Haidt & Mooney, Moral Foundations & Spiral Dynamics

This post is the third in my series about Haidt’s newest book, The Righteous Mind (here is the previous post, second in the series). I was watching a video of Jonathan Haidt speaking about compassion in respect to the moral values of liberals and conservatives. I’ve already criticized Haidt elsewhere in the first post in the series (basically, Haidt [...]

Dominant Culture Denies Its Dominance

There is a certain kind of awareness that many, if not most, people seem to lack. It is a social awareness dealing with the dominant culture. I suppose this type of awareness is likely a learned ability that few ever learn for it probably offers few advantages, especially on the social level. People who question the dominant culture tend to [...]

God & Freewill, Theists & Atheists

God and freewill, two things that will forever perplex me. I see them as basically on the same level, theological concepts. God is the faith of the theists. And freewill is the faith of the atheists. I don’t mean this in a necessarily dismissive way. I actually am affirming the notion of faith. We humans aren’t [...]

Origin of American Diversity

As a typical under-educated/mis-educated American, I’ve felt compelled to educate myself about American history, especially the complexities of early American history. As a descendant of Europeans from many generations ago, I’m interested about the early immigrations during and after the colonial period. Specifically as a descendant of non-English immigrants, I’m most focused on the ethnic/cultural [...]

What is a Church? Soul vs Spirit

This post is third in a series, but it is more narrowly focused than the previous posts. I wanted to isolate a single issue that I presented in my first post: “Many people have a nonchalant attitude about community. They just don’t understand its value or they don’t appreciate how difficult it is to create and maintain. This is [...]

Deep South, American Hypocrisy, & Liberal Traditions

This post is a continuation of my previous post: Deep South, Traditional Conservatism, & Future Possibilities. I have a couple of points to add to my analysis/commentary. First, I want to point out the consistent culture and politics of the Deep South, not just recently but for its entire history. Second, I want to point out an element [...]

The Spirit and Spirits of the Season

The following is my response to Matt Cardin’s post, ‘This myth is realized today in us’: On the deep meaning of Christmas.  * * * I listened to an interview with Varla Ventura on Coast to Coast AM. She was discussing her book about Christmas stories and folklore. Between Varla Ventura and the people calling in, [...]

The Monstrous, the Impure, & the Imaginal

This interview about the ‘monstrous’ made me think of a related idea. The monstrous is a more extreme version of the ‘impure’, whether impure in terms of the physical, psychological, social, religious, etc. The monstrous and the impure are both in some way ‘wrong’ at a gut level. They just feel wrong causing an instinctual [...]

Where is early Christian history?

Here are a couple of papers that question what we think we know about early Christianity. It is fascinating. There are so many assumptions we make in trying to understand something. When these assumptions become shared beliefs of a society or of a field of study, a reality tunnel can form. I don’t know if [...]

Re: Ideas are alive. We are their hosts.

I recently noticed another interesting blog post by Matt Cardin: Ideas are alive. We are their hosts. I posted it on Facebook which led to a conversation with a friend. She wrote: “So, ideas as a kind of AI…” I responded with: “Yeah, something like that. Ever since I heard of the theory of memes, it’s [...]