Theology Is Ignorance With Wings.

How We Pay Attention To The Present Moment...determin Es The Character Of Our Experience And...the Quality Of Our Lives.

Spiritual Life Can Certainly Follow The Pattern One Sees In The Fake Martial Arts, With Most Teachers Making Nebulous And Magical Claims That Never Get Tested, While Their Students Derange Themselves With Weird Ideas, Empty Rituals, And Other Affectations.

Our Moral Reasoning Is Plagued By Two Illusions. The First Illusion Can Be Called The Wag-the-dog Illusion: We Believe That Our Own Moral Judgment (the Dog) Is Driven By Our Own Moral Reasoning (the Tail). The Second Illusion Can Be Called The Wag-theother-dog's-tail Illusion: In A Moral Argument, We Expect The Successful Rebuttal Of An Opponent's Arguments To Change The Opponent's Mind. Such A Belief Is Like Thinking That Forcing A Dog's Tail To Wag By Moving It With Your Hand Will Make The Dog Happy.

In My Own Case, The Most Inflammatory Statements I Have Ever Made Are Ones That I Have Written And Remain Willing To Defend.

For Nearly A Century, The Moral Relativism Of Science Has Given Faith-based Religion--that Great Engine Of Ignorance And Bigotry--a Nearly Uncontested Claim To Being The Only Universal Framework For Moral Wisdom. As A Result, The Most Powerful Societies On Early Spend Their Time Debating Issues Like Gay Marriage When They Should Be Focused On Problems Like Nuclear Proliferation, Genocide, Energy Security, Climate Change, Poverty, And Failing Schools.