatural does not exist because they are outside the scope of secular science
is morally foolish and sacrificially perilous because of its suicidal consequences. Such a
position is similar to the senior crew of the Titanic who only say small surface ice flows and
failed to appreciate the icebergs underneath. Human relationships mediated by selfish
sacrifice leave a legacy of profound loss that is being experienced by so many today.
An objective assessment on this basis is that these sacrifices are fundamentally selfish and
suicidal and need some radical reorientation to recognise the dangers hidden by their selfishly
sacrificial secular scientific worldview. One of the only ways to do this is to radically reorient
from selfish to unselfish sacrifices. The way to do this is to recognise that making moral
justifications from nature are fundamentally selfish, because nature makes selfish sacrifices.

Moral Justification from Nature

Therefore, it should be obvious from our study of selfish sacrifices, so far, that when invisible
moral wisdom, usually associated with religion and an invisible Creator, is replaced by
visible moral justification through Nature, ethics change. There are two main reasons for
these ethical changes.
First, despite Nature often having the last laugh at human attempts to predict and control it,
humans are superior to nature and should manage it rather than be subservient to it. Second,
being subservient to Nature causes humans to make naturalistic moral justifications about
ethical actions. By being subservient to Nature whilst trying to manipulate her causes and
consequences all sorts of selfish sacrifices are made.

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These sacrifices are fundamentally selfish because they destroy human relationships and
legacies. The main reason for this destruction is that humans are meant to care for and
manage the natural world by being its stewards rather than servants. While this distinction
may seem subtle it is significant because of the need for the moral justification of human
ethics. Moral justifications from Nature use observations from the natural, especially animal
world, to justify ethical human actions.
For example, because homosexual unions are observed in nature, subservience to these laws
entertain the logic that homosexual marriages should be permitted amongst humans because
it evident in animals. A similar example is that because cells are similar in their physical
composition, researching and destroying human fetuses, for instance, is not morally wrong
because they are not really human, just a collection of cells.
Drawing such a comparison is erroneous because animals never marry as humans do by
making a public and legal declaration of their union and commitment to each other. Similarly
erroneous is making the argument from nature against same-sex unions in favour of
heterosexual monogamous relationships because they are also validated by Nature. While
animals can be used as metaphors for human character and behaviour, using their actions as
moral justification for human behaviour is deceptive because animals are not human.
Animals are not human due to lacking our faculties of consciousness and conscience.
Ultimately, the fact that numerous species of birds and mammals are found to engage in
same-sex activity or monogamy is irrelevant to human sexual activity, unless secular science
limits itself to making moral justification for human actions through the natural and animal
world. So far biomedical research has failed to show due cause for homosexuality. This is
despite the fact that secular scientific research into genetics, hormones and upbringing is
continuing at a frantic pace to prove its legitimacy.
Most likely, as the nature-nurture debate has consistently shown for other human conditions,
such as promiscuity and depression, a homosexual orientation is a combination of both
human nature and nurturing, and ultimately personal choice. Similar to the other behavioural
conditions mentioned, these other behavioural conditions are nurtured through personally
acting on these impulses and having public support for their perpetration.
In other words, while certain individuals do have stronger impulses than others to act in
certain ways, they remain personally and publicly responsible for their actions. Indeed
making moral justification for human behaviour from nature assumes that humans are similar
to animals in that they primarily act on instinct rather than will. That is why secular science
argues so strongly for morality informed by nature, because to assume that humans are
subject to a morality beyond the natural world challenges their limited worldview about free
will and personal responsibility.

Family Dysfunction the Cause

To genuinely understand the angst that Secular Science has for Spiritual Christianity one
must understand the origins of their dysfunctional relationship.

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Remember, Secular Science is a child of Christendom, hence, similar to a child rebelling
against its parent, Secular Science blames its parent, Christendom, for many of the problems
it faces.
Indeed, some of the many problems that Secular Science has and faces are caused by its
parents dysfunction and bad parenting, such as the child sexual abuse perpetrated by some
churchmen. Past excesses in punishments such as beating children when supposedly
disciplining them, homophobia, etc., are all legitimate examples of church overreach.
Judging those inside the church, rather than those outside the church is what the Church was
originally called to do. Church overreach is understandable when it becomes institutionalised,
hence the term Christendom.
Whenever an organisation becomes an institution it is in danger of becoming authoritarian.
The parent of Secular Science, Christendom, became authoritarian and failed in its original
mission of preaching the gospel, by forcing conversion. Similarly, its child Secular Science
will ultimately fail, as the secular socialist-communist experiments of the post-Second World
War era also eventually failed in their authoritarianism once they forced conversion rather
than preached their gospel in the public square of religious freedom.
Note how secular science argues for freedom of expression and thought yet strives to limit
and gag any religious input into morality as being unscientific and non-secular. Of course,
Secular Science, like its parents, will argue that its tolerance for anything that does not
challenge its secular scientific hegemony is freedom. This is a failure in itself to recognise the
reverse discrimination that such a stance takes and the self-inflicting nature of this selfish
sacrifice and its suicidal consequences.
When a person becomes desensitised due to suffering chronic pain, it is difficult for the body
to identify the original source of the pain, because a more generalised feeling and fear of pain
masks the true cause or source of the pain. This pain becomes especially acute and depressive
when those meant to give care and treatment deny the source of the pain because they refuse
to accept its existence.

Secularism and Suicide

If one superimposes a demographic map of the atheists worldwide in relation to national
suicides it becomes immediately obvious that there is a correlation. Countries with a high
proportion of professing atheists appear to have a higher percentage of suicides per capita.
That atheists are more likely to suicide than theists is an obvious conclusion and research
supports this finding. Why this is so, when secular atheists are purported to be the most
tolerant and least superstitious of humankind is telling. These same places and peoples where
secular science rules or has ruled in the past are, unsurprisingly, rife with dysfunction and
despair. Seldom are the most selfish sacrifices with suicidal consequences not first preceded
by other less dramatic yet equally selfish sacrifices in the realm of relationships as legacies.
Sacrifice is the mediator between relationships and legacies. It is the vital bridge that links
the two together. Given its importance selfish sacrifice provides a weak yet destructive link
between relationships and legacies.
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As a bridge connects one side of a river to another, it matters not the appearance of the bridge
but its ability to reliably carry traffic safely across the river of life that ultimately counts.
When it fails due to its design or durability, then urgent action needs to be taken to fix the
bridge. Then, the inspection and repair of any other bridges with similar problems is
warranted. This was done in the U.S. after a bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007. Many
other western countries, including Australia, have followed suit to avoid their own bridge
collapses.
The question for secular science when faced by such overwhelming evidence of the suicidal
consequences of selfish sacrifices is what to do? The obvious conclusion is that the bridge of
selfish sacrifice is faulty and needs fixing or, better yet, replacing completely.
The logical answer must be to repair the bridge of life with unselfish sacrifices that will lead
to unselfish legacies. To do this well requires a fundamental reorientation from selfish
relationships mediated by selfish sacrifices to unselfish ones. There is an answer to the
suicidal consequences of selfish sacrifices and it is to replace them with unselfish ones.
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Chapter 7
Sacrifice unselfishly
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends
~ Jesus Christ

A Sacrificial Solution
The solution for suicidally selfish sacrifices is radically unselfish ones. Telling stories and
sharing testimonies about unselfish relationships and sacrifices are the legacies that have
sustained just societies and communities throughout the ages and inspired the next
generations to sacrificial service and sacrifice.
When these stories and testimonies of unselfish sacrifice are substituted and supplanted by
stories of selfish sacrifices as secular science is currently doing then a community or culture
radically changes course because the sacrificial stories being told are no longer of unselfish
heroes but of selfish ones.
All cultures at all times throughout history have been inspired by sacrifice. The critical
question is what sort of sacrifices are they inspired by? Which sacrifice is most selfish or
unselfishthat of the abortionist, the sexual liberationist coming out, the suicide bomber, the
one who becomes a human candle, the adulterer, sacrificial leader or saviour of others?
Deciding which sacrifices and sacrificers should be emulated says more about a person and a
public than anything they say or see about themselves. Being inspired by selfish sacrifices is
one of the most dangerously depressive and suicidal places to be. Doing nothing about it
results in a natural progression towards the lowest common denominator: selfish sacrifices in
lifes relationships and legacies.
Choosing to tell stories about unselfish sacrifices is the best start possible in changing course
from selfish to unselfish sacrifices. Honouring the testimonies and memories of sacrificial
heroes is the only way to change course from a culture of selfish to unselfish
sacrifices. Whether or not the political correctness of secular science approves of it or not is
irrelevant.
What IS relevant for human survival is the intentional return to unselfish sacrifices in lifes
relationships and legacies. Doing this through the stories of unselfish sacrifice that still
abound if searched for diligently as for pure gold is what must be done. And, once found,
these gems of unselfish sacrifice and their practitioners must be protected and treasured
above all else.

Sacrificial heroes
To put these principles of unselfish sacrifice into perspective and practice, be inspired by
these sacrificial heroes from diverse backgrounds united by their sacrificial heroism.

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Eric Liddell - The Flying Man

Sportsman Eric Liddell was a Scottish runner of the 1920s immortalised in the film Chariots
of Fire. Refusing to run the 100-yard heat on a Sunday, due to his Christian beliefs, Eric
chooses to miss out on almost assured Gold Medal glory in this event at the 1924 Paris
Olympics. In spite of this setback, Eric wins gold in the 400 meters event. He is a national
hero.
Instead of going on to fame and fortune in the West, he chooses to serve as a teacher in war
torn and famine ravaged China. Happily married with two daughters and one more on the
way, the Japanese invasion of China forces him to again think about going back to the safety
of the West or staying in China. Eric chooses to stay, sending his pregnant wife and
daughters back home to safety in Canada.
Eric helps the victims of war however he can, even saving the life of a wounded Chinese
soldier. As the Japanese advance, Eric is taken prisoner and interned at Weihsien, the largest
internment camp in Asia during WWII. Eric continues to show great character even as food
and supplies become scarce.
Despite the incredible brutality and cruelty of the Japanese guards, Eric instructs his fellow
prisoners not to hate the Japanese but forgive them. Then when an opportunity comes for
him to be one of the first prisoners released under a Prisoner of War (POW) exchange
negotiated by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Eric refuses. Instead, he gives his place to a
pregnant woman. Five months before liberation, Eric dies. His unselfish sacrifice is
honoured to this day in both China and Scotland and around the world.

Kejun - Sacrifice for the Sky Burial

They had been married less than hundred days when Kejun goes missing in action. Shu Wen,
his wife, spends the next thirty years crisscrossing Tibet in search of her missing husband,
Kejun, a doctor in the Chinese People's Liberation Army. She travels thousands of miles
across and back in time from 1950s communist China to the Buddhist plateaus of Tibet.
Shu Wen is consumed by love. She just wants to find her husband. What she finally finds out
is that Kejun is a hero. An old Tibetan Hermit Qiangba tells her about being saved as a
young man from certain death by Kejun. Qiangba is so ill that he has been left out to die for
a Sky Burial, a Tibetan funeral rite that involves corpses being tethered out in the open to
be fed on by vultures they consider sacred.
In the process of saving Qiangba, Kejun shoots dead a sacred Tibetan vulture and
inadvertently breaks a taboo punishable by death. His entire red army unit is threatened with
deadly retribution by an enraged mob of Tibetans. Rather than risk his soldiers lives through
conflict with these Tibetans, Kejun offers himself as a sacrifice for the Sky Burial by
shooting himself dead.
In this part of Tibet, and in the mind and heart of his wife She Wen, this unselfish, heroic act
by Kejun brings about lasting peace amongst these enemies and acts as one of the finest
human examples of unselfish sacrifice. Despite his short life, Kejuns memory lives on in the
lives of those who were touched by his unselfish sacrifice.
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David Maxwell Great Corporate Servant

These days, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have a bad name in many quarters for their
selfish sacrifices. Their self-interested reputations are often justified. The ongoing Global
Financial Crisis (GFC) is a continuing legacy of these corporate failures because they are
primarily due to selfish sacrifices such as corporate greed and even financial dishonesty.
David O. Maxwell, though, is one CEO who belies this bad image and bucks the trend. As
CEO of Fannie Mae, a United States public mortgage security provider, from 1981 to 1991,
Maxwell turned around an unprofitable business into an extremely profitable one. When he
retired, he was in line to receive nearly 30 million United States dollars as part of his
retirement package.
Instead, Maxwell voluntarily relinquished his rights to a final retirement installment of $5.5
million in 1991 stipulated under his contract with Fannie Mae. He took this unselfish action
to stop continued controversy over his retirement compensation and its potentially
destabilising effects on the company. Also, Maxwell believed that it could harm his
successor Jim Johnson and the millions of Americans Fannie Mae served if this controversy
continued.
How different Maxwells unselfish sacrifice turned out to be to the selfish sacrifices of his
successor James (Jim) A. Johnson who was then followed by Franklin (Frank) D. Raines.
Both were ousted due to financial impropriety yet requested and received huge retirement
packages.
In stark contrast, the amount that Maxwell unselfishly surrendered contributed to housing for
low-income families. His leadership brought profitability and integrity. Johnson and Raines
on the other hand arguably contributed to Fannie Maes eventual collapse that facilitated the
wider global economic crisis.
How different can these unselfish and selfish succession legacies possibly be? Fannie Maes
recent leadership history prior to financial bankruptcy was more often defined by selfinterest. Leaders like James (Jim) A. Johnson and Franklin (Frank) D. Raines took huge
profits and payouts in spite of being convicted of financial wrongdoing and running the
business down.
These selfish successors of David O. Maxwell are so different to their predecessor. When
Johnson replaced Maxwell, Maxwell donated nearly one-fifth of his financial payout to needy
mortgagees. Due to his wise and unselfish leadership Maxwell is regarded as one of the top
ten CEOs of recent times. His successors are remembered for their selfish sacrifices. This
cautionary tale of the legacies of unselfish and selfish sacrifice at Fannie Mae and its ultimate
financial disaster emerges from the business field, yet are equally applicable elsewhere.

De Klerk & Mandela - Africas Public Servants

An equally poignant and pertinent testament to selfish and unselfish sacrifice emerges from
the field of politics. A great political example of an unselfish succession is the relatively
smooth leadership transition from Frederik Willem de Klerk to Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela in
South Africa during the 1990s.
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Without both predecessor and successor willingly and intentionally making mutually
unselfish sacrifices, conflict rather than consensus would have been almost guaranteed in this
volatile political situation of white apartheid versus black socialism. Then the history of
South Africa would have been like much of the rest of Africaplagued by transition crisis
and brutal conflict.
Both de Klerk and Mandela were obviously mutually motivated by personal and political
self-interest. Nevertheless, the greater good of the nation and the South African people were
ultimately put first by both men. Their sacrificially successional leaderships were defined by
a willingness to mutually sacrifice, unselfishly, political agendas, even though they did not
necessarily like or trust each other, especially at the beginning of negotiations.
For de Klerk it was sacrificing his future political leadership ambitions and with Mandela it
was serving peaceful political change rather than subscribing to violent armed conflict. Both
men left a virtually unparalleled successful succession legacy in Africa. They jointly won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 in recognition of this feat of unselfish sacrifice. De Klerk
continues his role in brokering peaceful successions through the Global Leadership
Foundation, which he founded. Nelson Mandela is remembered as an honoured elder
statesmen and peacemaker.
A fitting quote from F. W. de Klerk about this tumultuous time in South Africas history and
the key role his and Mandelas successional leadership played in it exemplifies this unselfish
sacrifice and succession story: Finally, leaders must accept that there is no end to change and must plan for their own departure. As soon as one has achieved ones transformation
objectives one must start the process all over again. In a world in which change is
accelerating, fundamental and unpredictable there is no respite or time to rest on ones
laurels. One of the most difficult decisions for any leader is to accept that he, too, will one
day be swept away by the unrelenting river of time. The wise leader will know when to leave
and when to pass the baton to a new generation.
Joint Noble Peace Prize Winners de Klerk and Mandela, despite their significant political and
personal differences, were able to bring about a peaceful leadership transition that their
successors Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma have failed to continue. In South Africa, it appears
that unless there is a return to the unselfish sacrifices of de Klerk and Mandela, the politics
and people of the country are headed for a political and social bankruptcy so tragically
common to Africa.
At the moment, it would seem that in the Mandela family, its infighting over his legacy and
inheritance suggests that Mandela's statesmanship did not extend to be a legacy of his family.
Most probably the unselfish sacrifices he fostered so well in his public relationships did not
translate so well into his personal life and legacy. Mandela admits as much in his personal
reflections. De Klerk, too, acknowledges that his selfish sacrifices in his personal life
contributed to the breakdown of his marriage.

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Andrea Bocelli - Blessed with life

Surrounded by concerned doctors sponging her with cool, wet towels, the pregnant mothers
high fever had to be kept down. These fevers could well...maybe had already...endangered
the babys life or caused severe disability. So concerned was the chief doctor about these
risks of retardation that he strongly encouraged--pressured--the young mother to have an
abortion.
After talking it over with her husband, Alessandro, they agreed to keep the baby no matter
what the risk of disability. Sitting at a piano, the blind singer, Andrea Bocelli, narrates this
very personal story. With obvious emotion and passion in his voice he tells his audience
about a young pregnant wife hospitalised for a suspected attack of appendicitis.
After treating her with ice packs to her stomach, the doctors suggested that she abort the
child. It was the best solution because the baby would be born with some disability.
Bocelli continues: But the young brave wife decided not to abort, and the child was born.
That woman was my mother, and I was the child. Maybe I am partisan but I can say that it
was the right choice. And I hope that this can encourage many mothers that find themselves
in difficult situationsin those moments when life is complicated, but want to save the life
of their baby.
In closing his personal story Andrea Bocelli sang a song. Its last lines were, I want to live
like this with the sun on my face, and I sing happily, gracefully. I want to live like this, with
the air of the mountains, because this enchantment doesnt cost anything.
Born in 1958 to Alessandro and Edi Bocelli, Andrea Bocelli was diagnosed at birth by
doctors as having congenital glaucoma. By age 12 he was completely blind. The Bocelli
family lived on their farm, selling farm machinery and making wine in the small village of La
Sterza, in Tuscany, Italy, near the town of Pisa. As a young boy, Bocelli showed a great
passion and gifting for music and singing. The rest is history.
Bocelli was an agnostic who came to a Catholic faith after concluding from reading the
works of Leo Tolstoy that life was not the result of pure chance but had meaning and
purpose. No doubt his understanding of the critical difference between choice and chance in
life was influenced by the fact that he was given life through the unselfish sacrifice of his
mother and father. Unsurprisingly, those who have been saved by abortion, such as actor
Jack Nicholson and American footballer Tim Tebow, are pro-life. Like Bocelli, they are
thankful for their mothers unselfish sacrifices that gave them life.

Bonhoeffer Choosing shame not Fame

Listening to their young son play the piano so beautifully, Paula and Karl Bonhoeffer had the
same hopes and dreams for their talented child as do most parents. Their hope was that young
Dietrich would become successful and happy in his chosen fields of interest and life. Little
did they know that his surprising choice of theology, at 14, in a family of medical and
musical professionals, would lead him to take on the might of the Nazi state with his life.

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Good at anything he set his mind to and heart on Bonhoeffer earned his doctorate in theology
when he was only 21. Soon he became a leading figure in the German Evangelical Church,
the foremost Protestant church in Germany at the time. Bonhoeffer's ecumenical writings
about church unity and practical Christian living gained him many admirers in Germany and
internationally, especially in the United States of America.
The rise of Adolph Hitlers Third Reich, whilst welcomed by many in his church, was
unacceptable to Bonhoeffer, because of its persecution of Jews and blatant secularism. In a
1933 essay, The Church and the Jewish Question, Bonhoeffer pledged to fight Nazi
political injustice. These crimes must not go unquestioned, and the victims of this injustice
must not go unaided, regardless of their religion, he wrote.
In 1939 on the eve of war, American friends invited him to come to the U.S. and teach at the
United Seminary in New York. Soon after, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany convinced that
he must stand with the oppressed against Nazism. His active role in plotting Hitlers
overthrow and open criticism of the regime earned him persecution and imprisonment. In his
hearing before the Gestapo, Bonhoeffer refused to recant.
In fact, he defied them by openly admitting that, as a Christian, he was an implacable enemy
of National Socialism and its totalitarian demands. Continually threatened with torture, the
arrest of his parents, his sisters and his fiance, Bonhoeffer faithfully ministered to the other
prisoners and guards. Despite the opportunity to escape from prison, he refused out of
concern for family and friends the Nazis would persecute in retaliation.
Finally, at the direct behest of Hitler, Bonhoeffer, without being formally charged, was
hanged at the Flossenbrg concentration camp on April 9, 1945. In a tribute to him on behalf
of the Jewish people, Elihai Braun quotes Bonhoeffer: Who stands firm? Only the one for
whom the final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, his
virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all these, when in faith and sole allegiance to God he is
called to obedient and responsible action. What would your stand and foundation be in such
circumstances if you were called upon to make a sacrifice--selfish or unselfish?

Rick Rescorla 9/11 Prophet and Protector

To those with the honour of being rescued by this larger-than-life, ageing man in the South
Tower of the World Trade Centre, dressed immaculately in his service jacket, his voice and
songs of hope and heroism will live with them for the rest of their days. Instead of doing as
he was ordered and staying put, Rick Rescorla, went beyond his call of duty, evacuating the
buildings inhabitants and leading many to safety.
As the heat continued to build in the stairwell to unbearable levels, he never removed his
jacket, never stopped serving. Rescorla continued singing. He continued comforting
unfailingly the weary, scared, tired, hopeless and helpless. With his fellow workers pleading
for him to leave the tower, he agreed on one condition: Ill get out after Im sure everyone
else is out. Probably none of his evacuees knew bout his history of national service on that
fateful day.

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Rescorla had been a British intelligence officer in Cyprus, commando in Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe), Africa and a detective with Scotland Yard in the United Kingdom before coming
to America then fighting as a U.S. army officer in Vietnam. Following this tour of duty,
where he fought courageously in the legendary Battle of la Drang, Rescorla became head of
security at Dean Witter Securities Company.
Despite being known as Hard Core from his army days, Rescorla, was better known by his
friends and staff as a compassionate man with a sharp mind and kind heart. This was
evidenced in 1984 when Pan Am flight 103 was bombed by terrorists. Rescorla warned the
New York Port Authority that radical Islam would now set its sights on the U.S., and that the
World Trade Centre would be the perfect target. Prophetically he even warned that a terrorist
attack would most likely come from the air.
Today 9/11/2000, nothing mattered more to Rescorla than getting his people out safely. He
reminded everyone to follow the drills he had led many to practice during the countless
previous safety routines. Stay calm, get a partner, move downstairs and out of the building
as quickly as possible, were some of the last words many of these evacuees would hear from
him, apart from his singing patriotic songs.
During this unbelievably chaotic time, Rescorla paused briefly to call his beloved wife,
Susan, who was watching the crisis unfold on TV. With Susan sobbing uncontrollably,
Rescorla calmly and confidently and comfortingly told her, I have to get all of my people
out, and if something happens to me, I want you to know you made my life. Soon after, the
line went dead. Then, the South Tower imploded.
Rick Rescorlas remains were never found, yet his memory lives on. In a fitting tribute to the
man, managing director of Morgan Stanley, Bob Sloss reminisced: He was selfless in that
situation, and thats your ultimate character test. He was not rattled at all. He was putting the
lives of his colleagues ahead of his own.

Sacrificial Legacies
Unselfish sacrifices by these role models along with their positive effects through their
sacrificially unselfish, albeit imperfect, relationships and legacies passed on to the next
generations should inspire. To remain uninspired after reading these stories of unselfish
sacrifice is indicative of a reader who has fallen under the spell of selfish sacrifice and its
shallow and sallow allure.
With the desire for self-preservation naturally strong, an understandable and important
question is what were the immediate and longer term benefits for those who sacrificed so
unselfishly and the loved ones they left behind? Herein is one of the apparent conundrums-even mysteries--of unselfish sacrifice that secular science in particular has trouble accepting
or answering because its self-imposed naturalism fatally limits the scope of its inquiry.
Indeed, such altruism apparently does not benefit the one making the sacrifice or their
offspring, be that children or associates such as colleagues or followers, unless they were
direct beneficiaries of this unmerited favour.

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Obviously such altruism is important--in fact, absolutely vital--to successful societies, hence
unselfish sacrifice has been honoured and esteemed above virtually any other altruistic
activity since human history began.
Beyond this social recognition and support, unselfish sacrifices elicit a strange attraction that
binds people in relationships that are stronger than any other. That this strange attraction to
unselfish sacrifice arises in some of the most apparently chaotic places, such as battlefields,
boardrooms and bedrooms, should come as no surprise. It is in chaotic situations such as
these that sacrifice is called for and necessary. Here the selfish and unselfish nature of a
sacrifice is there for all to see.
Each of these true sacrificial stories shared is of people who went well beyond the call of
duty in what was expected of them. Some paid the ultimate price with the sacrifice of their
lives. Others made choices that changed the course of history in their chosen fields. These
stories of unselfish heroism and self-sacrifice inspire because everyone wants to leave a
legacy and is willing to sacrifice to do so. The critical question is the sort of legacy left
behind. Will it be a life and legacy of selfish or unselfish relationships and sacrifices?
By evaluating the sorts of sacrifices made in and through life's relationships, an accurate
picture emerges of the legacies being left behind. Selfish sacrifices avoid individual
responsibility for personal actions by promoting public freedoms that support such actions.
The problem is that these selfish sacrifices ultimately compromise trusting relationships
between individuals and, ultimately, personal and public freedoms are eroded.

Selfish Stress Kills

There are both personal and public dangers to this selfish relationship breakdown. First, the
personal dangers to the individual are important to understand because, when compounded
many times over, this multiplication of individually selfish sacrifices contributes to a public
community crisis. For example, the choice to divorce or abort is seen as a personal freedom
integral to womans rights.
A problem with this right is its abuse. Both men and women, compromise the very
relationships and freedoms it was designed to protect. Part of this disassociation from reality
and extremes of individualism are an expression of the breakdown of this relationship of trust
between men and women. Men are meant to love and protect women and children and
women should respect men and nurture children.
Obviously, these unselfish marriage relationships must be maintained and sustained by both
parties to be successful. When these relationships break down due to selfish sacrifices, they
cause different kinds of stress to each party, particularly in the legacies lived out through the
children who are products of these selfish relationships and sacrifices.
For men, their main problem is the depression caused by their lack of leadership and
responsibility in caring for their wives and offspring. This lack of unselfish male role models
makes young men in particular confused about their place in life. It also involves sexual
confusion often manifesting itself in effeminate or macho tendencies.

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This depression and confusion is evidenced by high levels of self-destructive behaviour such
as suicide and violence towards others in men, especially young men.
With women, this lack of male leadership causes resentment towards men and a loss of
respect for them. Because women are forced to play roles that are unnatural for them, they
overcompensate and overreact. To compensate for this deficit in male leadership women
become more masculine. Therefore, women fail to nurture their children, as they should,
further harming the next generation in an escalating cycle of selfish sacrifices.
These male-female relationship breakdowns outwork themselves in children and young
people who resent and disrespect their parents--and adults in general, thus causing them
stress and depression. This stress and depression causes adolescents and young adults to be
confused about their future roles in life and their sexuality. Increasing levels of youth suicide
and violence, such as bullying, is evidence of this reaction. So are multiple sexual partners
and combinations starting younger and younger in life. This is not dissimilar to primitive
cultures that allow adolescent children to marry.
Unsurprisingly, these relationship problems outwork themselves generationally in greater
physiological confusion about normal relationships--sexual and otherwise. Given that
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) young people have even higher levels of
anxiety, depression and suicide than their heterosexual counterparts is testament to this
depressive and suicidal legacy of selfish sacrifices that it generates in the most vulnerable.

Denying the Undeniable

The normal scientific-secular response is to legalise or legitimise whatever poses a moral
problem in the vain hope that by making it legal or legitimate will lessen the suicidal
consequences of such actions. When this approach inevitably does not work then another
effective tactic is to trivialise such moral conundrums by claiming that they are unimportant
in the evolutionary scheme of things.
What normally happens when such claims are made is that the same accusations made
against opponents will come back to bite in a vicious form of circular or reverse logic. This
happens with secular scientific arguments about abortion that once analysed show much
higher levels of faith in science than most secularists are willing to admit.
Many secular scientists consider human foetuses in the first trimester to be more or less like
rabbits. Unlike the religious, particularly Christians, secular scientists have imputed upon
these foetuses a range of happiness and suffering that does not grant them full status in the
secular scientific moral community. At present, based on biological evolutionary intuition
this secular scientific reasoning is quite reasonable.
On this basis, only future scientific insights could refute this intuition for an unrepentant
secularist, because no other evidence would suffice. Whether or not this sacrifice can be
judged selfish or unselfish is irrelevant, because only if and when science can prove such a
secular proposition false could an alternative position be possible. Then again, there is no
hurry to find a solution when secular scientific intuition already accepts this inevitability, by
faith, that foetuses are just a collection of human cells.
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A classic line from Dr Suess' childrens book Horton Hears a Who describes this thinking
well. In the story, about how Horton the Elephant finds a speck with little beings on it, the
Kangaroo says, If you cant see, feel or taste it, it does not exist. This assertion comes
despite the fact that Houghton knows this is not the case because he can sense that the speck
has life. The Houghtons and Kangaroos of this world are representative of people of
religious and scientific faith respectively.
Despite these attempts to legalise and legitimise certain sacrifices, if they are fundamentally
selfish, then no secular attempt at explaining them away or limiting their scope scientifically
will be successful. Apart from this human intuition being no more scientific than the religious
faith being attacked, if it is fundamentally flawed if its aims are more selfish than unselfish.
Based on these rules of selfish and unselfish sacrifice found in relationships and legacies,
such secular scientific reasoning is fatally flawed by its failure to recognise the fundamentally
selfish nature of this reasoning. Based on secular scientific logic it would be expected that
these extra freedoms for all from a moral responsibility towards the weakest would be
enjoyable and solve problems of guilt.
Unfortunately this freedom is impossible to enjoy if these sacrifices are more selfish than
unselfish. Because, if lifes laws of relationship and legacy and sacrifice are eternal rather
than temporal, they cannot be messed up without consequence. Wanting everything to be
beautiful at the time of ones personal choosing, without being willing to make the unselfish
sacrifices needed for this to occur is foolish. Not being able to accept the suicidal
consequences when things go wrong because of the selfish sacrifices made is fatal.
Gaining multiple selfish, sensual pleasures without moral pain simply does not work in the
long-term and has been proven so throughout history. The fact that secular science assumes
otherwise is being proven wrong today. Assuming that tolerance of selfish sacrifices in
relationships will result in legacies unaffected by these unselfish sacrifices is topsy-turvy
reasoning at best. The vain hope that human conscience can be cancelled out through secular
scientific reasoning has not proven successful due to the natural moral laws being broken in
the process.

Intolerant of Selfish Sacrifices

Understanding the intrinsic power of these life laws is nearly as critical as is putting them
into practice. That every unselfishly sacrificial leader is only the next successor away from a
selfish sacrifice should impress upon each incumbent, whether the head of a nation, company
or family the importance of practicing unselfish sacrifices through their public and private
relationships.
To do this requires a good reputation of integrity and track record of unselfish sacrifices
confirmed by many witnesses. It means being intolerant of selfish sacrifices, despite the odds
and opposition. Then, this relational legacy must be entrusted to faithful successors who will
be able to teach other successors these same values also. Practically doing this requires the
law of relationship to be unselfishly applied from one generation of leader to the next no
matter the level of leadership they have in society.
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Whether it is leadership of clan, company or country, these rules and principles of unselfish
sacrifice, their supporting relationships and legacies remain the same. What are some of the
hallmarks of unselfish sacrifices and their legacies of unselfish relationships? First and
foremost, it comes from being intolerant of selfishness. The golden rule of loving your
neighbour as yourself has without exception emerged from a spiritual-religious rather than
secular-scientific tradition and must be understood and applied in that context.
It is important to note that loving others from a Judaeo-Christian perspective includes loving
God first, then your fellow humans, which means that love is conditional on a moral code
that focuses beyond purely humanistic confines. Quoting the latter without the former gives
a wrong impression that love simply means that equating selfish sacrifices with unselfish
sacrifices in the name of tolerance are equally valid. A contemporary example is the pus
for marriage equality.

Biased Blindness
This blas even blind attitude towards the selfish and unselfish foundations of certain actions
and reaction is similar to enjoying the sweet waters of a spring without bothering to find or
sustain its source. Or if one has unselfishly committed to stay faithful to one partner in
marriage by loving them no matter what happens, does that mean that if one or the other
decides to selfishly be unfaithful that the unselfish partner should love and tolerate the selfish
sacrifice the same as the unselfish one? The absurdity of this logic should be obvious to
everyone but the deliberately blind, yet is so often the logic of so-called tolerance.
Examples of this bias abound. A public figure is scrutinised and criticised by a journalist
because of questioning the actions of a gay sister who, previously married to a man, is now in
a relationship with a woman. Throughout the interview the interviewer seems almost solely
focused on trying to get the interviewee to take a personally tolerant stand on the sister's
homosexuality that in turn would define this figures public political stance on gay rights
such as same-sex marriage.
Instead of caving in to these crude attempts to draw out religious reasoning, the interviewee
rightly and honestly shares about how the sisters selfish sacrifice had personally caused
crisis and consternation in the family. Going on to say that although continuing to love this
sister and reluctantly accepting her decision to be a lesbian did not imply agreement with nor
was it an indirect attempt to condone her selfish lesbian behaviour, was a courageous stand
under the circumstances. This response is the right response to selfish sacrifices and their
supporters.

Not all Sacrifices are Equal

Accepting that people are going to make selfish sacrifices through their lifestyle and
relationship choices does not mean that these selfish sacrifices should be equated with
unselfish sacrifices and tolerated as though both are equally valid choices. Selfish sacrifices
and sacrificers such as the modern day champions of same-sexuality, abortion and euthanasia
should not be condoned or complimented and equated with other heroically unselfish
sacrifices and sacrificers.
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To those who battled for universal suffrage and against slavery, their unselfish sacrifices
stand courageously and proudly in contrast to these selfish sacrificers.
As a counterbalance to so many of the stories of selfish sacrifice being told by the secular
science juggernaut today, these stories of unselfish sacrifice are imperative to share. Because
they give such a stark alternative to selfish sacrifice and inspire through unselfish sacrifice, it
is vital they are collected and shared. Focus on whatever is true and honourable and noble
that can be commended as genuinely unselfish excellence through relationships, sacrifices
and legacies. Why not do that than focus on the selfish alternative?
If more people started to focus on the triumphant testimonies of unselfish sacrifice that are
out there yet seldom shared a radical reorientation could start taking place. As can be seen
from these stories of unselfish sacrifices, these sacrificers consciously understood that it is
more blessed to unselfishly give their lives and livelihoods, than to receive the easier pickings
of self-interest and selfishness. Their unselfish sacrifices, relationships and legacies testify to
the truth that the greatest people are those willing to serve others first and sacrifice their lives,
if necessary, in that service of freeing or ransoming another from danger or death.
It is here that unselfish sacrificers need to understand a difficult truth about unselfish
sacrifice. It means, so far as it depends on you, to live peaceably with everyone by being
loving while also holding them and yourself accountable for exposing selfish sacrifices.
Secular science assumes that everything is acceptable until scientifically proven otherwise
and tolerance of this assumption is the hallmark of secular science. People who do not accept
this selfish value system are labelled and liable for trouble and persecution as being
fundamentalists or bigots.
At their cores, both secularism, and especially science, know that tolerating the selfish
sacrifices of everything that does not appear to immediately harm other humans because it is
consented to by them is patently wrong. Obviously not all truth is equally true and neither
are all sacrifices equal in their sacrificial value. One reliable measure of genuine truth is its
outworking through selfish and unselfish sacrifice. The more selfish the sacrifice, the less
true a truth and the more likely it is actually a lie is a good rule of thumb to follow.
Another invalid secular argument is that every moral value that cannot be arrived at by a
secular scientific method or reasoning should be rejected as religious faith. Secular science
cannot answer most moral questions sufficiently because to be genuinely secular requires the
removal of any spiritual presumptions. To apply this secularism scientifically, the scientist
must, based on these secular presumptions, break down an experiment into small enough bits,
bites or bytes to enable the experiment to be repeated enough times to be validated.
Both by way of this secular intuition and faith in the scientific method, breaking down an
experiment into individual chunks of repeatable information makes extrapolation difficult on
a group scale. This difficulty in applying such byte and bite sized findings to a group or
grand scale makes secular science myopic. That is why the test of whether an individual
sacrifice is ultimately selfish or unselfish is so important, because it helps provide a longer
term view or perspective.

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Even though it must be recognised that an individual sacrifice does not always apply to the
group as a whole, wearing eye glasses that help the wearer see things the way they are is what
unselfish sacrifice will do.

Laws of Life and Death

By honestly answering the three laws of life questions that are the main rules of sacrifice
mentioned earlier, the selfish and unselfish nature of the sacrifices being made become
clearer. Recall the three key questions that should be asked about a sacrifice. First, is the
sacrifice made from a position of strength or weakness? Second, is the sacrifice or sacrificer
motivated by self-interest or others orientated? Third, and finally, is the sacrifice marked by
instinct or conscience in its outworking?
The short answer is that the laws of legacy and relationship continue to operate irrespective
of the circumstances whilst remaining wholly dependent on the quality of the sacrifices being
made. The selfish and unselfish stories shared on these pages testify to this unassailable
truth: Selfish sacrifices have suicidal consequences unselfish sacrifices have positive
effects.

A Profound Principle
Be assured the natural laws of legacy and relationship will continue to operate irrespective of
the circumstances whilst remaining wholly dependent on the quality of the sacrifices being
made. This simple yet profound principle and truth must be the lens through which the
qualities of all personal and public sacrifices are assessed. When selfish sacrifices dominate,
three main public dangers emerge as a consequence of these selfish personal sacrifices.
First, more and more people are negatively affected by these selfish sacrifices. Second,
public attempts are always made to downplay the suicidal consequences of these personal
actions by rewriting the moral and legal laws. Third, when this moral authority fails, a more
authoritarian approach will be taken to curb these selfishly suicidal consequences.
Many people sacrificing selfishly and collectively cause these personal breakdowns in
morality to be extrapolated publicly as depressive and suicidal consequences that negatively
effect everyone. The rising rates of depression and suicide, divorce and separations, abortions
and euthanasia, same-sex and bigamous marriages are all examples of the legacies of selfish
sacrifices.

Repentance or Repression
These public lapses in morality and their suicidal consequences require two diametrically
opposing responses. First is to acknowledge that these selfish sacrifices are collectively
harmful and change course by making more unselfish sacrifices. This approach is much more
challenging and humbling and difficult because it requires a radically unnatural reorientation
towards repentance from selfish sacrifices whose genuineness is proved by practitioners
intentionally making unselfish sacrifices.

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The more natural response is to rewrite ethical laws to suit the prevailing selfish sacrifices
and downplay their suicidal consequences. By saving face from personal embarrassment and
indignity whilst retaining public pride in a tolerant collective identity, this less humbling
approach is nearly always preferred by selfish practitioners. Evidence for selfish, face-saving
behaviour and repression of the dangerous truth about selfish sacrifices abounds.
Legalising all sorts of marriages, such as same-sex couplings is one of the more recent cases
in point. Downplaying the sanctity of human life through abortion and euthanasia is another
example. Using human fetuses for scientific experiments--even profit--when many secular
scientists and society consider similar sorts of experiments on animals unethical is another
case in point. Yet another instance of this ethical rewriting of morality is the legal protection
of these selfish sacrifices and sacrificers from criticism by their opponents.
Causing offense by questioning such behaviour, let alone disagreeing with it, is reason
enough for these tyrants of tolerance to go on the personal, public and legislative offensive.
Recent examples involving civic leaders requiring religious leaders to show cause for their
comments criticising the rewriting of ordinances separating the sexes in public amenities is
but the tip of the iceberg of intolerant tolerance.
While it may appear to be morally and legally justifiable to protect selfish sacrificers from
discrimination by discriminating against those who disagree with them, some dangerous
precedents are being promoted and practiced. By allowing these selfish sacrifices to occur
without the right of reply by opponents of selfish sacrifice will ultimately cement
authoritarian trends into the process of protecting freedom of speech and religion.
With most of these cases, those currently in a position of power or popularity probably feel
this new moral landscape with its increasing legal protections against censure is a desirable,
even intended, consequence of their selfish sacrifices. If so, this selfish reasoning is in for a
shock, because this situation brings to fruition the third danger and major consequence of
selfish sacrifice. When secular sciences moral authority fails--as it always will if selfish
sacrifices are being predominant--a more authoritarian approach must be taken to curb these
selfishly suicidal trends and outcomes.
This truth is a natural extension of the Law of Sacrifice. When private sacrifices are more
selfish than unselfish then publicly this will eventually outwork itself in greater levels of
authoritarianism to protect the public from these privately selfish excesses. Authoritarianism
favours strict rules and established authority. Previously it was religious and political elites
who had the power. Bad examples of this include the Crusades and Inquisitions of
Christendom.
Next it was secularism and politics. Bad examples of this marriage include the excesses of
atheistic socialism and communism, which ultimately oppressed individual freedoms of
choice such as personal and religious freedom and stifled innovation. Now it is the secular
scientific elites in power. If these historical marriages of convenience between the secular
and scientific are anything to go by, then two selfish futures are likely.

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Either secular science will become more authoritarian as their values are imposed on the
unwilling with religious fervour or, an even more radical religion such as Islam will arise to
unseat secular science with its own brand of religious radicalism. Both probabilities are
already on offer and in competition. The rise of Isis or Daesh is a radical example of a
religious backlash and the attacks by secular science on anyone who does not support their
agenda is well represented in this book.
Because science has selfishly sacrificed its marriage and divorced its partner, Christendom, in
favour of Secularism, it is extremely unlikely that it will act unselfishly by returning to its
spurned partner. This would require an unselfish sacrifice the likes of which have not been
seen for some time. Imagine the levels of unselfish humility this would require. Common to
all selfish sacrifices is the refusal to repent. Instead the natural compulsion is to sacrifice
selfishly again and again to maintain the status quo.
The imminent danger is that secular science's rejection of Christendom, with all its selfish
faults, will force it into the arms of another lover or partner whose even more selfishly radical
religion will help answer spiritually some of the questions secular science cannot answer.
Unlike Christendom and Christianity in particular, this new religion will impose its political
and spiritual will on the people, eventually sidelining, neutering or even eliminating one of
these partners, most likely science. This remaining partner will find another, more selfishly
submissive or superior partner.

Unscientific Scientists
There are already signs of this occurring evidenced by many of the current champions of
science being much more secular than scientific. This is caused by their claim to fame as
secular scientists being due to their secular achievements rather than their scientific work.
Having average anthropologists and neuroscientists as the spokesmen of science because of
their secular atheism rather than scientific achievements is a pertinent example of secularism
selfishly sacrificing science for its own sake.
Genuine scientists should not accept such biased representation unless secularism rather than
science is their ultimate destination and science is imply a means to an end. Otherwise they,
too, are guilty of sacrificing selfishly by condemning science to be used as the vehicle of
secularism. In the character of Stepan Trofimovitch, Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his 1916 classic
Demons, prophetically anticipates the coming catastrophe of atheistic communism to Russia.
Dostoevsky notes this tendency towards tyranny in those who claim to be scientists yet are
dogmatic revolutionaries more dedicated to the destruction of tradition than to the practice of
science. This truly selfish sacrifice of everything non-secular for the sake of secularism
selfishly uses science as a means to that end.
An example of this sacrifice of science for the sake secularism is found in attempts to stifle
all critiques of homosexuality that do not endorse it as an equally valid lifestyle. Being
gagged from questioning such assumptions is unscientific and undemocratic in the extreme,
because of the assumption that such a selfish sacrifice is valid.

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This is but one of many examples that prove the relationship between science and secularism
is fundamentally selfish and ultimately suicidal. As with all selfish relationships, one will
eventually destroy the other. The consequences are that science is selfishly sacrificed for
secular purposes.
In the process genuine science and scientists lose their credibility, because the public are
rightly sceptical about their true motives. Since the hope of secularism is scientific
legitimacy, this lack of credibility leads to a loss of hope amongst the public in both science
and secularism. Similar to hypocritical parents who do not practice what they preach, this
deception leads their children to become cynical, depressed and suicidal--all of the symptoms
that can be seen in the offspring of Science and Secularism today.

Authoritarian Aware
Another imminent danger is that if Secularism fails to legitimise itself through Science, then
as the dominant partner Secularism will divorce its current partner, Science, in favour of
Authoritarianism. Secularism's new partner, Authoritarianism, will not accept subordination
and will selfishly choose tyranny over secularism. Beware! Authoritarianism has no qualms
about selfishly sacrificing secularism for its own purposes.
Consider the way things would be run if the worldviews of todays militant secularist
scientists and atheists reigned supreme! When people sacrifice selfishly, the negative
consequences of their actions--their legacies--primarily outwork in the public domain. An
illustration of this selfishness plays out in leadership. Where leaders fail to serve unselfishly
they will naturally do so selfishly. The consequences are that top leaders lord it over their
people and those in authority exercise this authority over them in ever more authoritarian
ways.
Examples of this coming authoritarianism are found in the qualified people who have lost
their secular jobs for sharing their religious faith and capable scientists refused tenure for
their religious beliefs. More cases of this sort of reverse discrimination will be seen as
authoritarian secularism tightens its grip. The organisations being investigated and
deregistered for their political views mentioned earlier is another example. Each of these
cases involves secular and scientific elites behaving in authoritarian ways.
This selfish, authoritarian behaviour directly opposes the individual freedoms of religious
belief and personal liberty that are the hard won cornerstones of democracy and the healthy
marriage of church and state. Ironically, it is these unselfish sacrifices and freedoms that
have allowed many of these selfish secular and scientific beliefs to flourish. Now that these
alternative secular-scientific beliefs are in the ascendancy and assumed to be right, the
question in terms of unselfish sacrifice is whether these same rights will be given to the
opposition who is now assumed to be wrong.

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Selfishly Unfair
So far, based on examples from many quarters as far afield as secular workplaces and
scientific institutions, the answer is a resounding no! These selfish sacrifices are realities that
should be of concern to all who love life and liberty. How so? One of the foremost problems
with selfish sacrifice is that it will not allow unselfish sacrifices to peacefully coexist. Why
this is so is easy enough to explain if we are honest with ourselves and think about the
consequences of selfish and unselfish sacrifices.
An illustration of how this can be understood comes from light and darkness. Darkness is the
absence of light and darkness can only be maintained if there is no light. Similarly, selfish
sacrifices are sustained by the absence of unselfish sacrifices. Unselfish sacrifices challenge
the status quo because they offer a stark yet strangely attractive alternative to unselfish
sacrifice. Unselfish sacrifices are the nemesis of their selfish counterparts.
Thus it is extremely unpopular for selfish sacrificers to be challenged by unselfish sacrifices.
This is why such concerted and concentrated efforts are being made to change the narrative
from unselfish to selfish sacrifice and what constitutes heroism.To some extent these
arguments about selfish sacrifices work until they are challenged by unselfish sacrifices. Not
losing faith in unselfish sacrifice personally is good start. Yes, it may cost a life, but if it
does, whoever sacrifices unselfishly will have lived life well. In most cases it won't cost a
life but it will cost the unselfish perpetrator. Unselfish sacrifices are always more expensive
than selfish ones, especially in the short term.
In the long term, though, the wisdom of sacrificing unselfishly will prove its superiority to
selfish sacrifices. Be assured of that life truth. It is more blessed to give life than to take it,
even if it is your own. Serving others rather than being served is a powerful principle of
unselfishness. The strange attraction of unselfish sacrifice is as powerful as ever, becoming
ever more powerful as selfish sacrifices increasingly become the norm.
Being willing to give ones life unselfishly is strangely an opportunity to save it because, by
being sacrificial, the sacrificer shows a commitment to and understanding of its true value.
The quality of your relationships amongst friends and family goes way up with unselfish
sacrifice, as does your legacy. Spend time making unselfish rather than selfish sacrifices and
you will be amazed at the positive legacy you leave.
Finally, our willingness to be unselfish, to pay a ransom for someone else through our lives
and leaderships helps us personally experience the true power of unselfish sacrifices and their
positive effects. If this book has been able to help and encourage you towards unselfish
sacrifices then I consider it a job well done, because you are on the right.

Sacrificial Testimonies
Thinking about the themes of unselfish sacrifice that stand out through the sacrificial stories
shared earlier, for example the willingness of the ones sacrificing to put others interests
before their own should be obvious. Less apparent at first glance yet much clearer when a
more detailed study of these sacrificial characters is made are their altruistic track records.
Most were not saints. Nor was it superhuman ability that gave them their unselfish edge.
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Instead it was their track record willingly serving and sacrificing for others in their respective
fields of influence that made them great. A recurring theme that sets great leaders apart from
good leaders is their personal humility and professional will. An even deeper truth emerging
from life's laws of Relationship, Sacrifice and Legacy further explains this sacrificial and
successional truth. Unless a person is unselfishly sacrificial in both their private and public
lives, they will ultimately be unsuccessful in outworking life's laws.
Prove this point personally by taking the time to study the private AND public lives of many
champions of the secular scientific world of today and yesteryear. In some cases these
mighty men and women may have been unselfish with their public lives. Mostly, however,
this public success was at the expense of their private worlds. Because private and public
worlds are often lived separately, it is easy to be lulled into a false sense of selfish security
that an unselfish sacrifice committed in one world pays for a selfish sacrifice in the other. It
does not. If sacrifices are selfish in one world, then ultimately these selfish sacrifices debit
the other world. Conversely, unselfish sacrifices, act as credit in the opposite way.
Continuing with this financial analogy, it is much more difficult to save money than spend it,
yet the benefits of credit versus debit are obvious.

Choice by chance
Unselfish sacrifice indicates choice rather than chance. People do not by chance choose to be
unselfish. Humans choose to be selfish naturally. The mantra of secular science that chance
causes choice, is most strongly contradicted by unselfish sacrifice, because it does not come
about naturally or by chance yet is something that humans choose to do willingly. Secular
science struggles the most with unselfish sacrifice because this sort of altruism is unnatural
and difficult to explain from a secular scientific standpoint.
Animals may sacrifice altruistically yet do so instinctively whereas humans do not. Humans
sacrifice intentionally. Hence the need for humans to value judge sacrifices as being selfish
or unselfish. The only way that secular science can interpret unselfish sacrifices
naturalistically is to claim that unselfish, altruistic sacrifices are really chance-based on
ulterior evolutionary motives that are by their very nature fundamentally selfish.
Secular science is partly correct. Humans are naturally and genetically predisposed to be
selfish. Most religions, and the Bible in particular, call this inborn desire to go ones own
way selfishly, sin. The problem with secular sciences position on selfish and unselfish
sacrifice is the assumption that choice came about by chance. In other words, even though
choosing to unselfishly rather than selfishly sacrifice for others is obviously a choice, it is
choice based on evolutionary chance, nature or at the very best the power of human
reasoning.
None of these selfish, secular scientific explanations are likely even logical, because none of
these explanations sufficiently explain unselfish sacrifice, even when combined. Choice
leads to choice, not chance. Chance cannot lead to conscious choice. Humankinds desire to
sacrifice is deep, spiritual and propitiatory. In other words, humans sacrifice because they
want to win a pardon or earn salvation or reciprocate similar actions.
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Animal altruism does not meet these criteria. Unselfish sacrifice expresses a heartfelt love
for others, a personal thankfulness or desire for redemption. Selfish sacrifices express a
cynical disregard for others and a profound sense of hopelessness or helplessness in this
status quo. The literally suicidal consequences of this thinking abound for everyone to see.
Is it any wonder that so many people today tortured by the helplessness and hopelessness of
this selfish legacy sacrifice their lives so cheaply? The secular scientific worldview that
claims choice by chance may believe its own narrative. Many others, obviously, cannot
accept this worldview, yet lacking an alternative, accept that unselfishness is tolerance
towards everything, including selfish sacrifices, because altruistic, unselfish sacrifices are
ultimately selfish anyway.

The Way of Unselfish Sacrifice

To walk away filled with hope, not hopelessness, convinced that there is help at hand, not
helplessness and believing that unselfish sacrifices are the key to this victory is a crucial first
step in the long march back from the brink of selfishly suicidal sacrifices. Honest supporters
of secular science and its selfish relationships, sacrifices and legacies can predict that the
fatalistic outworking of this worldview has suicidal consequences.
In supporting selfish sacrifices, secular science must--and some of its more honest
practitioners do--acknowledge the fatalistic consequences of assuming that most people will
sacrifice selfishly. In the evolutionary scheme of things those few individuals who are saved
from this suicidal selfishness by making unselfish sacrifices are probably not numerous
enough to turn around this tide of selfish sacrifices into unselfish ones.
The reply of unselfish sacrifice is: Do not go for the lowest common denominator, because
that always results in selfish sacrifice! Do not buy the deterministic (read: fatalistic) lie of
secular science that says even unselfish sacrificers ultimately have selfish motives. Do not
believe the secular scientific mantra that everything must be deduced by reason and whatever
cannot is irrelevant.
Saturated by scientific secular misinformation, many people have forgotten how to think
critically about the obvious implications of suicidal selfishness. Instead, being sceptical of
the sceptics is actually helpful. Seek out truth for truths sake. Given mankinds natural
inclination to sacrifice, study the unselfish sacrifices of leaders for their followers, since these
sorts of sacrifices are the most unselfish and unusual of all.
Compare between the histories of great leaders such as Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad for
their unselfish sacrifices. Critically reread some of the stories about unselfish and selfish
sacrifices by studying the biographies of these influential people and others in the scientific,
secular and political fields who have impacted history. Contrast testimonies of unselfish
sacrifice with examples of those who are less so. Be inspired by unselfish sacrifice, its
relationships and legacies.
To be fair, do the same with those who are sceptical about unselfish sacrifice and are
advocates of selfish sacrifice. Scrutinise their public and private lives. This is true science.
Study both selfish and unselfish relationships and legacies.
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Their selfish or unselfish relationships, sacrifices and legacies speak for themselves. That
way, you then can make an informed choice about who to emulate, fully aware of the
consequences and implications of your actions.

Making Unselfish Sacrifices

To keep in unselfish credit, there are important principles of unselfish sacrifice to practically
pursue personally and observe in others through their relationships and legacies. First, there
must be willingness on the part of sacrificer to serve rather than be served. That is, a track
record of serving others based on character rather than personality must be evident over a
period of time to qualify as being unselfish. Three years is a good starting point to track
progress, because it gives one the opportunity to observe a cycle of service and sacrifice in a
person or in yourself.
The selfish or unselfish quality of the sacrifices reveals the true motives for the sacrifice.
Second, this willingness to serve rather than be served must be evident away from status and
authority in the everyday life of the person concerned, not just where they are in the public
eye. Compare this service orientation away from a position of authority with a leadership
role in the public eye, say within their own family, to get the best idea if a person is genuinely
making unselfish sacrifices.
Third, one of the most effective ways of confirming unselfish or selfish sacrifice is to observe
the way in which leadership or authority is handed over to successor when mediated by the
sacrificer. Specifically observe the way power is mediated by predecessor and successor. Is
the handover made too early and flippantly or too late and begrudgingly? Are others
prepared as successors and do these inheritors display similar characteristics to their
predecessors?
Fourth, and finally, do these sacrificers in families and firms stay on to guide and advocate
for the next generations unselfishly or do they leave selfishly before they should? These
simple yet profound rules of sacrifice, applied unselfishly have enormous potential and
power. By taking this message about unselfish sacrifice and its positive effects to heart and
personally applying it, the tide of suicidal selfishness and its suicidal consequences can be
turned around.
Unselfish sacrifice and its positive effects will eventually triumph over selfish sacrifices and
their suicidal consequences. If practiced religiously and intentionally, unselfish sacrifice and
its positive effects will eventually triumph over selfish sacrifices and their suicidal
consequences. You can be on the winning side by choosing to be unselfish in your
relationships and though your sacrifices leave a successful life legacy behind as a
consequence. This greater love quoted at the beginning of this chapter is the essence of
unselfish sacrifice, the secret to a successful life legacy and key to sustainable relationships.
<><><>

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References
Foreword
BBC News (2015) Ebola crisis: Sierra Leone's Augustine Baker dies,
25 February 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-31624149.

Chapter 1
G. K. Chesterton (2005) The Project Gutenberg EBook of Orthodoxy
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page 19.
David M. Cutler, Edward L. Glaeser, and Karen E. Norberg (2001) Explaining the Rise in
Youth Suicide in Risky Behavior among Youths: An Economic Analysis, Jonathan
Gruber, Editor: University of Chicago Press. http://www.nber.org/chapters/c10690.pdf,
retrieved: 23 September 2014.
Russia Today, "Newtown massacre motives: Likely factors behind school shooting emerge",
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New York Times, "Exhibit A for a Major Shift: Justices Gay Clerks," Adam Liptak, 8 June
2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/us/exhibit-a-for-a-major-shift-justices-gayclerks.html, 23 September 2014.
Mary Ann Mason (1998) 'The Modern American Stepfamily: Problems and Possibilities,
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Sugarman, Editors, University of California, Berkeley Law School,
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Bridget Fitzgerald (1999) "Children of Gay and Lesbian Parents, Journal of Marriage and
Family Review, 29, 57-75, http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1999-15768-004.
Mark Regnerus (2012) How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex
relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study, Social Science Research 41,
752770 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610).
Joanna Jolly (2014) Is violence more common in same-sexrelationships? BBC News: 18
November 2014.
Guttmacher Institute (2013) Facts on Induced Abortion Worldwide, www.guttmacher.org,
retrieved: 23 September 2014.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2012) "SF3.1: Marriage and
divorce rates", OECD Family Database www.oecd.org/social/family/database.
World Health Organisation (2014) The WHO worldwide initiative for the prevention of
suicide, http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/, retrieved:
7 January 2014.

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Chapter 2
Thomas Aquinas (1265) "Summa Theologica", p. 2075.
Emile Durkheim (1951) "Suicide: A Study in Sociology",
https://archive.org/stream/suicidestudyinso00durk
Laurence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington (1999) Culture Matters: How Values Shape
Human Progress",
British Broadcasting Commission, "Bangladesh rescuer: I cut off limbs to save lives", 3 May
2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22384529.
Robert L. Campbell (2006) "Altruism in Auguste Comte and Ayn Rand", The Journal of Ayn
Rand Studies 7, No. 2 (Spring): 357-369 (p. 359).
New York Times - Ross Douthat, "Kermit Gosnell and the Politics of Abortion", 18 April
2013.
BBC World News (2015) Moving legacy of Ebola worker who died saving children,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33581446, dowloaded: Thursday July 23, 2015.
The Australian Young Blood: Inside the Minds of Teenage Killers (November 23-24
2013).
Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd and Ernst Fehr (2003) "Explaining altruistic
behavior in humans", Evolution and Human Behavior, No. 24: 153-172.
Niti Singh and Venkat R. Krishnan (2008) "Self-sacrice and transformational leadership:
mediating role of altruism", Leadership & Organization Development Journal Vol. 29 No. 3,
pp. 261-274 (p. 261).
David De Cremer and Daan van Knippenberg (2005) "Cooperation as a function of leader
self-sacrice, trust, and identication", Leadership & Organization Development Journal,
Vol. 26 No. 5:355-369.
Peter Senge (2000) "The Leadership of Profound Change", SPC Ink.
Supreme Court United States of America (2003) Justice Antonin Scalia dissent of Lawrence
versus Texas 539 U. S. (2003) 1
THOMAS, J., dissenting, No. 02 102.
Geert Hofstede (2011) Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context, Online
Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1).
Jim Collins (2001) Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and others dont,
Random House Business Books, pages 1213.
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld (1991) The Hero's Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire,
Oxford University Press, page 7.
Chemtrust (2008) Effects of Pollutants on the Reproductive Health of Male Vertebrate
Wildlife Males Under Threat, www.chemtrust.org.uk.
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Chapter 3
Robert K. Merton 1936 The Unintended Consequences of Purposive Social Action p. 895.
Points out that often times undesired effects are not always undesirable because the outcome
may be the lesser of two evils. He helpfully uses suicide as an example by noting that, in
some cases, allowing someone to suicide may be a lesser evil than them becoming mass
murderers.
Sam Harris. The Moral Landscape: How Science can determine human values
Victor Turner (1977) 'Process, System, and Symbol: A New Anthropological Synthesis,
Daedalus", Vol. 106, No. 3, Discoveries and Interpretations: Studies in
ContemporaryScholarship, Volume I (Summer), pp. 61-80, page 74.
Caroline Leaf (2009) Who Switched Off My Brain? Controlling Toxic Thoughts and
Emotions, Thomas Nelson Publishers, esp. pages 11-17.
William F. McComas (1998) The Principal Elements of The Nature of Science: Dispelling
The Myths, in W. F. McComas (ed.) The Nature of Science in Science Education, 53-70,
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
David T. Suzuki and Holly Dressel (2002) Naked Ape to Superspecies: A Personal
Perspective on Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis, Allen & Unwin.
For example, see Megans Story in http://jezebel.com/322888/if-you-can-handle-areallydepressing-teen-suicide-story-right-now, downloaded 5 November 2013.
See 60 Minutes program Frozen Waterfalls about Emily Harrington (5 December, 2013).
Paul D. Allison (1992) How Culture Induces Altruistic Behavior, Paper prepared for
presentation at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Pittsburgh,
PA, August 1992.
Robin Gill (1999) Churchgoing and Christian Ethics: Cambridge University Press.
Ruben L.F. Habito and Keishin Inaba (eds.) (2006) The Practice of Altruism: Caring and
Religion in Global Perspective, Cambridge Scholars Press.
Richard T. Pascale, Mark Millemann and Linda Gioja (2000), Surfing the Edge of Chaos:
The Laws of Nature and the New Laws of Business, Crown Business, page 179.
Mark Rennaker (2005) Servant Leadership: A Chaotic Leadership Theory, Servant
Leadership Research Roundtable August 2005, Regent University.
Peter Senge (2000), The Leadership of Profound Change,
http://www.as2commerce.com/pdf/other/Senge.pdf, pages 1-2.
Maxwell Relinquishes Rights to $5.5 Million Final Retirement Payment; Fannie Mae Will
Give Money to Low-Income Housing: http://www.thefreelibrary.com (1992).
Advice and Descent: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/fanniemae.asp (2012).
Peter Limb (2008), Nelson Mandela: A Biography, Greenwood Press, page 50.

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F. W. De Klerk (2011), The Role of Leadership during South Africas Transition:
http://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/files/F_W_de_Klerk_speech_to_Rhodes_Scholars.pdf.
Deepak Chopra (2007), Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment,
http://www.eso-garden.com/specials/buddha_a_story_of_enlightenment.pdf page 265.
Pyasilo (1995), Charisma in Buddhism, http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/charisma6.pdf,
pages 114-115.
Vishvapani (2007), NKT Succession & Questions of Authority:
http://dharmasights.blogspot.com/search/label/Western%20Buddhism (accessed 3.11.2011),
for example.
The Holy Bible, (Matthew 16:21, 17:22 and 20:17): http://www.biblegateway.com.
Jos Manoel Bertolote and Alexandra Fleischmann (2002) A global perspective in the
epidemiology of suicide, Suicidologi 2002(7) 2.
BBC Nature (2014) Chemicals linked to problems with otters' penis bones, Michelle
Warwicker 24 February 2013 and for a more detailed study by the Chemicals, Health and
Environment (CHEM) Trust (2008) Effects of Pollutants on The Reproductive Health of
Male Vertebrate Wildlife - Males Under Threat, www.chemtrust.org.uk.
David De Cremer and Daan van Knippenberg (2005) Cooperation as a function of leader
self-sacrifice, trust, and identification, Leadership & Organization Development Journal
Vol. 26 No. 5, 2005:355-369

Chapter 4
Charles Darwin (2000), The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex:
www.munseys.com/diskone/darwindescent.pdf, page 289.
Adam Smith (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, A
Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication, page 14.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1762) The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right,
Translated by G. D. H. Cole, public domain,
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/r/rousseau/jean_jacques/r864s/, pages 18-19.
Bruce E. Winston and Barry Ryan (2008), Servant Leadership as a Humane Orientation:
Using the GLOBE Study Construct of Humane Orientation to Show that Servant Leadership
is More Global than Western,
http://leadershiplearningforlife.com/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol3iss2/IJLS_V3Is2_
Winston_Ryan.pdf, page 215.
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (1974) The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in
Literary Investigation I-II, Translated from the Russian by Thomas P. Whitney, Harper &
Row, Publishers, New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London page 323.
Sam Harris (2004) The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, W.W.
Norton & Company, page 79.
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Johan D. Tangelder (2002) The Crusades: Comparing Christianity at its Worst to Islam,
http://www.reformedreflections.ca/other-religions/i-the-crusades.pdf, 1.11.2011.
Ruben L.F. Habito and Keishin Inaba (2006) The Practice of Altruism: Caring and Religion
in Global Perspective, edited by Ruben L.F. Habito and Keishin Inaba, Cambridge Scholars
Press.
Vidal, C. (2008) Wat is een wereldbeeld? (What is a worldview?), in Van Belle, H. & Van
der Veken, J., Editors, Nieuwheid denken. De wetenschappen en het creatieve aspect van
dewerkelijkheid, in press. Acco, Leuven.
Kelly A. Phipps (2010) Servant Leadership and Constructive Development Theory: How
Servant Leaders Make Meaning of Service, Journal of Leadership Education Volume 9,
Issue 2 Summer 2010, pages 151-170.
Richard Dawkins (1989) The selfish gene, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Chapter 5
Alfred de Grazia (1988) The Divine Succession: A Science of Gods Old and New, Metron
Publications, Princeton, New Jersey.
Thomas S. Kuhn (1974) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Second Edition, Enlarged
International Encyclopedia of Unified Science.
Ian Angus (2009) Marx, Engels and Darwin: How Darwins theory of evolution confirmed
and extended the most fundamental concepts of Marxism, A Socialist Voice pamphlet,
South Branch Publications, Canada.
Kathleen D. Vohs and Jonathan W. Schooler (2008) The Value of Believing in Free
Will-Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating, Psychological Science,
Volume 19Number 1, pages 49-54.
Benjamin Libet (1999) Do We Have Free Will? Journal of Consciousness Studies 6(89)
pp. 4757 and Sam Harris on "Free Will YouTube.
William F. McComas (1998) The Principal Elements of The Nature of Science: Dispelling
The Myths, page 2, adapted from the chapter in W. F. McComas (ed.) The Nature of
Science in Science Education, 53-70, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Sam Harris (2006) Letter to a Christian Nation, http://www.samharris.org/letter-to-achristian-nation.
Basil Bernstein (1990). Class, codes and control, Vol IV: The structuring of pedagogic
discourse, London: Routledge, page 37.
One of many disturbing online examples is Megans Story, If You Can Handle A Really
Depressing TeenSuicide Story Right Now... http://jezebel.com/322888/if-you-can-handleareally-depressing-teen-suicide-story-right-now.

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See for example, Carl Sagan (1996) "Does Truth Matter? Science, Pseudoscience, and
Civilization," Skeptical Inquirer 20:6, 1996 or Richard Dawkins (2006) The God
Delusion, Bantam Books.
C. S. Lewis (1944) The Abolition of Man, Harper Collins, New York and G.K. Chesterton
(1908) Orthodoxy, Project Gutenberg EBook, page 19.
Shelby Steele (2013) The Decline of the Civil-Rights Establishment, Wall Street Journal,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324448104578618681599902640, Tuesday
July 23, 2013, page 11.
Marques P. Richeson (2009) Sex, Drugs, AndRace-To-Castrate: A Black Box Warning of
Chemical
Castrations Potential Racial Side Effects, Harvard Blackletter Law Journal, Vol. 25, 2009.
Benjamin Libet (1999) Do We Have Free Will? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 8
9, 1999, pp. 4757 Journal of Consciousness Studies, www.imprint-academic.com/jcs, page
56.
Eddy Nahmias, Stephen Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer and Jason Turner (2004) The
Phenomenology of Free Will, in Chapter 44 Scientific Challenges to Free Will Editor:
Eddy Nahmias, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, page 167.
Jay Labinger (2009) Theodore L. Brown, Imperfect Oracle: The Epistemic and Moral
Authority of Science, Tradition & Discovery: The Polanyi Society Periodical, 36:3 pp. 1730, Pennsylvania State University Press, page 18.
David Suzuki and Holly Dressel (1999) Naked Ape to Superspecies, Toronto: Stodart.
Donald L. Gilstrap (2005) Strange Attractors and Human Interaction: Leading Complex
Organizations through the Use of Metaphors, Complicity: An International Journal of
Complexity and Education, Volume 2, Number 1, pp. 5569
www.complexityandeducation.ca, page 61.
Walter Isaacson (2007), Einstein: His Life and Universe, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks,
page 185. Bertrand Russell (1975) Autobiography, Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, page 138.
Victor Turner (1969), The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, New York: Aldine
De Gruyter, page 103.
Karl Marx (1887) Capital A Critique of Political Economy A Critique of Political
Economy,
Volume I Book One: The Process of Production of Capital, Publisher: Progress Publishers,
Moscow.

Chapter 6
World Health Organisation (WHO) Preventing Suicide: A Global Imperative Myth No. 3,
http://www.who.int/mental_health/suicide-prevention/myths.pdf?ua=1.

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Richard Eckersley and Keith Dear (2002) Cultural correlates of youth suicide, Social
Science & Medicine, vol. 55, no. 11, pp. 1891-1904.
BBC News (2013) Australia ranked 'happiest' developed nation again, 28 May 2013.
BBC News (2013) Suicides soar among US middle-aged people, 2 May 2013.
Patricia Cohen (2008) Midlife Suicide Rises, Puzzling Researchers, New York Times,
February 19, 2008.
World Health Organization (2014) Preventing suicide: A global imperative,
http://www.who.int/mental_health/suicideprevention/exe_summary_english.pdf?ua=1.
Karl Popper (1992) The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Routledge: London and New York,
page 147.
David M. Cutler, Edward L. Glaeser and Karen E. Norberg (2001) Explaining the Rise in
Youth Suicide (219 - 270),in Risky Behavior among Youths: An Economic Analysis,
Jonathan Gruber, editor, University of Chicago Press.
Mary Eberstadt (2004) Eminem is Right: The primal scream of teenage music, Policy
Review, No. 128, December 1, 2004: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review.
Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher (2005) Human AltruismProximate Patterns and
Evolutionary Origins, Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart, pages 6-47.
Joseph Bulbulia (2004) Religious Costs as Adaptations that Signal Altruistic Intention
Evolution and Cognition, Vol. 10, No. 1, pages 19-42.
Alan F. Dixson (2013) Primate Sexuality: Comparative Studies of the Prosimians, Monkeys,
Apes, and Humans, 2nd Edition International Journal of Primatology February 2013,
Volume 34 (1), pp 216-218.
Aldous Leonard Huxley (1932) Brave New World, http://www.idph.net, page 151.
Friedrich Nietzsch (1882) The Gay Science, Selected Text Book III, excerpts from
translation by Walter Kaufmann,
http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/diefrohl7d.htm, page 125.
For example, compare the World Health Organisation Map of Suicides
(http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/) with the Wold
Map of Atheists in the Washington Post
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/23/a-surprising-map-ofwhere-the-worlds-atheists-live/).

Chapter 7
Jesus Christ, Holy Bible, John 15:13.
Mark Harris (2008) The Flying Man, Nov-Dec http://www.missionfrontiers.org/.
Xue Xinran (2004) Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet, Julia Lovell and Esther
Tyldesley (Translators), Chatto and Windus: United Kingdom.
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Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd ed. David Maxwell 1930-Biography and Jim Collins (2003)
The 10 Greatest CEOs of All Time What these extraordinary leaders can teach today's
troubled executives,
http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/07/21/346095/index.htm.
Peter Limb (2008), Nelson Mandela: A Biography, Greenwood Press, page 50.
F. W. De Klerk (2011), The Role of Leadership during South Africas Transition:
http://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/files/F_W_de_Klerk_speech_to_Rhodes_Scholars.pdf,
page 7.
Simon Caldwell (2010) Blind tenor Andrea Bocelli praises mother for rejecting doctor's
advice to have abortion because he might be disabled, Mail Online 8 June 2010.
Elihai Braun (2013) Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Jewish Virtual Library.
Beth Underwood (20101) Rick Rescorla 9/11 remembered: The story of a hero, Saturday,
September 10, 2011, http://canadafreepress.com/. Mark Regnerus (2012) How different are
the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New
Family Structures Study, Social Science Research 41, 752770
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610).
Joanna Jolly (2014) Is violence more common in same-sex relationships? BBC News: 18
November 2014.
Guttmacher Institute (2013) Facts on Induced Abortion Worldwide, www.guttmacher.org,
retrieved: 23 September 2014.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2012) "SF3.1: Marriage and
divorce rates", OECD Family Database www.oecd.org/social/family/database.
World Health Organisation (2014) The WHO worldwide initiative for the prevention of
suicide, http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/, retrieved:
7 January 2014.

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