If I give to my fellow human being, but do so involuntarily, he will eventually know.  If I give to my fellow human being, but do so to satisfy my own ego, seeing him only as a statistic or a project or an inferior or a stereotype or member of a group, he will eventually know. (more…)

It’s usually through a thousand tiny cuts of reduced kindness (each one individually invisible to any but the most capital-G of Gods and the most conscientious and self-scrutinizing of saints) that a surplus workforce is driven from the fold and into the waiting arms of a war, prison, slave labor, insufficient medical care, or other population-control device.  (more…)

Dave Toschi: And man is the most dangerous animal of all?
Arthur Leigh Allen: That’s the whole point of the story. (more…)

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” –Jesus “Not Quintana” Christ (more…)

“Irrationality is the square root of all evil.” –Douglas Hofstadter. (more…)

“I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours,
But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor,
And when I die, I expect to find him laughing.”

–Depeche Mode, “Blasphemous Rumours”

Theologians call it the problem of evil, or the mystery of iniquity… if God’s all-knowing and all-powerful and good, why do things like ebola virus, the holocaust, and televangelists exist? (more…)

We all like the sound of equality, and for the most part we honor the notion of legal equality as the bedrock of a sane and fair world. Nevertheless, a billion and one inequalities always impinge on our efforts at equality, and it’s hard to know by what just standard we might ever affirm one entity’s legal inequality–one might say, legal superiority–over another. (more…)