Geoff W. Sutton Blog

Who is my neighbor? The focus of various compassion ministries and public charities this time of year is naturally on helping those less fortunate--people who are cold, hungry, and lacking life's basics. What some miss in the focus on being a "Good Samaritan" is the identification of the neighbor in the famous story. Who is my neighbor? The neighbor is the compassionate Samaritan--not the beaten victim in need of much love and compassion. The focus of the story is on the people of faith who need to develop the virtue of neighborly love. Advertisement Living Well- an integration of faith and love and nine more virtues  AMAZON Story from Luke 10:25-37 Related Post How to measure compassion:  https://statistics.suttong.com/2018/05/how-to-measure-compassion.html Connections My web page www.suttong.com My Books AMAZON GOOGLE PLAY STORE FACEBOOK Geoff W. Sutton Join me on TWITTER @Geoff.W.Sutton Publications (many FREE downloads)   ...

Originally published 10 July 2015 Today, July 10, marks the 75th anniversary of the  Battle of Britain . German Luftwaffe attempted to destroy the British Royal Air Force (RAF) before invading Britain in 1940.  Timeline . The failure was a turning point in the war. Many have analysed the event in terms of German air superiority-planes, pilots and experience. There are mentions of British radar as helpful. I take a look at psychological factors. COUNTING ERRORS People make mistakes. Germans underestimated the number of British planes. The British overestimated the number of German planes. It’s always better to underestimate an enemy. MOTIVATION Defending your family, friends, and homeland is much more motivating than risking your life to attack an enemy-especially one you expect to defeat later in the year. EMOTION trumped cognitive strategy By all accounts Hitler was angry over British  counterattacks on German towns . He began pummeling Lo...

On the Psychology of Politics “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” The forgoing quote is from John Ehrlichman in 1994. Dan Baum includes it in his April 2016  Harper's   article: "Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs." I came across the piec...

Years ago, at a Christian college, I took a course in Christian Philosophy . I don’t remember much from the textbook but I do recall the title of another book, Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell. Looking back, I wondered why the professor chose such a text for a course in a highly conservative college. Was he trying to prepare us to challenge the author? Was he struggling with his own faith? Spiritual Struggle / Bing Free to use/share Arguably, the leading atheist of recent decades is the biologist Richard Dawkins . Following the 911 attacks on America, Dawkins and his atheist friends published several challenges to religion. A best seller, The God Delusion , caught my attention. After all, as a psychologist, I know something about delusions. And as one who studies and writes about the psychology of religion, I wondered what might be new in this arena—new since Russell, that is. Five Things Christians Can Learn From Atheists I’ve written an academic ...

Alzheimer's took his mind long before his body leaving his wife and children with years of distress instead of a time to mourn his loss. When he stopped breathing, words of comfort arrived online and in cards. "Our prayers and thoughts are with you," they wrote. They meant it too. Loving people care. Some send flowers. Others call. From time to time people post calls to action online. They appear frustrated by "prayers and thoughts" that seem to replace more meaningful action. Children die in a school shooting and people offer prayers and thoughts. But grieving parents and friends want action. "This shouldn't happen!" they scream. A crowd of sobbing people gather near an impromptu memorial of flowers. They tightly hug survivors of the bombing that separated lovers, family members, and friends. Sincere comments appear on social media pages, "Our prayers and thoughts are with you." What else can we do? We feel so helpless sometim...

If you want to scare parents, separate them (or threaten to) from their children. Some applications of immigration policies result in the separation of children from their parents. A recent news story brings the matter of loving and caring for children into focus. Here's a quote from a Business Insider article: When asked by NPR about those who say it's "cruel and heartless to take a mother away from her children," Kelly brushed off the question, according to an interview transcript released Friday.  "I wouldn't put it quite that way," Kelly said. "The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever. But the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long." When it comes to parenting, relationships matter. Caring is important of course. But parents and psychological scientists know that children need love ...

The correlation between church attendance and good health is a strong relationship.  Put simply, people who attend church on a regular basis also have better health than do people who do not attend church on a regular basis. So, what’s my issue? It’s the old problem that never goes away-- correlations do not mean causation. The fact that people who attend church have better health than those who don’t, does not mean attending church caused better health. The RNS writer, Yonat Shimron , does not emphasize this important fact about correlations. Here’s a quote from the first sentence of the story: “(RNS) The latest in a long line of studies, now numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands, shows that church attendance is good for your health. ” Later in the article, the author refers to various factors connected with church attendance that might be responsible for the supposed effect. It is good to consider various possibilities like prayer, social interac...

" Thank God for psychologists and Lexapro. Without them, I might be dead today." --Jonathan Merritt ( 2018, February 16 ) Jonathan Merritt's body vibrated. Then he had difficulty breathing. He grips us with his story of a panic attack. Then he shares his story of faith and psychology. Friends diagnosed a spiritual problem. A professor advised against a professional therapist saying, "you already have a wonderful counselor in Jesus." Merritt has more to say about Christian beliefs and mental health so, I suggest reading his post. I now move to related thoughts on Christianity and psychology. ***** I was sitting in a church pew one Sunday evening when a pastor launched into a rant against psychology. I left and never went back. At the time, I was in the process of earning a master's degree in Counseling at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Since those days, I find that my profession is still unwelcome in many conservative church...

Human Diversity, Geoff W Sutton, 2018 “So, what’s the difference between race and ethnicity?” My friend had a puzzled look as she genuinely wanted an answer. She has been to visit a doctor. The lengthy forms asked for her race and ethnicity in addition to many other bits of personal information. Her visit was this year, 2018, so I’m not talking about an old problem.    I took a while to respond because psychologists have long debated the issue of race and ethnicity. But I am also aware that census forms ask about race and ethnicity. And published articles report information about participants with terms like Caucasian, African American, Black, and White. People refer to other groups as Latino/a, Hispanic, or Asian and Pacific Islander.    I’m also puzzled because the term “racist” has been in the news a lot lately. People who make disparaging comments about other people based on where they live or come from are called racists rather than ethnists (no...