For me, human rights simply endorse a view of life and a set of moral values that are perfectly clear to an eight-year-old child. A child knows what is fair and isn’t fair, and justice derives from that knowledge. -Tom Stoppard Values “A person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important […]
A Ranking of Values Read More »
Find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and dark which that thing provides. -Junichiro Tanizaki Imagine a sky-high viewpoint, a moving dot below tracing a line everywhere we go in life. It records our movement from home to work, to the store and the weekend
The Pattern of Your Life Read More »
If you can’t convince them, confuse them.-Harry S Truman Atheism is commonly attacked as being a religion, a worldview with faith-based presuppositions. The label is applied by theists in an attempt to deflect arguments against their own religion. This is a counterattack from a weakened position (see Upping the Anti Ante), a Tu Quoquo fallacy
Atheism as Religion, Simplified Read More »
Compassion is the basis of morality. -Arthur Schopenhauer A common claim of the religious is that objective morality cannot exist without a deity. How can we know right from wrong without a lawgiving creator who has imprinted the laws of proper behavior upon our souls? This is an insulting assertion that, though we have complex
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. -Steve Jobs
A Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Experience Read More »
“Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe As my research into belief progressed it became apparent that a piece of the explanation was missing—the inherent tendency to believe. Believence (noun) A propensity to believe, especially via intuition or desire. “Having a high believence makes it easier for
Believence and Belief Factors Read More »
There is a right and wrong way to evaluate a piece of information. When people use different methods a populace ends up holding different sets of “facts” and beliefs. Regardless of ideological loyalties we all want to be on the side of truth. How we get there is open to debate and we must be
The Falsity of Presupposition Read More »
I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief. -Immanuel Kant Either a piece of information is true or it is not. There may be two sides to an argument but not to a fact. In a debate where one side is arguing for the truth and the other something false,
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To prejudge other men’s notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eye. -John Locke Though there is more to be learned on the personality differences between liberals and conservatives, I have reached a point where behavior patterns are recognizable. A good deal of
Coexistence of Right and Left: The View So Far Read More »
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Book by Jonathan Haidt There has been significant activity on psychological and sociological fronts over the past twenty years trying to find explanations for the differences between liberals and conservatives. Many studies have indeed indicated distinctions, perhaps innate. Haidt’s thesis is a moral
The Righteous Mind: A Book Review Read More »
