Diltiazem

Elizabeth Jones, MT, ABHI (CHT), ASPT (CPT)

You could attempt to get the thief to cover your costs (if you can identify him/her:) treatment e coli cheap diltiazem 180 mg on-line, or argue with the municipal parking clerk to waive them treatment 0f gout generic diltiazem 60 mg with amex. A more proper analogy: If someone steals your car symptoms 8 weeks cheap diltiazem online visa, and crashes it into another car medicine uses purchase diltiazem 180mg line, totalling both medications listed alphabetically buy diltiazem overnight, the owner of the other car is not responsible treatment viral meningitis discount diltiazem 180 mg fast delivery. The difference is that in the car situation, one or both insurance companies will pick up the costs (in most states), and then try to recover from the thief. This seems fair, because wire fraud is relatively unlikely for any particular customer, just like car theft. According to "Der Woche", the computer assesses the vital statistic data kept on patients and computes the likelyhood of the patient surviving. The health authorities in Bremen yesterday told the hospital "Links der Weser" to stop using this program, as it is unethical. The chairman of the Marburger Bund, Frank Ulrich Montgomery stated:" When the survival of a person is dependent on money-based criteria, then we have ethically reached the situation where the Nazis left off. Death Computer" in big headlines, so stay tuned for a big row in Germany about such programs. Jones at first denied the existence of the report, but now admits the report does exist - although he denied its representing a confession. A technical fix is possible, but Web site operators are reluctant to make things more difficult for legitimate subscribers to log on. Meanwhile, Internet Billing offers software that allows Web sites to limit how many times the same password may be used each day - a solution that would probably keep some of the piracy down, but runs the risk of alienating paying customers who just want to log on a lot. Also, it could actually stimulate dognapping since it adds information value to the dog. Software developers, as they always have been, have the responsbility of themselves exercising appropriate diligence in this regard. The point being that the system provides the component developer flexibility in balancing his development time and effort with the amount of richness available to his component once downloaded. The same security issues being discussed with respect to ActiveX apply equally to all these other forms of application, all of which in the course of doing interesting and useful things on behalf of the user is going to at times need to be given access to information or capabilities that could be used for evil instead of goodness. We have decades if not centuries of experience with this model of conduct between supplier and customer. In the online world, users have heretofore installed software manually, by way of manual download. In doing so, they have had to resort to ad-hoc and often naive mechanisms for judging the risk they are taking in doing so. We can make users lives dramatically better by automating the online software installation process. In addition, we can provide mechanisms that bring to bear in the online world the same forces successfully used to manage risk in traditional channels, mechanisms that can help users be conscious of the risks involved and make informed choices about them. Flaws in any one part of that overall infrastructure may compromise the system as a whole. Such hardware devices and the increased key protection they provide are likely to be well worth the investment, especially for commercial enterprises in the business of software publishing. Indeed, from my own personal perspective it can be argued (disclaimer: I am not now, nor ever have been a member of the legal profession) that given the modest costs and given the nature of being in the software business to not take such precautions might be considered negligent on the part of such an enterprise. Even were a SafeKeyper to somehow be physically stolen, these cool little boxes have several elaborate internal defenses designed to have the box destroy itself rather than compromise its keys. That is, the crooks can if they like leave their clear, unsmudged fingerprints all over their illegal device. Fortunately (see above), the mechanisms are available in the system infrastructure to allow them to do this. The presence of digital signatures on code does not remove the need for law enforcement agencies to do their investigative work when confronted with a crime; their detective and analysis skills will continue to be be valuable and needed. What digital signatures on code provides is a robust and unforgeable attribution of responsibility for publication once the actual offending code is identified. The additional ability to have third parties digitally "endorse" or "rate" works published by others we have always thought to be a very useful and valuable concept, but it is a separate and distinct one from that of signing as the publisher. Yes, the concern that inconvenience or annoyance causes the end-user to bypass the security infrastructure (see #1 above) is an important consideration. Code that is legitimately signed by a software publisher who is listed by the user as trusted is automatically approved for installation without user intervention. The net effect is a mechanism that allows the user to bypass redundant and repeated prompts for the same approval without compromising his protection in any way. Invention of basic ideas and usable, successful, practical wide-spread deployment of implementations of ideas are different beasts. With respect to signed code, various Java-related web pages on the Sun web site circa early summer 1995 indeed did mention in passing that it was an interesting idea to apply digital signatures to code. However, no insights were offered as to the actual policies or architecture that might be involved. To be just a little overly-severe, what I recall was little more than simply "digital signatures" and "downloaded code" being mentioned in the same sentence. You might notice, for example, that the certificate dialog simply states "X is published by Y under credentials issued by Z," as in "Surround Video Control is published by Microsoft under credentials issued by Verisign" a simple "brand of identity" approach rather than the historical approach of thrusting upon the user a whole chain of delegated identifications. Third, as was mentioned, repeated prompts for essentially the same approval can be easily and simply automated without loss of security. Fourth, the fact that we focused on mechanisms whereby signatures can be physically inserted within existing file formats (. But taken together, I submit that the overall user experience is significantly more straightforward. My first reading came up "3" my second reading came up "3" at which point the nurse shook the device my third reading came up "3" at which point I asked the nurse what the "3" really meant. A medical device with unusable error codes (as suggested by my user study N=1) and an inherent belief that whenever the system appears to work, that it is actually working. It seems this national chain no longer trains their cashiers to handle credit card approvals outside of the built-in register function. Neumann, moderator Volume 18: Issue 86 Wednesday 5 March 1997 Contents ActiveX security Suppose it keeps these command names in a preferences file such as C:windowsmycommands. This automatically wakes up at a specified time and executes a list of commands for housekeeping such as backup, defrag, etc. The second control finds the file written by the first one and dutifully fires up Word, Excel, and then formats the C drive. Both controls did exactly what they were designed to do, exactly what they advertised to do. The only way to avoid this would be to strictly decouple them, by not allowing any to share information with the other, such as giving each its own private file-space to write in. Second, history says that if a piece of software needs to carry serious, legally binding liability, there would not be a Microsoft or a software industry in general. Java has the potential to give you fine-grained access control, whether the code is signed or not. So tell me how to configure a Win95 system such that an ActiveX control (or component or whatever) can read/write only to directory /tmp (or C: mp) while it is prevented from all other file I/O The "evidence" the digital signature that would presumably be used against the attacker is stored. On a system like Windows 95, which provides absolutely no internal protection, that evidence will last for a few milliseconds. But if it does something indirect; or waits until executed the 100th time; or modifies some *other* program so that *it* later does something nasty; then tracking the down the source of the original corruption will be extremely difficult. Hell, tracking down "memory poisoning" *bugs* is extremely difficult and these are random events that make no direct attempt to cover their tracks. The traditional boxed software set from a local store is safe for many reasons but some of the important ones related to the inherent limitations of the traditional distribution medium. Distributing them to stores adds much more expense and at each step of the way, there are people to talk to , papers to sign, money to change hands, records to be made. The advantage of on-line distribution is that it cuts away all these layers and delays and costs. A signed piece of code shares one characteristic with software in a box: A mark that can, with reasonable catless. But the two are different in so many other fundamental ways that to attempt to argue the acceptability of one on the basis of experience with the other is simple sophistry. By saying "as they always have been", you seem to be suggesting that this kind of security attack is a serious concern for all applications. That is far from true; it normally only applies (with varying seriousness) to network servers and clients, suid/sgid programs, helper apps, plug-ins, and other programs that are passed data from a source which is less trusted than the program itself. If all programs were passed data from untrusted sources, computer security in general would be in much more of a mess than it is currently in. If that were not the case, why are buffer overflow and similar attacks against suid Unix programs so common In Unix, normally only suid/sgid programs, and server daemons, are worth attacking in this way. The user cannot trace the malicious code to its author; instead the trace will end at the unfortunate person or company whose control was exploitable. Anyone who does not have the updated version in their cache will simply download the copy of the old, exploitable version that was retained by the attacker. The basic problem is that the architecture of ActiveX effectively makes all code used in controls security-critical. It must be assumed that there exist signed controls that can be used to run arbitrary code. I do, however, intend to release that exploit publically, because I think it is the only way to demonstrate clearly the significance of data-driven attacks against ActiveX. There is also no opportunity for untrusted data to be passed to the application when it is installed. With ActiveX, you have no basis on which to trust the web site which points to the control, because that site is not authenticated. Note that this argument does not distinguish between "malicious" and "negligent" code, either here or later in the article. It is feasible for technologies that attempt to run code in a restricted environment. Again, note that "offending code" here can mean the "negligent" code that allows an attack to be lauched by some other party. So if your code has an exploitable bug, you are taking legal responsibility for any damage done as a result of that I think not; not only is there no legal precedent for this as far as I know, I suspect most software publishers would have to think very hard about whether they should continue to sign code under that agreement, if they can be held responsible for anything that the code does. If there is not, in fact, any legal responsibility for writing exploitable code, and strong reasons to believe that a substantial minority of controls will be exploitable, the rest of your argument stands on very shaky ground. In each case the user has a choice and can place a scanner/checker/validator/debugger between the download and the execution if desired. I do not disagree that sometimes I am willing to "trust" certain parties for download but that is primarily because I have initiated the contact and have been able to examine the download prior to allowing it to execute. Could be in the minority, but do not want anything to happen on my machine that I have not given explicit approval for or requested. Have experienced to much software that I knew I was installing (and had backed up relevant areas first) blow up on me to grant *any* global permissions. True, but because third parties can provide potentially hostile input to Active X controls - at least for those classified as "safe for initialization" - the "appropriate diligence" for such an active X control is much greater than that required for an ordinary application. The "appropriate diligence" required is similar to the diligence required for a Unix setuid executable. And past experience suggests that this high level of diligence is often lacking: setuid programs are very often the cause of security holes. Yes, but users also "want and demand" to be able to log into systems without having to type in any silly passwords. One of the reasons it works so well is that there is a reasonably hefty financial hurdle that you need to overcome in order to distribute software using traditional distribution channels. The Internet is a very low entry-cost distribution mechanism, and while that is a very desirable property, it is not without its associated risks. Furthermore, automating the process increases the chance that abuse may go unnoticed. So even if Active X were to faithfully imitate traditional distribution channels in every other way, the risk may well be much higher. That is why I think we need to move to technologies that offer better security that either Active X or traditional distribution channels. That is, the crooks can if they like leave their clear, unsmudged >fingerprints all over their illegal device. A thief would of course be foolish to leave their own fingerprints on an illegal device. Good answers: calm, considered, and admitting that the rest of the world both exists and has impact. Microsoft appears to have made a sincere effort to improve security with Authenticode, and Bob Atkinson gave a rather lucid explanation of the goals of Authenticode. First, there are no mechanisms to prevent a web page from invoking the ActiveX components served by another page or already installed on the users disk. When you loaded the page from DigiCrime with Microsoft Internet Explorer, you were presented with an official looking seal from Microsoft certifying that the code you were about to install was written by them. If you visited the Microsoft page first and then the DigiCrime page, the code from Microsoft was invoked without notice.

Syndromes

60mg diltiazem free shipping

Many chronic inflammatory cells are present in the deeper layers of the mucosa and in the submucosa medicine 5658 diltiazem 60mg with visa. Several crypts lack areas of epithelial covering symptoms ulcer stomach 180mg diltiazem, but most have an abnormally thin epithelial lining of bizarre regenerating epithelium medicine 6 year in us purchase generic diltiazem on-line. The intestinal infection is severe enough to have caused a serosal inflammation as evidenced by the presence of fibrin on the surface of the affected bowel symptoms congestive heart failure 180mg diltiazem with amex. This is a common intestinal finding when animals are terminally ill for any reason and do not eat properly medicine 2 cheap diltiazem 180 mg mastercard. The whiter centers are the more concentrated foci of parasites symptoms kidney problems 180 mg diltiazem fast delivery, while the outer areas of each plaque are the areas of epithelial hyperplasia. Peritonitis, as in this case, is a common cause of death in this parastic disease. There is a characteristic sweet odor to these parasites if washed clean of feces and allowed to stand in a container for a short period of time. There is usually a foreign body reaction about these, even with the formation of foreign body giant cells. Their cause is unknown, but as excess glucose in the urinary bladder and stomach of various animals can cause a similar lesion, it should also be considered here. Its cause is unknown, but as it occurs in the urinary bladder of diabetics and in animals given excessive glucose, one should consider this relationship. No appreciable tissue reaction is seen to this lesion, although with time the bubbles will migrate to the regional nodes and foreign body giant cells may form about them. The several reddish spots at the top of several of the bubbles makes one consider that they may be related to intestinal lymph follicles, at least morphologically. It is a common lesion of pigs and has been seen in other species, but its cause is unknown. Marked hemorrhage and edema have formed under the serosa and have spread in both directions from the area of vascular damage. When opened for further examination, the mucosa was dull in appearance and the vessels to the area had been traumatically torn apart. In another similar appearing lesion, an embolic shower from the left heart resulted in an infarct of the area which demonstrates the need for caution in interpreting lesions. There are several more concentrated areas of lymphoid foci in the gastrointestinal tract located in the mucosa of the distal ileum and the mucosa of the colon near the ileocecal junction. Most cases of rectal prolapse are associated with diarrhea or chronic straining as from an anomaly of the rectum or an intrapelvic irritation. The surface of the polyp is brown from congestion, hemorrhage and necrosis as the polyp itself was partially exteriorized in vivo. The constant irritation it caused made the anus and surrounding tissues edematous. The cause of the polyp is not known, but any anal irritation may cause a partial prolapse with this as a sequelae. A tissue mass (polyp) projecting into a lumen of any sort may be seen in many locations such as the nasal cavity, stomach, urinary bladder or trachea to name a few. They are recognized as bulges of the entire intestinal wall with their own lumen continuous with the main bowel lumen. In this way, they may fill with ingesta, get infected as they may not empty and finally perforate to cause peritonitis, more often localized than generalized. They are not uncommon in several species in the distal esophagus and distal ileum. Such a lesion is usually associated with an anal or rectal anomaly preventing fecal passage. It is surprising that some pigs, especially those on a nonroughage diet such as milk, may often live weeks or even months with this problem. Control by the use of drastic slaughter (castration of all relatives including mother, father, brothers and sisters) should be implemented to prevent more cases of this and similar diseases. This type of atresia may represent the segmental defect form of atresia in which a segment of bowel was not present embryologically. The colon is lacking epithelium in the zone immediately adjacent to the stricture. The distal portions of colon in this spiral colon are reduced in size being relatively empty, and the portions cranial to the obstruction are dilated with ingesta and fluid. The obstructive mass in this piglet is a firm lump of dry powdery feces (fecalith). Sand and plant concretions are common in horses; hair, milk strainers and masses of excelsior are common in cats and rubber balls and baby bottle nipples are common findings in obstructive lesions in dogs. Upper gastrointestinal obstructions often prove fatal much sooner than lower bowel obstructions. This mass of fat is called a pedunculated lipoma and it had encircled the portion of bowel to cause the strangulation. The pedunculated lipoma is not a true tumor, but it is a outpocketing of peritoneum which may arise on almost any organ in the abdomen and enlarges with the accumulation of fat. Pedunculated lipomas like these are most commom in the horse, but they also occur in the cow. The lipomas in the dog are commonly found in the subcutaneous tissues of the neck and chest. Of course, in all species, true neoplastic fat cell tumors, liposarcomas, are found. A few ulcers of this type may be found in normal pigs about the ileocecal junction in both the ileum and the colon. The central surface area of the follicle shows caseation necrosis and the surrounding area has lost most of its lymphoid cells. The dark zone of cells between the two areas is the pyogenic membrane consisting mainly of neutrophils. This lesion grossly is an acute button ulcer of salmonellosis associated with hog cholera. In most of these cases of hog cholera, a virus disease, one can often isolate Salmonella spp. They may also be seen in essentially normal pigs, but not usually as severe or extensive as this. In pigs with acute death and other compatible lesions such as eyelid and gastric wall edema, one should first think of edema disease of swine which is associated with an acute E. This lesion may also be seen in cases of heart failure, from anomalies or chronic pericarditis with passive congestion of the abdominal vessels or in hypoproteinemias from any cause such as from bleeding gastric ulcers. These are the classical lesions of swine dysentery and are seen only in the colon. There is excess mucus in the crypts with infiltration of inflammatory cells into the lamina propria. Several have been incised to show the thickened wall with yellowish, necrotic, crater like mucosal surfaces. The intestinal content was watery with bits and pieces of necrotic debris and it had a definite septic tank odor. Some confusion with this disease and swine dysentery is common and not always separable grossly. The cecum is physiologically hyperemic as is the distal rectum and several scattered foci of distal colon. The remaining colon however is markedly thickened with congestion, edema and necrosis of the mucosa, which in several areas, has caused a marked inflammation of the muscle layer and serosa. This is a case of subacute swine dysentery, a spirochetal disease caused by Treponema spp. In some cases, the bowel is not greatly thickened or abnormal on its serosal surface and only incision of the bowel will demonstrate the lesion. A copious foul smelling diarrhea with only a few strings of clotted blood was present. It should be noted that some cases are far more hemorrhagic and may actually bleed the animal to death. Many neutrophils and much cellular debris are located in the more superficial mucosal layer but the surface epithelium has been lost by necrosis in this early stage of the disease. The many inflammatory cells in the ulcerated area and also in the debris on the surface have several large, single celled, ciliated protozoa mixed in with them. Most consider them an incidental finding in necrotic colitis caused by Salmonella spp. In cases of parasitism, there are some who use the term infestation when no clinical signs are observed and infection when signs are observed. Deeper in the mucosa are scattered clumps of chronic inflammatory cells which appear to be extruding from the submucosal lymphoid follicles and probably are not related to the parasitism. This is a normal finding especially in black and white pigs, but may be seen in others. Its appearance is to be differentiated from pseudomelanosis which does not affect the brain usually and is a postmortem artefact. The brain and meninges as well as the lung, aorta, adrenals, uterus and stomach are common areas for this normal congenital melanosis in most species of animals. It is to be differentiated from the pseudomelanosis which is a postmortem artefact of blood in association with bacteria. This specific finding in the brain of sheep has been mistaken for a lesion of a plant poisoning. Such a lesion is nonspecific and can be seen in any tissue destructive lesion as infarcts, hydrocephalus, trauma, infections, etc. Such anomalies are often related to in utero induction by viruses, chemicals, defective genes, etc. Normally, a slight empty space is in this area when the head is removed at the atlantooccipital articulation. An acute space occuping lesion such as an abscess, edema, or meningitis has caused the brain to swell and push outwards. Although brain tumors are space occuping, they usually grow too slowly for edema to develop and cause such a lesion. The paler brain shows wider gyri and more shallow sulci of both the cerebrum and the cerebellum. In addition, the caudal ventral tip (nodulus) of the cerebellum is projecting outwardly and caudally (cerebellar coning). It had actually protruded through the foramen magnum when the skullcap was in place. Any space occupying lesion can cause this, but a brain or meningeal infection are the most common causes. Neither animal was bled out, but apparently the animal with the darker blood filled tissues died in a position with its head lower than the rest of its body to allow for this hypostasis. Hypostatic congestion can sometimes be well marked but it will not leave large pockets or pools of blood on the tissue involved. Because of the hard cover of the brain, which in effect is a semifluid mass, a blow to the outside of the skull in one area often causes a rebound lesion such as this in the area of brain opposite the site of external contact. Such large areas of hemorrhage are usually traumatic, but smaller foci can be from capillary damage by viruses as in hog cholera. In this case, an enzyme needed for the normal metabolism of lipids is deficient or absent. Similar diseases are seen in other species and most are considered hereditary in nature. This failure of proper development has been shown to be caused by embryological viral diseases such as Herpes in the dog and horse, panleukopenia in the cat and hog cholera in the pig. In this case, the entire litter was affected with myoclonia congenita at birth and also had this lesion. The corpus callosum is thinned more on one side than the other, and in general, one side is slightly more affected than the other. Many cystic spaces (porencephaly) in the grey and white matter are seen scattered in the remaining parenchyma. It is to be noted that the more sensitive white matter is more severely affected than the grey matter. This day old piglet was infected in utero with the virus of Japanese B encephalitis.

Purchase diltiazem 180mg fast delivery. What are the symptoms of pneumonia?.

buy diltiazem 180 mg

When I think of the mystery of existence treatment zone guiseley cheap diltiazem 180 mg mastercard, I prefer to use other words medications gabapentin buy discount diltiazem 60 mg on-line, so as to avoid confusion symptoms 2 buy diltiazem 60mg low price. Godless ethics Of course the cosmic mystery doesnt help us at all in maintaining the social order treatment solutions order 60 mg diltiazem with amex. People often argue that we must believe in a god that gave some very concrete laws to humans treatment qt prolongation discount diltiazem 60mg amex, or else morality will disappear and society will collapse into primeval chaos symptoms torn rotator cuff diltiazem 60 mg with visa. It is certainly true that belief in gods was vital for various social orders, and that it sometimes had positive consequences. Indeed, the very same religions that inspire hate and bigotry in some people inspire love and compassion in others. He began exploring the situation of gays and lesbians in society in general, and in May 1964 convened a pioneering three-day dialogue between clergymen and gay and lesbian activists at the White Memorial Retreat Center in California. The participants subsequently set up with the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, which in addition to the activists included Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran and United Church of Christ ministers. This was the first American organisation to dare use the word with homosexual in its official title. Reverend McIlvenna and the other men of God who joined him were well aware of the biblical injunctions against homosexuality. But they thought that it was more important to be true to the compassionate spirit of Christ than to the strict word of the Bible. The idea that we need a supernatural being to make us act morally assumes that there is something unnatural about morality. All social mammals from chimpanzees to rats have ethical codes that limit things such as theft and murder. Among humans, morality is present in all societies, even though not all of them believe in the same god, or in any god. Christians act with charity even without believing in the Hindu pantheon, Muslims value honesty despite rejecting the divinity of Christ, and secular countries such as Denmark and the Czech Republic arent more violent than devout countries such as Iran and Pakistan. If you really understand how an action causes unnecessary suffering to yourself or to others, you will naturally abstain from it. People nevertheless murder, rape and steal because they have only a superficial appreciation of the misery this causes. Even inquisitors who deliberately inflict as much pain as possible on their victim, usually use various desensitising and dehumanising techniques in order to distance themselves from what they are doing. One obvious answer is that humans are social animals, therefore their happiness depends to a very large extent on their relations with others. If you live a lonely self-centred life, you are almost guaranteed to be miserable. So at the very least, to be happy you need to care about your family, your friends, and your community members. Why not murder strangers and take their possessions to enrich myself and my tribe Many thinkers have constructed elaborate social theories, explaining why in the long run such behaviour is counterproductive. You would not like to live in a society where strangers are routinely robbed and murdered. Not only would you be in constant danger, but you would lack the benefit of things like commerce, which depends on trust between strangers. Yet we do not really need such complex long-term theories to find a natural basis for universal compassion. Thus people seldom steal unless they first develop a lot of greed and envy in their minds. Hence long before you murder anyone, your anger has already killed your own peace of mind. Indeed, you might keep boiling with anger for years, without ever actually murdering the object of your hate. In which case you havent hurt anyone else, but you have nevertheless hurt yourself. If you were completely free of anger you would feel far better than if you murdered an obnoxious enemy. For some people, a strong belief in a compassionate god that commands us to turn the other cheek may help in curbing anger. Unfortunately, for other people religious belief actually stokes and justifies their anger, especially if someone dares to insult their god or ignore his wishes. So the value of the lawgiver god ultimately depends on the behaviour of his devotees. Similarly, the value of religious rites and sacred places depends on the type of feelings and behaviours they inspire. Secularism is sometimes defined as the negation of religion, and secular people are therefore characterised by what they dont believe and do. According to this definition, secular people do not believe in any gods or angels, do not go to churches and temples, and do not perform rites and rituals. For them, secularism is a very positive and active world view, which is defined by a coherent code of values rather than by opposition to this or that religion. Unlike some sects that insist they have a monopoly over all wisdom and goodness, one of the chief characteristics of secular people is that they claim no such monopoly. They dont think that morality and wisdom came down from heaven in one particular place and time. So it is only to be expected that at least some values would pop up in human societies all over the world, and would be common to Muslims, Christians, Hindus and atheists. Like all ethical codes, the secular code is an ideal to aspire to rather than a social reality. Just as Christian societies and Christian institutions often deviate from the Christian ideal, so too secular societies and institutions often fall far short of the secular ideal. Medieval France was a self-proclaimed Christian kingdom, but it dabbled in all kinds of not-very-Christian activities (just ask the downtrodden peasantry). Modern France is a self-proclaimed secular state, but from the days of Robespierre onwards it took some troubling liberties with the very definition of liberty (just ask women). The most important secular commitment is to the truth, which is based on observation and evidence rather than on mere faith. This commitment to the truth underlies modern science, which has enabled humankind to split the atom, decipher the genome, track the evolution of life, and understand the history of humanity itself. Secular ethics relies not on obeying the edicts of this or that god, but rather on a deep appreciation of suffering. For example, secular people abstain from murder not because some ancient book forbids it, but because killing inflicts immense suffering on sentient beings. There is something deeply troubling and dangerous about people who avoid killing just because with God says so. Such people are motivated by obedience rather than compassion, and what will they do if they come to believe that their god commands them to kill heretics, witches, adulterers or foreigners Of course, in the absence of absolute divine commandments, secular ethics often faces difficult dilemmas. When secular people encounter such dilemmas, they do not ask with What does God command How do secular people decide whether to endorse or oppose rape, homosexuality, bestiality and incest Rape is obviously unethical, not because it breaks some divine commandment, but because it hurts people. In contrast, a loving relationship between two men harms no one, so there is no reason to forbid it. A marriage lacking such depth will make you frustrated, lonely and psychologically stunted. Whereas two men can certainly satisfy the emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of one another, a relationship with a goat cannot. Well, numerous psychological studies have demonstrated that such relations inflict immense and usually irreparable harm on the child. Evolution has shaped the Sapiens psyche in such a way that romantic bonds just dont mix well with parental bonds. Not in order to satisfy their curiosity, but in order to know how best to reduce the suffering in the world. The twin commitments to truth and compassion result also in a commitment to equality. Though opinions differ regarding questions of economic and political equality, secular people are fundamentally suspicious of all a priori hierarchies. Suffering is suffering, no matter who experiences it; and knowledge is knowledge, no matter who discovers it. Privileging the experiences or the discoveries of a particular nation, class or gender is likely to make us both callous and ignorant. Hence though secular people acknowledge their special duties towards their nation and their country, they dont think these duties are exclusive, and they simultaneously acknowledge their duties towards humanity as a whole. We cannot search for the truth and for the way out of suffering without the freedom to think, investigate, and experiment. Humans should always retain the freedom to doubt, to check again, to hear a second opinion, to try a different path. It takes a lot of courage to fight biases and oppressive regimes, but it takes even greater courage to admit ignorance and venture into the unknown. Secular education teaches us that if we dont know something, we shouldnt be afraid of acknowledging our ignorance and looking for new evidence. Even if we think we know something, we shouldnt be afraid of doubting our opinions and checking ourselves again. Many people are afraid of the unknown, and want clear-cut answers for every question. People throughout history worried that unless we put all our faith in some set of absolute answers, human society will crumble. In fact, modern history has demonstrated that a society of courageous people willing to admit ignorance and raise difficult questions is usually not just more prosperous but also more peaceful than societies in which everyone must unquestioningly accept a single answer. People afraid of losing their truth tend to be more violent than people who are used to looking at the world from several different viewpoints. Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question. They dont believe in any higher power that takes care of the world, punishes the wicked, rewards the just, and protects us from famine, plague or war. Secular people take pride in the immense achievements of modern societies, such as curing epidemics, feeding the hungry, and bringing peace to large parts of the world. Yet for exactly the same reason, we need to take full responsibility for the crimes and failings of modernity, from genocides to ecological degradation. Jews also value the truth, Christians value compassion, Muslims value equality, Hindus value responsibility, and so forth. Secular societies and institutions are happy to acknowledge these links and to embrace religious Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus, provided that when the secular code collides with religious doctrine, the latter gives way. For example, to be accepted into secular society, Orthodox Jews are expected to treat non-Jews as their equals, Christians should avoid burning heretics at the stake, Muslims must respect freedom of expression, and Hindus ought to relinquish caste-based discrimination. In contrast, there is no expectation that religious people should deny God or abandon traditional rites and rituals. The secular world judges people on the basis of their behaviour rather than of their favourite clothes and ceremonies. A person can follow the most bizarre sectarian dress code and practise the strangest of religious ceremonies, yet act out of a deep commitment to the core secular values. There are plenty of Jewish scientists, Christian environmentalists, Muslim feminists and Hindu human-rights activists.

Diseases

References