Pat Robertson & Gay Marriage

If anybody knows the mind of God and American values, it’s Pat Robertson. I watched a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=xJdjLh-2ywc) of him answering viewer’s question about gay marriage, where Robertson answered confidently, in true expert fashion. The viewer asked, “If same sex couples, especially those who are married, claim they are Christians, how can they continue toContinue

My Golden Rule

We have a thing called the Golden Rule that says something like, “Treat others as you’d like to be treated,” or “Do not treat others as you would not like to be treated.” It might be that this rule exists just in case you might find yourself going from being in a position of powerContinue

Moral Realism & Authority

Jail is supposed to be a deterrent to wrongdoing. I don’t think that is going about it the right way. If something is wrong to do, you shouldn’t do it anyway, whether or not you would go to jail for doing it. And if it is the right thing to do, you should do itContinue

Religion As a Source of Morality

A friend of mine said that the central message of religions is “don’t be a dick.” I think that the message common to all religions: Social conformity. Maybe don’t be a dick to everybody who shares your god, but certainly be a dick to everybody who has the wrong god. Stone them, behead them, blowContinue

The Immorality of Human Reproduction

This goes out to all of you posting pictures of your babies on social media: If you had a moral fiber in your body, you wouldn’t have a baby. My reasoning is twofold. The first is the old anti-natalism of Sophocles, which is akin to the ideas in the book of Ecclesiastes and in Buddhism,Continue

Individuals In Relation To Society

If you had to name the seminal figure in Western philosophy, it would probably be Socrates. Alfred North Whitehead said of Socrates’ student Plato, “All of philosophy is a footnote to Plato.” From Plato, and a few other sources such as Aristophanes, we get the impression that Socrates, though he disagreed with Hellenistic democracy, feltContinue

Egoism & Altruism: Two Sides Of The Same Coin

“Don’t get too philosophical with me.” That’s what my psychiatrist at the time, Dr. Corcoran, said to with a smile and a slight chuckle, as was his style, after an exchange that went something like this: “I’m terribly selfish, Dr. Corcoran. I only care about how I feel and what makes me happy, and itContinue