Tag: Morality

The List

A long time ago, my friend Rob (aka Loki) and I began a list.

It was a list of people that simply needed to stop existing within our world…in any capacity. We had one rule..think globally, act locally. Essentially it’s a standard of friendship that mandated people we kept around us had something to offer the human race at some level in a positive manner. This offering could in fact be overshadowed by continued lack of morality, lack of self-respect, lack of respect for others, no respect for freedom, and/or worst…an inability to understand and thus modify their impact on the world.

The people that by virtue of existence, action, or personality provide the worst examples of human beings. An epitome of what we as growing and open-minded individuals, should either avoid or endeavor to re-educate.

Come on…you know people like this in both directions…most politicians…Dentists in Highland Park…jerkoff sociopaths in Austin with zero self control…people that change lanes without signaling…people that jump in your lane and slow down…people that get in your lane at all…people that think it’s cool to give things to their loved ones and take it back when they get mad…people that buy Audi’s and don’t bother paying for their kid’s food, boarding, or even clothes…people that have sex in your bed and deny it later…people that don’t accept you for who you are…people that think that change is impossible therefor not worth the effort…people that don’t courtesy flush…people that look up hookers on their wives laptop…

You know…those people.

So, if you have someone that really deserves to be on The List, feel free to send me all the dirt at thelist@tonytown.com.




Listening to Sam Harris…

…on his justification for ditching religion.

To be clear, I am NOT an atheist. Sam Harris is a rather outspoken one. I am quite the opposite. However I very firmly believe that most of the religions have evolved from a failed moral compass and device of social regulation, to an overgrown venue of business, extremism, and most importantly they represent a HUGE stubborn craze that refuses to allow the human social mechanism to evolve. Simply put, the wrong people are steering a moral compass that has been over-interpreted for hundreds of years, at the cost of millions of lives. This is not a factor of all religions, but those teaching intolerance on any scale are a part of the problem, and likely in thought and deed seek to continue this in order to maintain their own social-political structure within a population.

Please listen to him. He is not attacking your belief or spirituality. He is attacking its role in government and perceived social convention, whereby those beliefs are not able to tread on me and mine.

Morality is what we make of it. In relying on another to provide those decisions, a demonstration of example and trust would be a prerequisite. As Sam as put it, it is possible for us all to use morality in a logical model and prove clearly that some things are easily right or wrong. While these answers would easily be different for everyone, the sense of general right and wrong…without the religious compass, becomes very easily defined.

You see, spiritual grabs for power are just that. Grabs for power. In allowing someone else to direct your moral compass, you forfeit the value of your own (assumed learned) opinion. Why anyone would do this I have no idea. I think some people are actually afraid to think and act on this level. But once there, it is truly a learning experience.

Sam Harris has written a couple very thought-provoking books: The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. I am in the process of reading them both, but I can already recommend them.