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I chose to talk about morality. I feel that this topic is not discussed as much as it should be. Especially with everything going on currently in the world. Many people want to know, what is defined as “Good” or “Bad”? In the text about the Stanford Prison Experiment, all the guards were defined as psychologically “normal”. However when they were put as figures of authority, they were almost psychotic. But they believed what they were doing was good. What I’m trying to get at is you can never know what is good or bad. It is all up to the person that is answering the question. And when do you cross the line of good to bad?

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This article is a psychology study. They were trying to see if people were more violent in groups. And they found they were. In groups, individuality is gone. If you and your group are being violent. You are less likely to get in trouble. Unrelated from the story, I believe this directly connects to riots. If there are a lot of people, and few police, one person is less likely to get in trouble. This is very bad, because it makes a us vs the, attitude which is bad. As groups can get violent.

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When people get together in groups, unusual things can happen - both good and bad. Groups create important social institutions that an individual could not achieve alone, but there can be a darker side to such alliances: Belonging to a group makes people more likely to harm others outside the group.

"Although humans exhibit strong preferences for equity and moral prohibitions against harm in many contexts, people's priorities change when there is an 'us' and a 'them,'" says Rebecca Saxe, an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at MIT. "A group of people will often engage in actions that are contrary to the private moral standards of each individual in that group, sweeping otherwise decent individuals into 'mobs' that commit looting, vandalism, even physical brutality."

Several factors play into this transformation. When people are in a group, they feel more anonymous, and less likely to be caught doing something wrong. They may also feel a diminished sense of personal responsibility for collective actions.

Saxe and colleagues recently studied a third factor that cognitive scientists believe may be involved in this group dynamic: the hypothesis that when people are in groups, they "lose touch" with their own morals and beliefs, and become more likely to do things that they would normally believe are wrong. Q1

In a study that recently went online in the journal NeuroImage, the researchers measured brain activity in a part of the brain involved in thinking about oneself. They found that in some people, this activity was reduced when the subjects participated in a competition as part of a group, compared with when they competed as individuals. Those people were more likely to harm their competitors than people who did not exhibit this decreased brain activity.

"This process alone does not account for intergroup conflict: Groups also promote anonymity, diminish personal responsibility, and encourage reframing harmful actions as 'necessary for the greater good.' Still, these results suggest that at least in some cases, explicitly reflecting on one's own personal moral standards may help to attenuate[1] the influence of 'mob mentality,'"[2] says Mina Cikara, a former MIT postdoc and lead author of the NeuroImage paper.

Group Dynamics

Cikara, who is now an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University, started this research project after experiencing the consequences of a "mob mentality": During a visit to Yankee Stadium, her husband was ceaselessly heckled by Yankees fans for wearing a Red Sox cap. "What I decided to do was take the hat from him, thinking I would be a lesser target by virtue of the fact that I was a woman," Cikara says. "I was so wrong. I have never been called names like that in my entire life."

The harassment, which continued throughout the trip back to Manhattan, provoked a strong reaction in Cikara, who isn't even a Red Sox fan.

"It was a really amazing experience because what I realized was I had gone from being an individual to being seen as a member of 'Red Sox Nation.' And the way that people responded to me, and the way I felt myself responding back, had changed, by virtue of this visual cue - the baseball hat," she says. "Once you start feeling attacked on behalf of your group, however arbitrary, it changes your psychology."

Cikara, then a third-year graduate student at Princeton University, started to investigate the neural mechanisms behind the group dynamics that produce bad behavior. In the new study, done at MIT, Cikara, Saxe (who is also an associate member of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research), former Harvard University graduate student Anna Jenkins, and former MIT lab manager Nicholas Dufour focused on a part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex. When someone is reflecting on himself or herself, this part of the brain lights up in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans. Q2

A couple of weeks before the study participants came in for the experiment, the researchers surveyed each of them about their social-media habits, as well as their moral beliefs and behavior. This allowed the researchers to create individualized statements for each subject that were true for that person - for example, "I have stolen food from shared refrigerators" or "I always apologize after bumping into someone."

When the subjects arrived at the lab, their brains were scanned as they played a game once on their own and once as part of a team. The purpose of the game was to press a button if they saw a statement related to social media, such as "I have more than 600 Facebook friends."

The subjects also saw their personalized moral statements mixed in with sentences about social media. Brain scans revealed that when subjects were playing for themselves, the medial prefrontal cortex lit up much more when they read moral statements about themselves than statements about others, consistent with previous findings. However, during the team competition, some people showed a much smaller difference in medial prefrontal cortex activation when they saw the moral statements about themselves compared to those about other people.

Those people also turned out to be much more likely to harm members of the competing group during a task performed after the game. Each subject was asked to select photos that would appear with the published study, from a set of four photos apiece of two teammates and two members of the opposing team. The subjects with suppressed medial prefrontal cortex activity chose the least flattering photos of the opposing team members, but not of their own teammates.

"This is a nice way of using neuroimaging to try to get insight into something that behaviorally has been really hard to explore," says David Rand, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University who was not involved in the research. "It's been hard to get a direct handle on the extent to which people within a group are tapping into their own understanding of things versus the group's understanding." Q3

Getting Lost

The researchers also found that after the game, people with reduced medial prefrontal cortex activity had more difficulty remembering the moral statements they had heard during the game.

"If you need to encode something with regard to the self and that ability is somehow undermined when you're competing with a group, then you should have poor memory associated with that reduction in medial prefrontal cortex signal, and that's exactly what we see," Cikara says.

Cikara hopes to follow up on these findings to investigate what makes some people more likely to become "lost" in a group than others. She is also interested in studying whether people are slower to recognize themselves or pick themselves out of a photo lineup after being absorbed in a group activity.
The research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Packard Foundation. Q4

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CommonLit | When Good People Do Bad Things

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When people get together in groups, unusual things can happen - both good and bad. Groups create important social institutions that an individual could not achieve alone, but there can be a darker side to such alliances: Belonging to a group makes people more likely to harm others outside the group.

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This was a very interesting experiment. It is where they took random students and put them in two categories. Prisoners and Gaurds. The gaurds were very mean to the prisoners. And the prisoners were even mean to eachother. However after the gaurds said they had never been that mean. It again proves that it all depends on the people do decide what is right. Even when it might be wrong.

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Aim

The aim of Zimbardo's study was to investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life.

Zimbardo was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic[1] personalities of the guards or had more to do with the prison environment. Q1

Procedure

Zimbardo used a lab experiment to study conformity.

To study the roles people play in prison situations, Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building in Stanford, California into a mock prison. He advertised for students to play the roles of prisoners and guards for a fortnight.[2] Twenty one male college students (chosen from 75 volunteers) were screened for psychological normality[3] and paid $15 per day to take part in the experiment.

Participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard in the simulated prison environment. The prison simulation was kept as "real life" as possible. Prisoners were arrested at their own homes, without warning, and taken to the local police station.

Guards were also issued a khaki uniform, together with whistles, handcuffs and dark glasses, to make eye contact with prisoners impossible. No physical violence was permitted. Zimbardo observed the behavior of the prisoners and guards.

Here they were treated like every other criminal. They were fingerprinted, photographed and 'booked.'[4] Then they were blindfolded and driven to the psychology department of Stanford University, where Zimbardo had had the basement set out as a prison, with barred doors and windows, bare walls and small cells. Here the deindividuation process began.

When the prisoners arrived at the prison they were stripped naked, deloused,[5] had all their personal possessions removed and locked away, and were given prison clothes and bedding. They were issued a uniform, and referred to by their number only. Their clothes comprised a smock with their number written on it, but no underclothes. They also had a tight nylon cap, and a chain around one ankle.

There were 3 guards to the 9 prisoners, taking shifts of eight hours each (the other guards remained on call). Q2

Findings

Within a very short time both guards and prisoners were settling into their new roles, with the guards adopting theirs quickly and easily.

Within hours of beginning the experiment some guards began to harass prisoners. They behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner, apparently enjoying it. Other guards joined in, and other prisoners were also tormented.

The prisoners were taunted with insults and petty orders, they were given pointless and boring tasks to accomplish, and they were generally dehumanized.

The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behavior too. They talked about prison issues a great deal of the time. They 'told tales' on each other to the guards. They started taking the prison rules very seriously, as though they were there for the prisoners' benefit and infringement[6] would spell disaster for all of them. Some even began siding with the guards against prisoners who did not conform to the rules. Q3

Over the next few days the relationships between the guards and the prisoners changed, with a change in one leading to a change in the other. Remember that the guards were firmly in control and the prisoners were totally dependent on them.

As the prisoners became more dependent, the guards became more derisive[7] towards them. They held the prisoners in contempt and let the prisoners know it. As the guards' contempt for them grew, the prisoners became more submissive.

As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive and assertive. They demanded ever greater obedience from the prisoners. The prisoners were dependent on the guards for everything, so they tried to find ways to please the guards, such as telling on fellow prisoners.

One prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming, crying and anger. His thinking became disorganized and he appeared to be entering the early stages of a deep depression. Within the next few days three others also had to leave after showing signs of emotional disorder that could have had lasting consequences. (These were people who had been pronounced stable and normal a short while before.)

Zimbardo had intended that the experiment should run for a fortnight, but on the sixth day he shut it down. There was real danger that someone might be physically or mentally damaged if it was allowed to run on. After some time for the researchers to gather their data the subjects were called back for a follow-up, debriefing session. Q4

Conclusion

The experiment quickly showed that people will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are as strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards. The "prison" environment was an important factor in creating the guards' brutal behavior (none of the participants who acted as guards showed sadistic tendencies before the study). Therefore, the roles that people play can shape their behavior and attitudes.

After the prison experiment was terminated Zimbardo interviewed the participants. Here's an excerpt:

"Most of the participants said they had felt involved and committed. The research had felt 'real' to them. One guard said, 'I was surprised at myself. I made them call each other names and clean the toilets out with their bare hands. I practically considered the prisoners cattle and I kept thinking I had to watch out for them in case they tried something.' Another guard said, 'Acting authoritatively can be fun. Power can be a great pleasure.' And another: '... during the inspection I went to Cell Two to mess up a bed which a prisoner had just made and he grabbed me, screaming that he had just made it and that he was not going to let me mess it up. He grabbed me by the throat and although he was laughing I was pretty scared. I lashed out with my stick and hit him on the chin although not very hard, and when I freed myself I became angry.'"

Most of the guards found it difficult to believe that they had behaved in the brutalizing ways that they had. Many said they hadn't known this side of them existed or that they were capable of such things. The prisoners, too, couldn't believe that they had responded in the submissive, cowering, dependent way they had. Several claimed to be assertive types normally. Q5

Ethics

The study has received many ethical criticisms, including lack of fully informed consent by participants and the level of humiliation and distress experienced by those who acted as prisoners.

The consent could not be fully informed as Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in the experiment. Also, participants playing the role of prisoners were not protected from psychological and physical harm. For example, one prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming, crying and anger.

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CommonLit | The Stanford Prison Experiment

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The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by Phillip Zimbardo in 1971. By organizing an exercise that simulated prison life, Zimbardo intended to discover how quickly people conformed to the roles of guard and prisoner. While many people thought that brutality reported among American prison guards had to do with personalities, some thought it had to do with the prison environment.

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Many know about the holocaust and how Hitler killed millions of Jews. But many don’t know about the killings of the disabled. This was a very secretive program. It makes , me sad about how I am only now learning about this. This makes me very sad because I have cousins and relatives who are disabled. Both mentally and physically. It hurts to know that the family reporting the disability was a direct cause of their death. Which is sad because they think they will be getting help. I wanted to write about this to spread the news of this terrible event. And I want to stop anything like this from happening ever again.

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CommonLit | Nazi Germany's 'Euthanasia' Program | Free Reading Passages and Literacy Resources

by The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

2016

The Nazi Party ruled Germany from 1933-1945 and was led by Adolf Hitler. A key component of Nazi rule was an attempt to "purify" the German race by killing anyone who had "impurities," which included Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and people with physical or mental disabilities, among others. To achieve this goal, the Nazi government killed 6 million Jews and 5 million others. The Nazi euthanasia program was one of the first programs of mass murder created to achieve their goal.

As you read, identify the causes and effects of the Nazi "euthanasia" program.

The term "euthanasia" (literally, "good death") usually refers to the inducement[1] of a painless death for a chronically or terminally ill individual who would otherwise suffer. In the Nazi[2] context, however, "euthanasia" was a euphemism[3] for a clandestine[4] murder program of disabled patients living in institutional settings in Germany and German-annexed territories.[5] The program was Nazi Germany's first policy of mass murder. Like those who planned the genocide[6] of European Jews, the organizers of the "euthanasia" program imagined a racially pure and productive society and embraced radical strategies to eliminate those who did not fit within their vision. Q1

On August 18, 1939, the German government issued a decree compelling[7] medical personnel to report newborns and children under the age of three with severe disability. In October 1939, authorities began to encourage parents of children with disabilities to admit them to pediatric clinics. The clinics were in reality killing wards where specially recruited medical staff murdered their young charges by lethal overdoses or by starvation. The killing program eventually included juveniles up to 17 years of age. Planners quickly extended the killing program to institutionalized adults.[8] In autumn 1939, Adolf Hitler signed a secret authorization to protect participating personnel from prosecution. Its functionaries[9] called their secret enterprise "T4." T4 operatives established six gassing installations. Within hours of arrival at such centers, the victims perished in gas chambers, disguised as shower facilities, utilizing pure carbon monoxide gas. T4 functionaries burned the bodies in crematoria.[10] Workers then took the ashes of cremated victims from a common pile and placed them in urns to send to relatives, along with a certificate listing a fictive cause of death. Q2

In view of widespread public knowledge and protests, Hitler ordered a halt to the program in August 1941. Nevertheless, in August 1942, German healthcare workers resumed the murders. The renewed effort relied closely upon local authorities and employed lethal injection and starvation as more covert[11] means of killing. In the German-occupied East, SS[12] and police units also murdered tens of thousands of disabled patients in mass shootings and gas vans. Planners of the "Final Solution" drew on the gas chambers and crematoria, specifically designed for the T4 campaign, to murder Jews.[13] T4 personnel who had shown themselves reliable in this first mass murder program later figured prominently among the German staff stationed at the killing centers of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.[14] The murder program continued until the last days of the war, expanding to include geriatric[15] patients, bombing victims, and foreign forced laborers. Historians estimate that the "euthanasia" program, in all its phases, claimed the lives of 200,000 individuals. Q3

"Nazi Germany's 'Euthanasia' Program" from The Holocaust Encyclopedia, © 2016, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Reprinted with permission, all rights reserved.

1. Induce (verb):
to bring about; to cause

2. Euphemism (noun):
a mild or pleasant word or phrase that is used instead of one that is unpleasant or offensive

3. Clandestine (adjective): marked by or conducted in secrecy

4. Compel (verb): to cause (something) to occur by pressure or force

5. Covert (adjective):
done in secret

1. Induce (verb):
to bring about; to cause

2. The Nazis were a political party that led Germany from 1933 to 1945, initiated World War II, and under the guidance of Adolph Hitler killed about 11 million Europeans in mass murders.

3. Euphemism (noun):
a mild or pleasant word or phrase that is used instead of one that is unpleasant or offensive

4. Clandestine (adjective): marked by or conducted in secrecy

5. Germany "annexed" territories by declaring and bringing them officially under German control. During World War II, Nazi Germany annexed Austria, Belgium, and other parts of central and eastern Europe.

6. the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a certain ethnic group or nation

7. Compel (verb): to cause (something) to occur by pressure or force

8. People are "institutionalized" when they live in hospital institutions long-term or permanently for reasons of age, disability, or mental health.

9. those who oversaw its everyday functions

10. places where dead people are cremated, or burned

11. Covert (adjective):
done in secret

12. SS stands for "Schutzstaffel," a group of paramilitary (outside the official military) soldiers who fought for Adolph Hitler.

13. The "Final Solution" is the name for the program of mass murder and genocide carried out against Jews in the Holocaust.

14. Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka are three famous concentration camps where Jews and others marked for death by the Nazis were sent to be murdered.

15. elderly

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CommonLit | Nazi Germany's 'Euthanasia' Program

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The Nazi Party ruled Germany from 1933-1945 and was led by Adolf Hitler. A key component of Nazi rule was an attempt to "purify" the German race by killing anyone who had "impurities," which included Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and people with physical or mental disabilities, among others.

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The Aztecs lived in meso America. They would sacrifice the most handsome or smartest people to the gods. But before this the individual who was to be killed was treated like a god for a year. They believed that if they sacrificed to the sum god he would eat the body. In doing so he would gain the strength to lift up the sun every morning. I don’t agree with killing people every year. But they believed it was right. So it really all depends on who you are do think what is right or wrong.

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The Aztec civilization that flourished in Mesoamerica between 1345 and 1521 CE has gained an infamous reputation for bloodthirsty human sacrifice with striking tales of beating hearts being ripped from still-conscious victims, decapitation, skinning, and dismemberment.[1] All of these things did happen but it is important to remember that for the Aztecs the act of sacrifice - of which human sacrifice was only a part - was a strictly ritualized process that gave the highest possible honor to the gods and was regarded as a necessity to ensure mankind's continued prosperity.[2]

Origins and Purpose

The Aztecs were not the first civilization in Mesoamerica to practice human sacrifice. It was probably the Olmec civilization (1200-300 BCE) that first began such rituals atop their sacred pyramids. Other civilizations such as the Maya and Toltec continued the practice. The Aztecs did, however, take sacrifice to an unprecedented[3] scale - although early chroniclers[4] undoubtedly exaggerated that scale during the Spanish Conquest, probably to vindicate[5] the Spaniards' own brutal treatment of indigenous peoples.[6] Nevertheless, it is thought that hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of victims were sacrificed each year at the great Aztec religious sites. It cannot be denied that there would also have been a useful secondary effect of these sacrifices intimidating visiting ambassadors and the populace[7] in general. Q1

In Mesoamerican culture, human sacrifices were viewed as repayment for the sacrifices that the gods had themselves made in creating the world and the sun. This idea of repayment was especially true regarding the myth of the reptilian monster Cipactli (or Tlaltecuhtli). The great gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca ripped the creature into pieces to create the earth and sky; all other things such as mountains, rivers, and springs came from Cipactli's various body parts. To console[8] the spirit of Cipactli, the gods promised to appease[9] her with human hearts and blood. From another point of view, sacrifices were compensation to the gods for their own sacrifices made to create mankind. Mythology tells us that Ehecatl-Quetzalcóatl stole bones from the Underworld and used them along with his own blood to make the first humans.

Gods were then "fed" and "nourished" with sacrificed blood and flesh, which ensured the continued balance and prosperity of Aztec society. Sacrifices helped regulate the cycle of growth and death in food, life, and energy. Accordingly, meat was burnt or blood poured over the statues of deities[10] so that the gods might partake of it directly. Perhaps the quintessential[11] example of "feeding" the gods were the ceremonies to ensure Tezcatlipoca, the sun god, was well nourished so that he had the strength to raise the sun each morning. Q2

Non-fatal Sacrifice

Not all sacrifice was lethal. Some common forms included bloodletting[12] and cutting, possibly from the ears or legs using bones or animal spines to make the cuts. Burning blood-soaked paper strips was also a common form of sacrifice, as was the burning of tobacco and incense. Other types of sacrifice included offering other living creatures such as deer, butterflies, hummingbirds, and snakes. Sometimes sacrifices were about willingly offering precious objects for the gods to enjoy. Priests might sacrifice foodstuffs and objects of precious metals, jade, and shells, which might be ritually buried. Some of the most interesting such offerings were dough images of gods. These were made from ground amaranth[13] mixed with human blood and honey, with the effigy being burnt or eaten after the ritual.

Selection and Preparation of Victims

With human sacrifices, the sacrificial victims were most often selected from captive warriors. Indeed, warfare was often conducted for the sole purpose of furnishing candidates for sacrifice. Aztecs often engaged in wars just to take a sufficient number of captives for sacrificial purposes. The eastern Tlaxcala state was a favorite hunting ground. Those who had fought the most bravely or were the most handsome were considered the best candidates for sacrifice because they were more likely to please the gods. Indeed, human sacrifice considered a high honor, a direct communion[14] with a god.

Another source of sacrificial victims was the ritual ball games where the losing captain or even the entire team paid the ultimate price for defeat. Children too could be sacrificed - in particular, to honor the rain god Tlaloc in ceremonies held on sacred mountains. It was believed that the very tears of the child victims would propitiate[15] rain. Slaves were another social group from which sacrificial victims were chosen; they could accompany their ruler in death or be given in offering by tradesmen to ensure prosperity in business.

Among the most honored sacrificial victims were the god impersonators. Specially chosen individuals were dressed as a particular god before the sacrifice. The Tezcatlipoca impersonator was treated like royalty for one year prior to the sacrificial ceremony. The victim was the god's manifestation[16] on earth until that final brutal moment of the Tóxcatl ritual when he met his maker, and until then was tutored by priests, given a female entourage, and honored with dances and flowers. Perhaps even worse off was the impersonator of Xipe Totec[17] who, at the climax of the festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli, was skinned to honor the god who was himself known as the "Flayed One." Q3

Ceremonies and Death

Sacrifices were conducted at specially dedicated temples on the top of large pyramids such as at Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. They were most often carried out by stretching the victim over a special stone, cutting open the chest, and removing the heart using an obsidian[18] or flint[19] knife. The heart was then placed in a stone vessel or in a chacmool (a carved stone figure reclining with a bowl resting on its stomach) and burnt in offering to a god. Alternatively, the victim could be decapitated or dismembered. This method may have been reserved for female victims who impersonated gods such as Chalchiuhtlicue,[20] although images recorded by the Spanish do show decapitated bodies being flung down the steps of pyramids. Those sacrificed to Xipe Totec were also skinned, most probably in imitation of seeds shedding their husks.

Victims could also be sacrificed in a more elaborate process where a single victim was made to fight a gladiatorial[21] contest against a squad of handpicked warriors. Naturally, the victim had no possibility to survive this ordeal or even inflict any injury on his opponents, as he was not only tied to a stone platform, but his weapon was usually a feathered club compared to his opponents' vicious razor-sharp obsidian swords. In another method, victims could be tied to a frame and shot with arrows or darts. In perhaps the worst method of all, the victim was repeatedly thrown into a fire and then had his heart removed.

After the sacrifice, the heads of victims could be displayed in racks - depictions of this survive in stone architectural decoration, notably at Tenochtitlán.[22] The flesh of those sacrificed was also, on occasion, eaten by the priests conducting the sacrifice and by members of the ruling elite or warriors who had themselves captured the victims. Q4

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The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican people of central Mexico whose practice of human sacrifice remains notorious today. This informational text explores the origins of human sacrifice in Mesoamerican culture, as well as the motives and methods in which the Aztecs sacrificed people.

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This is a biblical story. It tells of the fisrt act of violence against one another. Cain kills his brother out of jealousy. Now I get angry with my brother but I would never kill him. This was all due to the fact that Cain did not give enough sacrifices, or he did not to them correctly. His brother however did, and god favored him.

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Adam made love to his wife Eve,[1] and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man." Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.

Now Abel kept flocks,[2] and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering - fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Q1

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it."

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Q2

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"

"I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"

The Lord said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."

Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."

But the Lord said to him, "Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Q3

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CommonLit | An Excerpt From The Story of Cain and Abel from Genesis 4

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Adam made love to his wife Eve,[1] and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man." Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks,[2] and Cain worked the soil.

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This story is about a boy who tries to steal a woman’s purse. He goes up to her and attempts to steal her purse. However she doesn’t turn him in to the police. And she shows him such kindness by feeding him and letting him wash up. This lady reminds me of my grandmother, as she always showed kindness. I think many other people would agree. But the fact that she shows kindness to a total stranger makes me very happy

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View the CommonLit collection and filter by grade level, theme, genre, literacy device and common core standard.

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This is a non-fiction text piece. If you don’t know capitalism is a form of economy. Unlike communism where every store and businesses is government controlled capitalism is called “Free Enterprise”. Sometimes I don’t like capitalism. As it is the cause of poor people. And on paper communism is the better option. But there will always be corrupt people.

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Capitalism is an economic system in which individual people make most of the decisions and own most of the property in a country. This is the system used in the United States today.

Property

In a capitalist society, individual people and businesses can own property. Property can be a piece of land, a house, or something smaller, like a car or even a shirt. People can decide when to sell their property or buy more property, and they are free to buy or sell without asking for permission from the government. They can also decide what price they will charge for their property or how much money they will spend on a new piece of property. A big system of people buying and selling property is called a "market." Q1

The Role of the Government

Capitalists say the government should not make very many laws about the economy. They prefer "free markets," which are markets with only a few laws and regulations.[1] For example, the government could make a law telling people not to steal someone else's property, because property is so important for everyone to succeed. However, the government should not make a law telling people a price they have to charge to sell something. Some capitalists say that the government should not use money collected from taxes[2] to help people who are poor or sick. Instead, they believe that individual people should help each other without being forced to give away their money. Q2

Investment

Another important part of capitalism is investment. To invest in something is to buy a small piece of something because you believe it has value. For example, if Martha wanted to start a candy store, she might ask several of her friends to invest money in her idea. Once she had money from a few different people, she could buy a building for the store. She would recompense investors by giving them a percentage of the money she made from the store's business. Investment helped everyone in this case, because Martha got the extra money she needed to buy her store, and all her investors got to share in her success. Very large companies can sometimes get thousands of investors. Q3

Benefits of Capitalism

Capitalist proponents[3] believe capitalism is the best system for the economy because it can help the most people. Because it is easy to own property, people can use their property to become richer. Many capitalists also like the freedom from government and laws. They also believe capitalism allows people to make new inventions, like the car or the computer. Thanks to investors, people with good new ideas can succeed and turn their ideas into businesses that make money.

The features of capitalism may sound familiar to you, because capitalism is the type of economic system that exists in many countries today, including the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. However, some countries are not capitalist - such as China, Cuba, and North Korea. Their leaders do not believe that capitalism is the best economic system. Q4

Anti-Capitalists

Some people in the world - including some citizens of capitalist countries - do not think capitalism is a fair system for the economy. These people are usually called socialists[4] or communists.[5] They often want the government to make more decisions in the economy. They believe capitalism can be unfair because it causes too much competition between people, and prevents those with less wealth from having equal opportunities. They think capitalism divides people into two groups: workers and business owners. Instead of working together, these two groups compete against each other and hurt each other.

One writer named Karl Marx wrote a book called The Communist Manifesto, which told workers to rebel[6] against business owners. The most famous real-world example of this was the revolution in Russia in 1917. The communist government lasted until 1991. Some historians say their country fell apart because they did not use capitalism in their economy, while others point to different reasons, such as attacks from other countries. Q5

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An economic system refers to the way the money, industry, and trade of a country or region are organized. People often disagree about how economic systems around the world should work. Capitalism, the system used in the United States, tends to involve fewer rules from the government.

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This text is a religious text. More specifically a Christian religious text. The Ten Commandments are a set of rules given to Moses by god. They were written on a stone tablet. There were obviously ten rules. They were very basic. They include things such as “You shall put no gods before me”. I find this article interesting because it seems it was takes directly out of the Bible. Which I do my next to follow.

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The Ten Commandments are a set of Biblical principles relating to ethics (right vs. wrong) and worship that play a central role in Christianity and Judaism. The Ten Commandments appear twice in the Bible in the books Exodus and Deuteronomy.