A Romantic Rationalist

Preface: Before I start throwing around words like “moral” and “conscience” even more than I already have, I need to unpack what I mean—and just as importantly, do not mean—when I use them. I often use “moral compass” and “conscience” interchangeably, but whichever term one favors, it is the entirely natural, materialistic, neurological and cognitive products of our evolutionary history as social animals. Like nearly every other natural trait, it is highly variable, with individuals falling somewhere along a spectrum of variation. That variability also makes it possible for the conscience/moral sense to be shaped by “nurture,” i.e. our culture and social environments—sometimes in positive ways, and at other times, not so much. i It is quite likely that even before religion became “organized” some 12,000 years ago it figured out how to hijack an adherent’s moral sense and using the sense’s natural malleability to manipulate and control its adherents. ...

Introductory Note: Though I am now an atheist i , I was not always so. Until my late teens, I was a very sincere, devout, Evangelical Christian, and my younger self took that faith very seriously indeed. In describing my thinking and reasoning of that younger self, I have endeavored to treat it with all the seriousness I did at that time. My use of capitalizations and symbols such as “ TM” and the registered trademark symbol comes, it is fair to say, from my 2016 self. My reason for doing this, is to make the point that my younger self’s (okay, I kind of feel like I’m trying to write a Doctor Who episode) understanding of things like God’s will and/or what the most important parts of Christianity did not, in the end, match that of th e Christians among whom I spent my formative years. Forging My Moral Compass -Pt 1-Origins Raised in an Evangelical Christian home, from an early age I was taught that it is wrong to bear false witness, and that what is, or is ...

Disclaimer: Right up front, I need to acknowledge that some reading this will take exception, or even offense, by what I have to say. But really, I am okay with that, because I trust that anyone reading this (as if anyone would give a damn what I think) will understand the difference between having (or starting) an argument, and making (or constructing) an argument. Any idiot—including me—can do the former. The latter though, requires the marshaling of facts and evidence, thinking through the logic and reasoning, and identifying the weaknesses of their position—hopefully before the other party does, and modifying the whole package as necessary to correct those weaknesses. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s roll. *********** Well, it happened. The nation that had the audacity to attempt to leave human footprints in the lunar regolith—“...in peace for all mankind.”—and eventually left 12 such sets; that valiantly stood with Great Britain, France, and Stalin's ...

My home state, the state of South Dakota, will be kicking off a new, well-intentioned media campaign to dispel the popular image that South Dakota is a desolate no-man’s land devoid of cultural and/or recreational activities. The television/internet spots open with the narration: "Mars…the air: not breathable. The surface: cold and barren. But thousands are lining up for a chance to go and never come back." Not too bad…yet. After the obligatory postcard pictures of the state, the narration continues with a tagline that is supposed to take advantage of the trending topic of the exploration and colonization of Mars: "South Dakota. Progressive. Productive. And abundant in oxygen. Why die on Mars when you can live in South Dakota?" The advertisement closes with the words: "South Dakota. Plenty of jobs. Plenty of air." Well, you know what they say about where using good intentions as paving stones leads… As ...