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Ethics Box - Exploring Personality and Character for sake of self-improvement

Tapsearch Com Editor and Artist Ray Tapajna with EthicsBox.com - studies Personality and Character for the sake of self-improvement. His mission is to probe ways for a new "Solidarity" for self, others and society under the guiding thought that each of us want to feel all together in one place at one time. It is also obvious that workers have no voice in the process of Globalization and Free Trade and hopefully the EthicsBox will prompt a change. See a posts about the "unnetted" at Bizarre Politics com and The Rationale com. Later we will get into the power of the spoken word and how all of us can improve ourselves in this discipline too. It is obvious workers have no voice in the process of Globalization and Free Trade.

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Ethics Box - November 2008

Knock Knock Who's There ? - ENTER!

November 29th 2008 22:16

Knock, Knock, Who's There?

For the sake of Self-Improvement - ENTER !

To reach your life ideal in your search for happiness, sooner or later you will have to knock on a door. The suggestions and posts at Ethics Box provided you with a start but there is no sense wasting your time if you avoid the most important step in life. If want, start out or end this post viewing the Prayer for Life and Healing

God takes over where philosophy and reason stop. Philosophy and reason can take you to the door of Faith but then you must knock to continue your journey. In each of our walk in life, we find that we are not complete beings by ourselves. We are wanderers from another place. We are on a journey back to our home. . We find we can define terms like perfect love without ever experiencing it in our journey. We find that we are born to journey to some place else - not here. We learn early in life that we obviously exist but that we were created by someone else. It is obvious we did not create ourselves. Philosophy studies all this and concludes our destinies is attained by ending our searching by finding a goodness beyond out limited finite conditions. Philosophy searches for the first cause.

Knock Knock Who's There?.......
Philosophy and reason can lead you to the door of Faith but can not lead you through it. Nietzche who became the basic philsosopher of totalitarians, said God is dead. He did not mean that God died and no longer existed but that the masses would give up on God. However, it is apparent, the God never gave up on man. And the history of the earth proves that Nietzhe was wrong. Giving up on God leads to things like Nazism and Communism.

Try as we will, we can not fathom the depth of God's loyalty to his creation. He summed it up in these words. John 1, 14 - "And the Word was made flesh and came to dwell among us." Through this sacrifice, man was given the means to attain his supernatural destiny - Perfect Love in a Perfect Place by a Perfect Man.

Jesus came and said, knock on the door and I will open it and open you to the way back home. He's there to take us through the door of life and supply and finish what philosophy and reason failed to do. This gift is called Faith. We can reach our life ideal and happiness in Faith and in the process we can imitate a perfect role model. The desire to possess infinite truth and infinite good - begins and ends in God. And God alone is the only way to escape our fragile bodies and minds.

God says , John 15, 5, "Separated from Me, You have no power to do anything."

In 1 Cor.13, 13, He says it all - "Meanwhile, Faith, Hope and Love persist, but the greatest of them all is Love."

2 Tim. 1, 7, says, - "The spirit He has bestowed on us is not one that shrinks from danger; it is the spirit of action, of love and discipline."

Iasais 11, 2 says,- "And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him the spirit of wisdom and of understanding the spirit of counsel and fortitude - the spirit of knowlege and godliness. And he shall be filled with the spirit and the fear of the Lord."

Compare this with our human nature. Human nature is subject to fatique, it labors under the power of conscience, suffers from imperfection of judgement, is carried away by its propensity to pleasure, so that there is enevitably need from time to time to specialized in divine assistance. All the techniques of developing the right type of personality and the ideal form of character become practical exercises once you knock on the door of life with Jesus standing on the other side ready to give you all the grace you need.

Why would anyone turn down this deal. It is the ultimate in deal or no deal. Look at the gamble people take to win riches.

Why not knock and see what happens?

You can start by reading our prayer of life and healing based on the 23rd Psalm. It is not a prayer for funerals only but it is a prayer for vibrant living too.

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Practical Righteousness

November 24th 2008 17:38

By Ray Tapajna, Editor and Artist at Tapsearch Com Tapart News and Art that Talks

When you fail your life ideal, there's no reason to despair

Here, I would like to get into the Bible and Scriptures directly but will indirectly approach it in a different way. I attended many prayer meetings in my life and there were many times when someone in the group started debating a certain biblical passage which disrupted the real reason for the gathering. I had many questions in my mind about many things too. I knew that I could locate the right interpretation if I took the time to do it but , I also know scripture scholars could spend a life time studying and researcing just one page of the Bible. I recall a professor in a philosophy class, reading a passage based on St Thomas Aquinas relating to scripture. He stopped reading in the middle of a sentence. He was silent gazing down at the page for a long time never looking up at the class. Then suddenly , he said, St Thomas didn't say that and he walked out during the middle of the class and he never came back. He could not wait to find out the answer .

Those of us who live and work in the secular world, do not have time for kind for this kind of research. I tell people that I pray the Bible. I let the words come to me and let them sink in.

For those who are not ready to do this, they can just look around at their surroundings and seek their life ideal. We build things in right angle, round or curved fashion with everything looking streamlined compared to a tree or a mountain side. Evidently, our creator- or if you want - nature has a different way of doing things. Perhaps we can find ways to branch out from the world as each generations forms it and find our life ideal in a different way. I am always surprised when I realize how one generation can take on falsehoods that history and tradition have proven wrong for centuries.

Cardinal Newman, a convert to the Catholic Church, said a person must follow his conscience even if it is ill-informed. This opens a door to many things. He says there are absolutes but there are different approaches in finding them. God works in mysterious ways.

In our current generation living in a society that demands instant results , many want to cope with their failings in the same way. Some let the failures take hold of their personality and character and this is a mistake. We must find ways to make a comeback in small or big ways. If we take one step backwards, we can take two steps forward and we will be ahead of the game.

During hard times the pursuit of the life ideal gets more difficult but still we can seek out righteousness no matter what. Many found this possible even in the concentration camps. Victor Frankl wrote about this in his book - The Search for Meaning. He was stripped to a naked existence, losing his family and everthing else in a concentration camp but we survived by always trying to take two steps forward while in the world he lived told him to something different.

The Jesus Golden Rule - or what is called the law of the prophets - do unto others as you would have them do to you - is a practical way to live. It is pragmatic in results. Even if we start using the formula for selfish reasons the more we practice it the more of self fades away. Love starts peeking through.

All people of good will, soon find out that seeking their live ideals is parallel with seeking righteousness in everything we do even in hard times. We can do unto others what we would have them to do us - in the way we look, in the way we talk and in the way we keep silent during confrontation - and especially in our families.

See also The Rationale Quest where we explore philosophy and religion in the global economic arena.

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Time to think outside the box.

November 17th 2008 21:21

By Ray Tapajna, Editor and Artist at Tapart News and Art That Talks. Below is updated article by Ray from Ezine Articles Expert and is presented here at the Etihics Box as a part of pursuing self-improvement in the context of the common good.

Mr & Ms Potato Heads Are You Unnetted? TIme To Get Your Ears, Eyes And Mouth Plugged In.

( If you feel like you are outside looking in. Actually, it's time to think outside the box )

Are you a Potato Head still waiting for you ears, eyes and mouth? Are you "unnetted?" Do you have no voice in the process of Globalization and Free Trade in the Flat World? Tune in ABC, CNN, MSNBC or FOX and they will plug in your eyes, ears and mouth for you. Liberals turn to the left and chant all the political correct nonsensical phrases they give you. Conservatives turn to the right and follow the man who says Jesus is his favorite philosopher as he charges up a hill in bloody pre-emptive wars from his safe place in Washington DC.

All should read The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman from the New York Times. It is really about President Clinton and President Bush holding hands walking down the global economic path together. But now the Economic House of Cards of the Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Greenpsan era has fallen. The economy based on making money on money instead of making things has burn out.

If you still want to hide in this economic storm, stay away from The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man book by John Perkins, Amy Goodman from Democracy Now Org and Seymour Hersh from the New Yorker. They will just confuse you. Do not read any of the many books about Globalization by Manuel Castell or The Trap by Sir James Goldsmith. These books told the story years ago.

It may be time to curse the darkness rather than just light one little candle. Token charitable causes where only one in thousands get help hide deep economic wounds. The Free Enterprise system is supposed to make it easier for all to be good. It obviously has failed its mission. We live off the suffering of the wage slaves of the world.

As the saying in the old movie Cool Hand Luke goes - what we got here it the failure to communicate even in our global instant connected world with text messages and all. It seems we talk and write more than ever but something is missing. Could it be the pursuit of perfection has been flushed down the toilet? Have we compromised because we say perfection is only a word in the dictionary with a definition that can not apply to human beings. Yet, the word is there and it haunts us as we live and breathe in the confines of bodies that are decaying with each tick of the clock. All we want is to feel all together in one place at the same time but find these can be only rare moments in time as we fade away into eternity.

In the work world, we are told it is a good thing trying to match our ultimate end of what is right and what is wrong, but we also told we have to be realistic how we do it in the real world. Pragmatism becomes the rule. Utility is its tool. In the Globalist Free Traders world, the Bible phrase reverses itself. It says, do unto others before they do it to you. We see power politics marry economics consummating greed. The homeless lay on downtown streets and are ignored. The sun burns down on them in the summer and the cold winds of winter, freezes them, but it does not matter for their souls have been burned out or frozen solid already by a society that scurries by being too busy with the real world of things. Quote the statistics they give you to tell yourself the homeless and underclass do not exist in our good economy. However, things like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans exposes a Silent Depression residing in our land. Many say it is their fault they ended up the way they did.

It is not only workers on wages or without any wages who are suffering. Reportedly, 47 percent of all small business persons have maxed out their credit cards to keep their business afloat. They fall into a trap of usury interest rates over 18 percent and as high as 34 percent like everyone who uses their credit lines to back up their lost of jobs etc., there is no come back after this happens. Now even those who enjoyed the rewards of this usury interest rates are being taken down.

They should have been plugged into ABC, NBC, CNN and Fox News. After all there are good men like Cavuto on Fox who shows us things like the stock market being the soul of a good society where everyone can transform paper into profit by using the least among us to do the "dirty" work. People like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times writes a book called the Flat World and speaks at Harvard. People like a President of a Jesuit University say Amen and more workers are handcuffed in the world with the key thrown away. Bishops in Central and South America are martyred because they speak and act for the underclass. One of the first saints canonized by Pope Benedict was Father Alberto Hurtado who acted and spoke for the underclass in the 1940s and 1950s. Today Populism is rapidly coming our way from South America.

People like John Perkins do come forward and write a different kind of book called The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man that tells all about the bad things really going on in the global economic arena and but he is silenced by the main media channels. The academic community ignores him too. Are you ready to really think outside the box? If so read Perkins book.

President Bush says there are jobs in the USA that Americans will not do. This has happened after the U.S. sent more than 4000 factories to Mexico. It is obvious there are jobs in Mexico that Mexican workers will not take. Many of these factories are now moving to China where are willing to work for less. It is an endless stream of movement because millions are competing for the same jobs. Free Trade is about moving production from place to place based on the cheapest labor markets of the world. The main commodities are human beings put on a world trading block to compete with one another down to the levels of wage slave and even child labor.

The facts of life include the following:
In 1774, 1 percent owned 15 percent of the wealth. By 1973, 1 percent owned 32.6 percent of the wealth and by 1989, 1 percent owned 40 percent of the wealth. What is it today? ( Search on Silent Depression Economic Inequality for more data )
At age 65: 45 percent are dependent on relatives. 30 percent are dependent on charity. 23 percent are still working and only 2 percent are self sustaining. A note in our church bulletin reads - Success is reaching Social Security age without having to declare bankruptcy. We know now that about 38 percent over the age of 45 did file for bankruptcy from 1992 to 2002.
85 percent over 65 do not even have $250.00
About 28 percent of all workers make less that $7.90 per hour
The lowest 20 percent bracket are paying state and local taxes at about twice the rate of the top 1 percent. 70 percent of all workers pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes. A person making only about $10,000 a years pays about 12 percent of their total gross income in payroll, state and local taxes. That is more than a $1,000 a year on just $10,000 in income.
About 70% of all workers make less money in real dollars than comparable workers did 20 years ago.
The poor are getting poorer and the Middle Class is fading away.
For more information See If this is a good economy, I would hate to see a bad one at Tapsearch Com Tapart News. The facts were updated from 1998 and most of the data remains the same today.

There was a time in Rome when it was better to be a slave than a Free-Man. The slaves had a roof over their heads and were allowed to get married in order to raise more slaves. The Free-Man had to hide and had very few opportunities make a living. History seems to be repeating itself now with a working poor class growing in the USA and impoverished and wage slave class growing outside the USA. The World Bank and other lenders capture victims with usury interest rates.

A statistical prosperity is still being proclaimed even though 39 percent of all over 45 have declared bankruptcy from 1992 to 2002. Finally only about 38 percent of all workers in the USA, qualify for unemployment insurance which indicates there is a vast pool of workers missing in action from any kind of real reporting. It also proves the unemployment rate is fabricated and it certainly can not be compared with any unemployment rate reported in the past.

Who says we have to compete like this in a global economic arena?

See Tapart News and Art that Talks at Really Long Link and http://tapsearch.com/flatworld Search under tapart news, tapsearch, Ray Tapajna, Tapajna Clinton for more information or search under any of the key words and phrases of above. Google seems to have shorten many lists, so search on Yahoo and Gigablast search engines too for a deeper penetration of references and topics.

And now the Money Crisis has come. The tangible assets of workers and labor have reached their lowest level and are no longer there to back up the make believe intangible values of paper money. More will have to be printed to bail out the financial markets and you know who will be paying for all of this. You and your children and their children etc will be the ones. Perhaps it is time to get unplugged and think outside the box.

Start with Really Long Link/" target="_blank"> Tapart News and Art that Talks - Can you hear me now. - The lost worlds in the Globalist Flat World - The devaluation of workers and labor Can you hear me now!

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Who is your Daddy now ! in the New World Dis-Order

November 15th 2008 18:52

This is from The Rationale Com Quest Philosophy and Religion site and from our Bizarre Politics Com blog since the current 2008 Money Crisis is affecting the common good and all forms of self-improvement now. It is certainly affecting personalities and characters when elite forces outside the will of the people challenge human dignity in the workday.

Who's your Daddy now? - with the fall of the Economic House of Cards of the Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Greenspan in the so called Global Economy
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Cold facts of about knowing yourself

November 4th 2008 18:53

By Ray Tapajna, Editor, Advocate and Artist at Tapart News and Art that Talks - This article is based on notes from Father McQuade Personality and Character course

Knowing yourself is sorting out the cold facts inorder to uncover your life ideal. If you want to go futher in self-improvment, you must face the facts of your life. "By their fruits you shall know them", holds as much for ourselves as for others. For true self knowlege, the whole pattern of our lives should be carefully scrutinized. We do not have to concentrate on it full time for in lving out the questions of life , many answers flow. All we have to do is ask ourselves what we would think the life ldeal of a man who is this situation acted thus and so, as I have acted. Sometimes it is not much fun and if you get too upset about it , it may be time to call in a third party to help you out or just take a break from your search. The ascent to the Divine can lead through the hell of self knowlege. However, it can be done without putting a heavy load on yourself and do it in a calm efficient manner. After all a quiet wait for anything good is a good training in itself

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Self-Knowlege leads the way to your life ideal

November 4th 2008 00:15

By Ray Tapajna, Editor and Artist at Tapart News and Art that Talks

Breakdowns in life follow the breakdown of our life ideal. We grow up pursuing our life ideal and the collapses in adult life are due to the adoption of something other than our life ideal. The breakdowns are sometimes beyond the power of the individuals concerned. For example, a student who sets everything they have on a straight A average , completely ignoring the facts that is intelligent quota does not warrant his pursuit may literally sacrifice everything to get it. The obession of getting a straight A average brings down real life ideal being plagued with a sense of failure. What is that particular thing that could upset your life ideal

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December 2008