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Even Scarier Words
EVEN SCARIER WORDS The day the president insulted himself I was 8. I didn’t know anything about him except that he sold weapons to bad people and seemed OK with lying about it. But I’ve always wondered how he could say such terrible things about himself. That his being there speaking would terrify a person.…
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Centrism’s Flaw
How centrism is often a morally dubious position to hold. You argue with a friend and it’s getting heated. You’re feeling confident and they’re getting stubborn and you feel your throat tighten. You go outside of yourself and say wait a second. Your impulse is to chill out the conversation for the sake of the relationship.…
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8 Reasons to reform civil asset forfeiture
Civil asset forfeiture is proof the way we talk about regulation is wrong. It isn’t the amount of regulation that matters. What matters is the way we regulate. Created as a tool to go after organized crime and those who might use their wealth to elude the police, civil asset forfeiture gives police at all…
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Getting Caught in the Big Lie
I am mesmerized by this video. A moment of revealing the Big Lie. The lie we tell ourselves, each other, about the world, about politics, about life, about truth. This lie is pervasive and dishonest. It is what it says it is. The deceit of the human connection and condition. The transformation of all that…
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Bernie Sanders isn’t denying your right to believe in hell
Bernie Sanders doesn’t care what you believe about hell. He does care if your beliefs demonize other people. This is the context in which Christian conservatives fell back to seeing persecutions everywhere. Often looking for persecutions precisely when asked to recognize their bias. At a recent confirmation hearing for Russell Vought who was nominated to become…
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What is the effect of Christianity on compassion?
Atheists are more motivated by compassion than the religious. This finding a few years ago was surprising. It led many to wonder if rising secularism would lead to a better world. Particularly when we start to see how conflict follows the religious around like a puppy. But another finding complicates that view and makes it even…
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There are two reasons to care about the tone of debate
One is that you care about human decency and how we get along. You care about me and don’t want to see me spiral into the abyss of outrage. Nor do you want to see another person’s outrage leveled at me. That’s why you care about the public square. You want things to go well…
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Sharing Love
You’ve probably heard the story before. It’s told several ways, but often goes something like this. There was a man, living near the Mississippi River. He was a faithful man. He served on the church board and the evangelism team and was there every Sunday. One particular Sunday, the conversation at coffee hour was about…