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$Text Box: Much of this was tied to the lack ability of the masses to receive any form of material reward for individual efforts, such rewards being limited to those who had already some measure of wealth. If one could not realistically hope for material reward even for persistent, successful, and productive effort, then in the subconscious there existed little hope for spiritual reward no matter how well one followed religious requirements. In those times it seemed that only the rich could go to heaven and the poor - especially the serfs and peasants - went to hell. Therefore, religions which guaranteed heaven even for unrepentant sinners, or which proclaimed there was no such thing as sin, or that what had once been declared to be sin really was not sin, became very popular. Czarist Russia, though its poor were amongst the poorest of the world’s poor, did not perceive the experience of the dichotomy between the wealthy and the poor to the extent of other nations. Due to its vast size and large population, the percentage of the population which belonged to privileged classes was smaller than in other countries. There also is a traditional love for their country which all Russians share, a love deeper than that experienced by many other nationalities. Wealthy or poor, all suffer the same from winter cold when exposed to the elements. All also experience the same beauty of nature in one of the most beautiful of countries. There also is a form of pessimism common to the Russian people, perhaps related to or similar to the pessimism and depression prevalent in the indigenous Alaskan population. These and other factors fractured the potential for the perception of a relationship between material industriousness and spiritual industriousness. It is as though there was a consensus thought or concept which stated: winter will be cold no matter what one does, but that has no correlation to spiritual life for if one is virtuous one will receive eternal reward. This is one of the factors which encouraged the Russian people, and indeed many of those within the Soviet$

Text Box: Block, to maintain spiritual values separate from material reality. It was much more difficult to induce into American culture those concepts which approved sin. Because of its vast lands, the need for its citizens to be self reliant and their ability to be self reliant because their government not only did not interfere with self reliance but actively encouraged it, and the resulting conditions which allowed one to receive, keep, and enjoy the fruits of their own labor, and which imposed hardship on those who did not attempt to provide for themselves, Americans knew they could obtain material reward for being industrious. It was a simple step to go from material reward for being industrious in the material world, to receiving spiritual reward for being spiritually industrious. Therefore, in America, slave traders, mercantile robber barons, railroad barons, and those who used position and insider governmental relationships, were perceived as being of the same nature as the scum on a latrine. For as long as American government restricted itself to providing for its citizens that which they could not provide for themselves, and to providing for those who were unable to provide for themselves and for whom various Churches and charities could not provide, and only interfering with an individuals pursuit of Constitutional rights when pursuit of those rights interfered with others pursuing those same rights, Americans were able to perceive the viable potential material reward for being materially industrious, and to apply that concept to the viable potential for receipt of spiritual rewards for being spiritually industrious. Likewise, the converse was also true. One who was less industrious in the material realm received less of a material reward. One who was less spiritually industrious received less of a spiritual reward. One who was transgressed against the material rights of others, whether it was against an individual, a business, or the government, received loss of protection of the law and often a punishment. One who transgressed spiritually received

Text Box: loss of spiritual benefits and lack of spiritual benefits was always a punishment - sometimes temporary, sometimes permanent. One who transgressed a material law could make recompense and re-establish one’s self in the world of material benefits. One who transgressed a spiritual law could access spiritual procedures which likewise restored access to spiritual benefits. But as the government increased its intervention beyond the necessary and beyond the minimum, and began providing the necessities of life to those who did not make any effort to provide those necessities for themselves, the government acted as a religion which approved not just the sin of sloth, but rewarded it, and further rewarded numerous other sins such as sexual promiscuity. The government then began to provide not just the necessities of life, but also to provide that which was beyond the necessities of life. The government attempted to raise the living standards of those it designated as poor, to the living standard of the middle class. In the process the government abandoned the concepts of need, merit, ability, and individual effort, as means of ascertaining whether or not government assistance would be rendered, and replaced them with the concept of being entitled to government assistance if certain income standards were met. In so doing the government officials found they could maintain their positions in government through influencing elections by their distribution of government largesse. Thus not only were large groups of people taught that they did not have to be materially industrious to receive material reward, but they were also actually encouraged to abandon spiritual industriousness as being contrary to that which was required to receive material benefit. The abandonment of spiritual standards was encourage through empirically teaching that adherence to spiritual standards caused material hardship through receipt of less government assistance than would be received if spiritual standards were abandoned.

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