America's in Trouble America's Moral Dilemma We are in great need of a Spiritual Revival in America,  This is a small portion from our course we teach on the "The Great  Awakening" revival that occurred in America from 1720-1760 and the impact this revival had in creating our great nation. We need this type of revival to sweep America again. MAHATMA GANDHI said that there are Seven Deadly Sins that will destroy a nation. Currently these seven deadly sins are know running rampant in our nation today. Wealth without work. This refers to the practice of getting something for nothing-manipulating markets and assets so you don't have to work or produce value, just manipulate people and things. Today there are professions built around making wealth without working, making much money without paying taxes, benefiting from free government programs without carrying a fair share of the financial burdens, and enjoying all the perks of citizenship of country and rnembership of a corporation without assuming any of the risk or responsibility. How many of the fraudulent schemes that went on in the 1980s, often called the decade of greed, were basically get-rich-quick schemes or speculations promising practitioners, "You don't even have to work for it"? That is why I would be very concerned if one of my children went into speculative enterprises or if they learned how to make a lot of money fast without having to pay the price by adding value on a day-to-day basis. Some network marketing and pyramidal organization worry me because many people get rich quick by building structure under them that feeds them without work. They are rationalized to the hilt; nevertheless the overwhelming emotional motive is often greed: "You can rich without much work. You may have to work initially, but soon you can have wealth without." New social mores and norms are cultivated that cause distortions in their judgment. Justice and judgment are inevitably inseparable, suggesting that to the degree you move away from the laws of nature, your judgment will be adversely affected. You get distorted notions. You start telling rational lies to explain why things work or why they don't. You move away from the law of "the farm" into social/political environments. When we read of organizations in trouble, we often hear the hear the sad confessions of executives who tell moving away from natural laws and principles for a period of time and begin overbuilding, over-borrowing, and over speculating, not really reading the stream or getting objective feedback, just hearing a lot of self-talk internally. Now they have a high debt to pay. They may have to work hard just to survive-without hope of being healthy for five years or more. It's back to the basics, hand to the plow. And many of these executives, in earlier days, were critical of the conservative founders of the corporations who stayed close to the fundamentals and preferred to stay small and free of debt.  Pleasure without conscience The chief query of the immature, greedy, selfish and sensuous has always been, "What's in it for me? Will this please me? Lately many people seem. to want these pleasures without conscience or sense of responsibility, even abandoning or utterly neglecting spouses and children in the name of doing their own thing. But independence is not the most mature state of being-it's only a middle position on the way to interdependence, the most advanced and mature state. To learn to give and take, to live selflessly, to be sensitive, to be considerate, is our challenge. Otherwise there is no sense of social responsibility or accountability in our pleasurable activities. The ultimate costs of pleasures without conscience are high as measured in terms of time and money, in terms of reputation and in terms of wounding the hearts and minds of other people who are adversely affected by those who just want to indulge and gratify themselves in the short term. It's dangerous to be pulled or lulled away from natural law without conscience. Conscience is essentially the repository of timeless truths and principles-the internal monitor of natural law. Pleasure without conscience is one of the key temptations for to-day's executives. Sometimes on airplanes I'll scan the magazines directed at executives, noting the advertisements. Many of these ads, perhaps two-thirds of them. invite executives to indulge themselves without conscience because they "deserve it" or have "earned it" or "want it," and why not "give in" and "let it all hang out"? The seductive message is, "You've arrived. You are now a law unto yourself. You don't need a conscience to govern you anymore." And in some ads you see sixty-year-old men with attractive thirty-year-old women, the "significant others" who accompany some executives to conventions. Whatever happened to spouses? What happened to the social mores that make cheating on spouses illegitimate behavior?  Knowledge without Character - As dangerous as a little knowledge is, even more dangerous is much knowledge without a strong, principled character. Purely intellectual development without commensurate internal character development makes as much sense as putting a high-powered sports car in the hands of a teenager who is high on drugs. Yet all to often in the academic world, that's exactly what we do by not focusing on the character development of young people. Commerce (business) without morality (ethics). In his book Moral Sentiments, which preceded Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith explained how foundational to the success of our systems is the moral foundation: how we treat each other, the spirit of benevolence, of service, of contribution. If we ignore the moral foundation and allow economic systems to operate without moral foundation and without continued education, we will soon create an amoral, if not immoral, society and business. Economic and political systems are ultimately based on a moral foundation. To Adam Smith, every business transaction is a moral challenge to see that both parties come out fairly. Fairness and benevolence in business are the underpinnings of the free enterprise system called capitalism Our economic system comes out of a constitutional democracy where minority rights are to be attended to as well. The spirit of the Golden Rule or of win-win is a spirit of morality, of mutual benefit, of fairness for all concerned. Paraphrasing one of the mottoes of Rotary Club, "Is it fair and does it serve the interests of all the stakeholders?" That's just a moral sense stewardship toward all of the stakeholders. Science without humanity If science becomes all technique and technology, it quickly degenerates into man against humanity. Technologies come from the paradigms of science. And if there's very little understanding of the higher human purposes that the technology is striving to serve, we become victims of our own-technology. We see otherwise highly educated people climbing the scientific ladder of success, even though it's often missing the rung called humanity and leaning against the wrong wall. The majority scientists who ever lived are living today, and they have brought about a scientific and technological explosion in the world. But if all they do is superimpose technology on the same old problems, nothing-basic changes. We may see an evolution, an occasional "revolution" in science, but without humanity we see precious little real human advancement. All the old inequities and injustices are still with us. About the only thing that hasn't evolved are these natural laws and principles-the true north on the compass. Science and technology have changed the face of most everything else. But the fundamental things still apply, as time goes by. Religion without sacrifice without sacrifice we may become active in a church but remain inactive in its gospel. In other words, we go for the social facade of religion and the piety of religious practices. There is no real walking with people or going the second mile or trying to deal with our social problems that may eventually undo our economic system. It takes sacrifice to serve the needs of other people-the sacrifice of our own pride and prejudice, among other things. If a church or religion is seen as just another hierarchical system, its members won't have a sense of service or inner worship. Instead they will be into outward observances and all the visible accouterments of religion. But they are neither God-centered nor principle centered. Politics without principle. If there is no principle, there is no true north, nothing you can depend upon. The focus on personality ethic is the instant creation of an image that sells well in the social and economic marketplace. You see politicians spending millions of dollars to create an image, even though it is superficial, lacking substance, in order to get votes and gain office. And when it works, it leads to a political system operating independently of the natural law that should govern--that are built into the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. . In other words, they are describing self-evident, external, observable, natural, unarguable, self-evident laws: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident." The key to a healthy society is to get the social will, the value system, aligned with correct principles. You then have the compass needle pointing to true north-true north representing the external or the natural law-and the indicator says that is what we are building our value system on: they are aligned. But if you get a sick social will behind a political will that is independent of principle, you could have a very sick organization or society with distorted values. For instance, professed mission and shared values of criminals who rape, rob, and plunder might sound very much like many corporate mission statements; using such words as teamwork," "cooperation," "loyalty," "profitability,"' "innovation and "creativity." The problem is that their value system is not based on a natural law. Figuratively, inside many corporations with lofty mission statements, many people are being mugged in broad daylight in front of witnesses. Or they are being robbed of self-esteem, money, or position without due process. And if there is no social will behind the principles of due process, and if you can't get due process, you have to go to the jury of your peers and engage in counterculture sabotage.