Category: Uncategorized

Most people reading this title will assume it’s a trick question. “It’s aesthetics,” you’ll say. “It’s a personal opinion.” When to take down a Christmas tree is a thing, though. New Year’s Day? I know some people who swear the right time is on New Year’s Day. Their argument is that it’s a new year.… Continue reading When Ought We to Take Down Christmas Trees?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can get along in an ethically pluralistic society. I feel like life in our world is, increasingly, a war among opposing ideologies. The problem is that the ideologues share their reasoning much less often. I worry that we’ve forgotten how to dialog respectfully. I feel, daily, like… Continue reading Democratic Virtues

They say that social scientists tell us that logic is culturally relative. I’m not sure if social scientists really do, because I know that we laypeople often get academia wrong. However, I’ve heard many laypeople tell me, with “great authority”, that they “know” that academics tell us this. This is going to be a controversial… Continue reading Culturally Relative Illogic

You are beautiful and special just the way you are. I worry, when I hear people talking about themselves, life, and humanity, that too many people don’t realize that about themselves. Self-esteem is such a precious commodity. At Temple of Inanna and Dumuzi, a spiritual group I co-run, we say, “honor yourself. Honor each other.… Continue reading You are Beautiful!

Shame is just about the worst and most useless emotion I know.* It took me my whole life to figure that out, though. That’s because it’s the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing of emotions, and we dress it up that way. It’s easy to think that it’s somehow moral, when it’s not. When we shame others, we appear to… Continue reading Stop Shame

I’ve been musing on Divinity, lately. This post is meant for either people who believe in God (or some form of Divinity) and people who relate to the Divine. (It’s actually possible to be an agnostic or even an atheist and still relate to Divinity, believe it or not, but that’s a subject for another… Continue reading Divinity as Resource

All my life, I’ve been taught to believe in some amount of meritocracy. While that’s been tempered by the idea that we should have compassion for the poor and downtrodden, it’s always there. We tend to think that if smarter, stronger, faster people rise to the top, because of their natural talents, they deserve it.… Continue reading A Meritocracy Caution

An ancient question, going back to the ancient Greeks (and probably much earlier) is: is nature fundamentally good or bad? Some ancient Greek and Roman philosophers thought it was good. It nourishes us. It provides for us. It’s beautiful. If nature is good, then going with the flow of nature must also be good. It’s… Continue reading Nature and Ethics

On my quest for goodness, I’ve been pondering for the past several years what exactly it means to be good. At first glance, it’s easy to think we know. However, when I actually get down into the weeds, I find that I don’t really think I know what it means to be good and I… Continue reading Who Knows Goodness?

I’m on a quest for the Good. As I think back on the past two years of the health crisis, I wonder if some good things have come out of it. For me, it’s been a spiritual reset. By stepping away from society, I’ve been resetting who I am and how I think. I’m by… Continue reading The Goodness of a Reset