Re:Mental disorders are classifications
on
Coffee is Addictive
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
An angle I've never seen really recognized on the whole drug question is that caffeine, and other stimulants actually improve mental functioning in the first place, at least up to a certain level. So it's really not surprising that going off it de-improves it. Stimulants and some other drugs are also more effective for some people..look at ADHD for example. I've also seen people who function much better on marijuana, cocaine, tranquilizers. Making them stop taking them is consigning them to a lower level of mental function that does not improve after the 'addiction' wears off. Whatever idiots do when they misuse drugs should not make the drugs unavailable to those who can actually get some use out of them. Let Darwin handle it.
As a pc field tech, I deal with users on a daily basis, often in their homes. Quite often they will start out with 'it doesn't work' and be reticent about describing the problem, because they feel stupid in the face of unpredictable, incomprehensible technology, and a geek that is obviously massively smarter than they are. These are often people who are extremely competent in their own fields, and have no reason to feel intimidated by *my* intelligence! But they do anyway.
I find that if I drop back, listen to their problems--usually starting with the effect on their work--and then gently start leading them into the actual symptoms, they open right up. They want to feel understood, and they want to be reassured that they didn't do something awful to it. And even if they did, it could happen to anyone.
And it doesn't take as long as it sounds, either. You can have them singing like canaries in minutes with the right attitude.
I suspect *not listening* is the biggest problem IT people have. People often won't hear your questions until they've said what they want to say because they're upset. Only when they feel you understand their feelings will they begin to cooperate with you.
My mother taught me a valuable lesson about selling.."shut up and listen and they'll tell you exactly how to sell to them." Or talk to them.
It's not what happens that makes people miserable, it's what they *believe* about it.
They *could* regard it as advance publicity. A trailer even. People DO buy music that they find on P2P. I do it, my friends do it, and studies have shown that lots of people do it. So what's the big problem here?
If it's not finished, people will listen and then buy the album to find out what changed!
I really wonder how the RIAA is benefiting from all this hysteria. They've gotta be making money on it somehow. It has nothing to do with selling CD's.
I do pc field support for OEM's, so I talk to many ordinary computer users in my daily work. 90% are not even aware that there *is* any free software. Most of them don't know that they can have a home page other than MSN or AOL. Many of them have heard of google but don't know what it is for. They have a rough notion that there's piracy out there, but they aren't involved in it and they're terrified that their kids will get roped into it. I can't help thinking that M$ and RIAA has way less of a problem with piracy than they would have you believe..
If all these folks got together, they could file a whopper of a class-action countersuit. Especially since RIAA doesn't have a leg to stand on. File-sharing *increases* music sales. They actually benefit from it. This whole thing is a protection racket. A misguided effort to limit access to music the RIAA doesn't control.
I don't share music controlled by the RIAA..wouldn't give 'em the benefit. But all my friends have heard indie bands I've discovered through file-sharing, and we've all bought cd's as a result. I only share--and support--bands who are *not* affiliated with the RIAA.
I once embarked on a project of looking up all the references to women in the Bible. It quickly became crystal clear that God definitely hates women. And so I have no use for Him.
Oddly enough, I manage to generate my own sense of wonder at the universe, keep my problems in perspective, and make up my own mind on moral and ethical questions.
Everyone I know (in our local LUG, for instance) is forced to run windows also, usually on a separate box, because there aren't linux versions of programs that they need. I need a client for a VoIP service I use, for instance.
At the moment I am running a windows box loaded with all the open-source software I can find. Which, incidentally, points up another problem. Installing those open source apps is a hell of a lot easier under windows than under linux. But that's another issue.
Yeah..I need a VoIP client for the phone service I use for work. There isn't a linux client for it. Haveta run Windows or I can't work (though if anyone knows a workaround, I'd love to dump Windows)
According to Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture" the very first lawsuit they settled was against a guy who wrote a search engine--not a file-sharer. All it did was catalog mp3's that were in shares on the university net. He settled because even if he won it would bankrupt his family. Many of the others have settled for the same reason. That is not a 'fair trial.'
After working for 15 years as a machine designer in an industrial area that had recessions every four years, I gave up 'working hard' and became a dog groomer so I could feed my kids. I was a good designer, too..but every time GM burped all the companies I worked for went out of business.
Then, in the 80's I discovered computers. I worked very hard, studied hard, also learned electronics at the same time. For a couple years I reaped the benefits of my hard work...and crash. Electronics gone, IT gone. Just started working again...much harder, getting paid less.
So what choices do I make now, Bozo? Bartending? I planned ahead for years, studied hard, worked hard. My savings have been wiped out repeatedly by recession. Engineering, electronics, computers...they were all the 'wave of the future'. Then they waved bye-bye and left town.
I don't know where *you're* "seeing enough work for those who want to work"...I sure don't see any around here.
I haven't had any problems getting Soundblaster Live! Value to run under Mandrake..but my motherboard with nvidia chipset is only half-functional under any distro I've tried, and it broke Suse completely. Nvidia is not an off-brand, and it actually does try to supply drivers--though it's been years since they were updated. I've heard it's possible to get them to work, though the few people I know that have attempted it have failed. I like tinkering with Linux, it's a rush to play with, but doing battle with drivers just isn't that much fun. I'd rather tinker with firewall rules or snort or something. The reality, though, is that my work always drives me back to Windows.
My job as a pc field tech is pretty much Windows dependent. I also run a couple servers for my own amusement. The servers would be no problem under Linux, but the VoIP service I use for the bulk of my business phone calls has no Linux client. And since I love music while I'm working, I have 2 sound sources running under Windows--one feeds my stereo and the other the phone, and they operate simultaneously with no problem. Mandrake saw the soundblaster, but the onboard sound didn't exist. Maybe there are Linux solutions to these problems, but as a one-woman-band, as much as I'd like to, I don't have time to ferret 'em out. I admit freely that driver problems really are the domain of manufacturers, but it doesn't change the fact that the lack of driver support is a real impediment to using Linux for my business. I'm not 'big-business' enough to buy hardware just for Linux..mine tends to be cobbled out of whatever I can get for cheap or free, except when I'm tinkering with bleeding-edge toys because they turn me on. So is Linux only for big business? Seems to be contrary to the philosophy of open-source, really. I can understand not wanting to hand-hold Susy User, but cripes, it's a hassle even for people who *aren't* complete noobs.
Heh, this is an area where 'community' could really make a difference. Slashdot Nvidia until they fix their drivers!
My entire life pretty much revolves around computers. I'm not Mom-and-Pop, I know what I'm doing in a number of operating systems, and I push my machines hard..to serve, play and work, all at once. Windows handles it (annoyingly, I will admit--xp is damn pest) and Linux...doesn't. For me, Linux is a toy, and often a test-bed, but not much else. Linux does a few things very well, and many things that are central to my business and my pleasure, it doesn't do at all. I would love it to be more, for ethical and philosophical reasons, but it just isn't...yet. Hope springs eternal...
Doctors are still stuck on the ol' antidepressant kick?? You'd think they'd catch on eventually. ADD'ers are exceptionally sensitive to them--even when they're used to treat actual depression. They typically overdose us massively.
Adderall works best for me. Ritalin-type drugs aren't strong enough. Adderall is a formulation of methamphetamine salts to make it last longer-I get about 3 hours per pill. 5-6 hours is what they're supposed to last. There is a new drug called Strattera, which works on dopamine receptors, which is quite good--the samples I tried actually helped my lifelong insomnia for the first time. It's especially good because it isn't a controlled substance. However, being new, it's mind-bendingly expensive. So, back to the Adderall for me.
The other best options are Concerta and Metadate--Ritalin formulations that last about 12 hours. Many adults get very good results from them.
Don't be afraid to experiment. Except for Strattera, ADD medications are quickly eliminated from the body, so if you don't like it, stopping them is no problem. And, contrary to the usual belief, if a low dose is good, a higher dose may actually be better. It's a matter of finding the point where you're functioning at your best, without generating side-effects. I've actually never found a point where I get them, but more sensitive individuals may.
Well, not exactly. It is a physical anomaly that is improved with drugs. And yes, we are bored with much that normal people seem not to be. Adrenalin, intense interest or excitement also treats it--as long as we have enough energy.
Looking at those scans--it looks to me like an inadequate power supply. What happens if you throw a high-powered device on an inadequate supply? It pulls it down. ADD evidently correlates with intelligence and Man has been breeding for intelligence all along. Evolution is uneven. Breed for a fast horse? You get a lot of animals that have, for example, the muscles but not the lungs in the process.
In any case we can supply our brains with the needed energy in a lot of ways, and many of them are a drain on our bodies. I used to use anger before I got good drugs...I'm a lot easier to get along with now, and a lot healthier.
Except for those of us who are ADD--we have a permanent mist in our heads that only clears with stimulants. I remember my first cup of coffee at 16--clearly---it was like I could see and hear better instantly. I remember looking around the room wondering if anyone else knew what rush the stuff was--couldn't believe it was legal.
And, so I did! Lo and behold- the RIAA site itself has just such a list!
http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp
But google turned up something else--"boycott RIAA"
Intrigued, I typed that into the search box, and uncovered an avalanche!
This site seems to be the original--dozens of google entries mention it. Perhaps a phenomenon for slashdot?
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/
Anyone have a complete list of RIAA artists?
I see no reason to promote them on *my* site when there are so many good indie bands needing the exposure.
A suggestion, that might clarify the issue considerably. Next time you buy a cd because you liked mp3's that you got for free--email the artist, legislators and news services.
Just among people I know personally, I know quite a few who have gone to great lengths to find cd's by non-mainstream artists after dl'ing mp3's.
So let 'em know. Start a movement. File-sharing is the greatest underground radio network in history.
The *only* artists I buy are ones I find on file-share hubs. I don't *like* mainstream music.
I suspect artists would release their music voluntarily if they knew.
Sigh...the religious propaganda machine grinds on...
"You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world." Bertrand Russell
"The great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights . . . not only for acquiescence in poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression, but also for enthusiastic justifications for slavery, persecution, abandonment of small children, torture, and genocide. . . . Moreover, religion enshrined hierarchy, authority, and inequality. . . . It was the age of equality that brought about the disappearance of such religious appurtenances as the auto-da-fe and burning at the stake." Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
"The slave trade flourished with the approval of the Church, and in Britain and America it was the established churches that fought most vigorously against abolition. . . . Bible texts . . . were used constantly to support slavery. Opponents of slavery, including Wilberforce and Paine, were savagely attacked by the churches for presuming to know better than the Bible, and the antislavery attitude of the Quakers made them unpopular with orthodox Christians. Wilberforce . . . complained that his supporters were nonconformists and atheists, while church people generally opposed him." Carl Lofmark
"Historian Larry Hise notes in his book Pro-Slavery that ministers 'wrote almost half of all defenses of slavery published in America.' He listed 275 men of the cloth who used the Bible to prove that white people were entitled to own black people as work animals." James Haught
"Abolitionists failed to win the churches to their cause. In 1837, the Presbyterian General Assembly 'excised' from the church its most thoroughly antislavery synods. No major denomination endorsed abolitionism. This reluctance on the part of clergymen and church bodies was to have profound consequences for the course of the antislavery movement. It helped push Garrison and others into taking militant anti-clerical stands, and it caused the movement in the later 1830s and 1840s to adopt increasingly secular policies." Merton L. Dillon
"In all the ages the Roman Church has owned slaves, bought and sold slaves, authorized and encouraged her children to trade in them. . . . There were the texts; there was no mistaking their meaning; . . . she was doing in all this thing what the Bible had mapped out for her to do. So unassailable was her position that in all the centuries she had no word to say against human slavery." Mark Twain
"The delegates of the annual conference are decidedly opposed to modern Abolitionism and wholly disclaim any right, wish, or intention to interfere in the civil and political relation between master and slave as it exists in the slave-holding states of the union." Methodist Episcopal Church, 1836 General Conference, Cincinnati
"It [slavery] has exercised absolute mastery over the American Church. . . . With the Bible in their hands, her priesthood have attempted to prove that slavery came down from God out of heaven. They have become slaveholders and dealers in human flesh." William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist leader
"I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. . . . I . . . hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land." Frederick Douglass
Slashdot Mirror
Gods. Do you believe in the immortal soul?
I *WISH* my mother had had the right to choose. If she'd aborted me, maybe I'd have gotten parents who weren't sadistic child molesters.
Give a soul a second chance...
Pro Choice all the way!
I wanna see it cut grass...
An angle I've never seen really recognized on the whole drug question is that caffeine, and other stimulants actually improve mental functioning in the first place, at least up to a certain level. So it's really not surprising that going off it de-improves it. Stimulants and some other drugs are also more effective for some people..look at ADHD for example. I've also seen people who function much better on marijuana, cocaine, tranquilizers. Making them stop taking them is consigning them to a lower level of mental function that does not improve after the 'addiction' wears off. Whatever idiots do when they misuse drugs should not make the drugs unavailable to those who can actually get some use out of them. Let Darwin handle it.
I want to know where they put them? On stands? Of course, no one gets up for popcorn...can you imagine knocking one over? Domino effect...
Hang 'em from ceiling? That would be better..pinpoint sound everwhere..just none on the ground.
Or are the walls solid speakers all the way around?
Now *that* would be an interesting experience. Thinking 'speaker wallpaper' now.
As a pc field tech, I deal with users on a daily basis, often in their homes. Quite often they will start out with 'it doesn't work' and be reticent about describing the problem, because they feel stupid in the face of unpredictable, incomprehensible technology, and a geek that is obviously massively smarter than they are. These are often people who are extremely competent in their own fields, and have no reason to feel intimidated by *my* intelligence! But they do anyway.
I find that if I drop back, listen to their problems--usually starting with the effect on their work--and then gently start leading them into the actual symptoms, they open right up. They want to feel understood, and they want to be reassured that they didn't do something awful to it. And even if they did, it could happen to anyone.
And it doesn't take as long as it sounds, either. You can have them singing like canaries in minutes with the right attitude.
I suspect *not listening* is the biggest problem IT people have. People often won't hear your questions until they've said what they want to say because they're upset. Only when they feel you understand their feelings will they begin to cooperate with you.
My mother taught me a valuable lesson about selling.."shut up and listen and they'll tell you exactly how to sell to them." Or talk to them.
It's not what happens that makes people miserable, it's what they *believe* about it.
They *could* regard it as advance publicity. A trailer even. People DO buy music that they find on P2P. I do it, my friends do it, and studies have shown that lots of people do it. So what's the big problem here?
If it's not finished, people will listen and then buy the album to find out what changed!
I really wonder how the RIAA is benefiting from all this hysteria. They've gotta be making money on it somehow. It has nothing to do with selling CD's.
And it'll be a matter of days before someone hacks the protocol and figures out how to send fake "girl signals'...
Probably upload 'em to Kazaa, too...
I do pc field support for OEM's, so I talk to many ordinary computer users in my daily work. 90% are not even aware that there *is* any free software. Most of them don't know that they can have a home page other than MSN or AOL. Many of them have heard of google but don't know what it is for. They have a rough notion that there's piracy out there, but they aren't involved in it and they're terrified that their kids will get roped into it. I can't help thinking that M$ and RIAA has way less of a problem with piracy than they would have you believe..
If all these folks got together, they could file a whopper of a class-action countersuit. Especially since RIAA doesn't have a leg to stand on. File-sharing *increases* music sales. They actually benefit from it. This whole thing is a protection racket. A misguided effort to limit access to music the RIAA doesn't control.
I don't share music controlled by the RIAA..wouldn't give 'em the benefit. But all my friends have heard indie bands I've discovered through file-sharing, and we've all bought cd's as a result. I only share--and support--bands who are *not* affiliated with the RIAA.
I once embarked on a project of looking up all the references to women in the Bible. It quickly became crystal clear that God definitely hates women. And so I have no use for Him.
Oddly enough, I manage to generate my own sense of wonder at the universe, keep my problems in perspective, and make up my own mind on moral and ethical questions.
Amazing, isn't it? Look, ma, no God!
Payphones in my area will not accept 800 number calls.
Everyone I know (in our local LUG, for instance) is forced to run windows also, usually on a separate box, because there aren't linux versions of programs that they need. I need a client for a VoIP service I use, for instance.
At the moment I am running a windows box loaded with all the open-source software I can find. Which, incidentally, points up another problem. Installing those open source apps is a hell of a lot easier under windows than under linux. But that's another issue.
Yeah..I need a VoIP client for the phone service I use for work. There isn't a linux client for it. Haveta run Windows or I can't work (though if anyone knows a workaround, I'd love to dump Windows)
What I'd like to know is why the RIAA is still suing in the face of research that shows file-sharing *increases* cd sales.
Cound it be because the sales that are increasing are of non-RIAA artists? Because it threatens their monopoly over artists and music distribution?
According to Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture" the very first lawsuit they settled was against a guy who wrote a search engine--not a file-sharer. All it did was catalog mp3's that were in shares on the university net. He settled because even if he won it would bankrupt his family. Many of the others have settled for the same reason. That is not a 'fair trial.'
Uh, no.
After working for 15 years as a machine designer in an industrial area that had recessions every four years, I gave up 'working hard' and became a dog groomer so I could feed my kids. I was a good designer, too..but every time GM burped all the companies I worked for went out of business.
Then, in the 80's I discovered computers. I worked very hard, studied hard, also learned electronics at the same time. For a couple years I reaped the benefits of my hard work...and crash. Electronics gone, IT gone. Just started working again...much harder, getting paid less.
So what choices do I make now, Bozo? Bartending? I planned ahead for years, studied hard, worked hard. My savings have been wiped out repeatedly by recession. Engineering, electronics, computers...they were all the 'wave of the future'. Then they waved bye-bye and left town.
I don't know where *you're* "seeing enough work for those who want to work"...I sure don't see any around here.
I haven't had any problems getting Soundblaster Live! Value to run under Mandrake..but my motherboard with nvidia chipset is only half-functional under any distro I've tried, and it broke Suse completely. Nvidia is not an off-brand, and it actually does try to supply drivers--though it's been years since they were updated. I've heard it's possible to get them to work, though the few people I know that have attempted it have failed. I like tinkering with Linux, it's a rush to play with, but doing battle with drivers just isn't that much fun. I'd rather tinker with firewall rules or snort or something. The reality, though, is that my work always drives me back to Windows. My job as a pc field tech is pretty much Windows dependent. I also run a couple servers for my own amusement. The servers would be no problem under Linux, but the VoIP service I use for the bulk of my business phone calls has no Linux client. And since I love music while I'm working, I have 2 sound sources running under Windows--one feeds my stereo and the other the phone, and they operate simultaneously with no problem. Mandrake saw the soundblaster, but the onboard sound didn't exist. Maybe there are Linux solutions to these problems, but as a one-woman-band, as much as I'd like to, I don't have time to ferret 'em out. I admit freely that driver problems really are the domain of manufacturers, but it doesn't change the fact that the lack of driver support is a real impediment to using Linux for my business. I'm not 'big-business' enough to buy hardware just for Linux..mine tends to be cobbled out of whatever I can get for cheap or free, except when I'm tinkering with bleeding-edge toys because they turn me on. So is Linux only for big business? Seems to be contrary to the philosophy of open-source, really. I can understand not wanting to hand-hold Susy User, but cripes, it's a hassle even for people who *aren't* complete noobs. Heh, this is an area where 'community' could really make a difference. Slashdot Nvidia until they fix their drivers! My entire life pretty much revolves around computers. I'm not Mom-and-Pop, I know what I'm doing in a number of operating systems, and I push my machines hard..to serve, play and work, all at once. Windows handles it (annoyingly, I will admit--xp is damn pest) and Linux...doesn't. For me, Linux is a toy, and often a test-bed, but not much else. Linux does a few things very well, and many things that are central to my business and my pleasure, it doesn't do at all. I would love it to be more, for ethical and philosophical reasons, but it just isn't...yet. Hope springs eternal...
Adderall works best for me. Ritalin-type drugs aren't strong enough. Adderall is a formulation of methamphetamine salts to make it last longer-I get about 3 hours per pill. 5-6 hours is what they're supposed to last. There is a new drug called Strattera, which works on dopamine receptors, which is quite good--the samples I tried actually helped my lifelong insomnia for the first time. It's especially good because it isn't a controlled substance. However, being new, it's mind-bendingly expensive. So, back to the Adderall for me.
The other best options are Concerta and Metadate--Ritalin formulations that last about 12 hours. Many adults get very good results from them.
Don't be afraid to experiment. Except for Strattera, ADD medications are quickly eliminated from the body, so if you don't like it, stopping them is no problem. And, contrary to the usual belief, if a low dose is good, a higher dose may actually be better. It's a matter of finding the point where you're functioning at your best, without generating side-effects. I've actually never found a point where I get them, but more sensitive individuals may.
Well, not exactly. It is a physical anomaly that is improved with drugs. And yes, we are bored with much that normal people seem not to be. Adrenalin, intense interest or excitement also treats it--as long as we have enough energy.
Looking at those scans--it looks to me like an inadequate power supply. What happens if you throw a high-powered device on an inadequate supply? It pulls it down. ADD evidently correlates with intelligence and Man has been breeding for intelligence all along. Evolution is uneven. Breed for a fast horse? You get a lot of animals that have, for example, the muscles but not the lungs in the process.
In any case we can supply our brains with the needed energy in a lot of ways, and many of them are a drain on our bodies. I used to use anger before I got good drugs...I'm a lot easier to get along with now, and a lot healthier.
Except for those of us who are ADD--we have a permanent mist in our heads that only clears with stimulants. I remember my first cup of coffee at 16--clearly---it was like I could see and hear better instantly. I remember looking around the room wondering if anyone else knew what rush the stuff was--couldn't believe it was legal.
Excellent idea. Who's gonna do the bumperstickers? http://www.boycott-riaa.com/
And, so I did! Lo and behold- the RIAA site itself has just such a list! http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp But google turned up something else--"boycott RIAA" Intrigued, I typed that into the search box, and uncovered an avalanche! This site seems to be the original--dozens of google entries mention it. Perhaps a phenomenon for slashdot? http://www.boycott-riaa.com/
Anyone have a complete list of RIAA artists? I see no reason to promote them on *my* site when there are so many good indie bands needing the exposure.
A suggestion, that might clarify the issue considerably. Next time you buy a cd because you liked mp3's that you got for free--email the artist, legislators and news services.
Just among people I know personally, I know quite a few who have gone to great lengths to find cd's by non-mainstream artists after dl'ing mp3's.
So let 'em know. Start a movement. File-sharing is the greatest underground radio network in history.
The *only* artists I buy are ones I find on file-share hubs. I don't *like* mainstream music.
I suspect artists would release their music voluntarily if they knew.
"You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world." Bertrand Russell
"The great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights . . . not only for acquiescence in poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression, but also for enthusiastic justifications for slavery, persecution, abandonment of small children, torture, and genocide. . . . Moreover, religion enshrined hierarchy, authority, and inequality. . . . It was the age of equality that brought about the disappearance of such religious appurtenances as the auto-da-fe and burning at the stake." Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
"The slave trade flourished with the approval of the Church, and in Britain and America it was the established churches that fought most vigorously against abolition. . . . Bible texts . . . were used constantly to support slavery. Opponents of slavery, including Wilberforce and Paine, were savagely attacked by the churches for presuming to know better than the Bible, and the antislavery attitude of the Quakers made them unpopular with orthodox Christians. Wilberforce . . . complained that his supporters were nonconformists and atheists, while church people generally opposed him." Carl Lofmark
"Historian Larry Hise notes in his book Pro-Slavery that ministers 'wrote almost half of all defenses of slavery published in America.' He listed 275 men of the cloth who used the Bible to prove that white people were entitled to own black people as work animals." James Haught
"Abolitionists failed to win the churches to their cause. In 1837, the Presbyterian General Assembly 'excised' from the church its most thoroughly antislavery synods. No major denomination endorsed abolitionism. This reluctance on the part of clergymen and church bodies was to have profound consequences for the course of the antislavery movement. It helped push Garrison and others into taking militant anti-clerical stands, and it caused the movement in the later 1830s and 1840s to adopt increasingly secular policies." Merton L. Dillon
"In all the ages the Roman Church has owned slaves, bought and sold slaves, authorized and encouraged her children to trade in them. . . . There were the texts; there was no mistaking their meaning; . . . she was doing in all this thing what the Bible had mapped out for her to do. So unassailable was her position that in all the centuries she had no word to say against human slavery." Mark Twain
"The delegates of the annual conference are decidedly opposed to modern Abolitionism and wholly disclaim any right, wish, or intention to interfere in the civil and political relation between master and slave as it exists in the slave-holding states of the union." Methodist Episcopal Church, 1836 General Conference, Cincinnati
"It [slavery] has exercised absolute mastery over the American Church. . . . With the Bible in their hands, her priesthood have attempted to prove that slavery came down from God out of heaven. They have become slaveholders and dealers in human flesh." William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist leader
"I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. . . . I . . . hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land." Frederick Douglass