the little philosopher

the problem with letting children choose which religeon to study is that at the age of 10 children don't know which religeon they want to study, the only problem with the system you propose is that children may end up only studying 1 religion and ignoring others. It would be better, in my opinion, to teach a variety of religions with an impartial view, the problem would be getting someone who could teach this completely impartially.

In the end, you have to take these kinds of findings with a pinch of salt, as scientists only get paid for research that shows results that whoever commisioned the study wants or that catches the attention of the general public. and as eye-catchers go, "earth dies in 100 years" is a pretty good one.

People also need to remember that capitalism is a political ideal, just like communism, and just like comuunism it has it's flaws. In the case of capitalism, the ideal is that people can achieve satisfaction but the flaw is that not everyone is able to gain this satisfactionas as there are people living below the breadline. Another flaw of capitialism is that (in a true capitalist society) people can charge however much they want for a product, no matter how un-ethical it might be, for example, if there is a particularly unpleasant disease going round and only one person has a cure, then by the capitalist idea that person is legally allowed to charge absolutely any price they name for the cure. Communism as an idea is perfect and capitalism as an idea is perfect, it is in the application where these systems fall down. A utopian society is going to be a very difficult thing to achieve as humans are greedy creatures always wanting more than they have.But as to why american's hate communism? They don't understand it. Communist society cannot be understood by those who have not experienced it. Communists are raised in a society where the state provides for each indivdual equally (be it food, healthcare etc.) and as such it is the duty of the individual to help advance the state to the best of their abilities. Capitalist will then ask the question; if everyone is treated as equal and everyone recieves the same payment no matter what work is done, then what is the incentive to take on jobs that require a higher degree of learning or skill e.g. a doctor? Well, in communist society there is a more spiritual reward than simple material possesions, the people who do become doctors in a communist society recieve a sort of hero-worship which gives them a sense of satisfaction on a higher level than that of someone in a capitalist would get for the same thing. In the end it is the fault of pop culture for latching onto the stereotype of the evil communist and repeating it over the years with cartoons, tv shows and films e.g. the latest indiana jones film with bad guys as evil communists. Americans are raised to believe to beleive that their society alone has absolute freedom, and that americans have been given a national identity that they are the allies of justice, given duty to save the world from any idea or society that is percieved as "anti-freedom", and as any ally of justice needs an enemy to fight, so does america, and their particular enemy just so happens to be communism, the fact that the more prominent wars that america has fought have been against communist countries probably hasn't helped.