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While some may feel the need to justify truth telling by referring to a supernatural explanation, a much simpler and more logically and factually defensible position is at hand.

Truth telling is a good because it lubricates communication and avoids causing chaos and confusion. It is that which makes significant communication possible.

Socrates is purported to have said that 'The unexamined life is not worth living.'

One might add that unexamined beliefs do not merit holding.

Another way to frame Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning' is 'Man's Search for Mattering'.

In other words, man is always striving to demonstrate that he matters. That his existence is not meaningless but rather has a significance to it.

Many people gravitate towards causes and religious beliefs in an effort to avoid confronting the possibility that their lives lacked any significant meaning.

All forms of posturing are engaged in as an effort to avoid feeling that our lives are essentially meaningless.

Most people understand what it means to be interested or uninterested. Not nearly as many however, understand what it means to be disinterested. It certainly is not synonymous with uninterested.

Essentially it means not having an interest in a matter which biases or prejudices a person's views or assessment of a situation.

We naturally picture banker types when we think of investments and investing. It might be to our advantage to consider those investments which are personal and are lying closer at hand. Those which are crucial to our success in life.

I am speaking of course about how we invest our time (the most limited and therefore valuable commodity) and our disposable income (also limited and valuable).

One piece of evidence supporting the claim that a person is mature is when they can observe chaos or drama without being themselves drawn in.

"The chess board is the world. The pieces are the phenomena of the universe. The rules of the game are what we call the 'Laws of Nature'. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance."

T. H. Huxley

Looked at from one perspective, the purpose of action is to test our theories of how the world works.

When a decision needs to be made, perhaps to address a looming problem, people, either individually or as a group represented, often select courses of action which overlook unexpected consequences and especially those affecting groups other than the one's suffering from the initial problem and the long tern effects for all groups alike.

It has been observed that nature abhors a vacuum. Human nature does as well. When science knocked the gods off their pedestals, something was needed to replace them. Some people were able to make the transition to less supernatural explanations of everything which satisfied their need for purpose, understanding and belonging. Others were left floating aimlessly and unhappily along.

"There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat from within, no insurmountable barriers, save our own inherent weakness of purpose."

Elbert Hubbard

It seems to me that men do not so much fear death as the daunting responsibility of freedom.

Have you ever stopped to consider just how much freedom we are giving up in order to maintain our level of comfort?

We are trading obedience for comfort.

The Age of Disbelief did not so much remove as fracture (or multiply) religion. Where once only a handful of belief systems vied for our devotion, now there are innumerable pseudo religions soliciting our devotion.

Awash in a sea of information we are drowning under the weight of ignorance.

The 'Shirky Principle' claims that organizations formed to solve a problem often resist efforts to solve it since their funding and very existence depends on the problem remaining unsolved.

There is a phenomenon, referred to as the 'ratchet effect' which applies most appropriately to government.

Essentially it occurs when governments create a crisis, and then they convince the general public that they need to increase their power and authority to address the crisis.

They increase said power and authority by a factor of 10. When the crisis is over they reduce their power to 3 or 4, not returning to the levels prior to the crisis.

Thus governmental power and authority is always...

When we are aware of the cause of our anxiety (a job interview for example) we can be anxious about just one thing, but when we cannot face the truth, the anxiety spreads to become more general. This is referred to as 'free floating' anxiety and is the reason so many Americans are on antidepressants.

While I agree that the drift from morality to cupidity is lamentable, it only exacerbates the problem to blame that which is blameless in the matter.

The issue is that of blaming the tool for the use someone puts it to. This is a more serious intellectual error than may at first blush be imagined.

The tool I have in mind is 'Capitalism'. Capitalism is the best tool ever stumbled upon for improving man's situation here on planet earth. Blaming Capitalism for the lamentable migration to...