It is a disturbing fact that police are largely self-selected.  Society does not go out and find people who would be good cops, but would-be cops choose themselves and apply.  Of course some vetting takes place, but it is pretty obvious that most cops have issues with authority and guns and how they think people should behave and are judgmental about those who don't behave as they think they should.

I once thought belief was a matter of choice -- being of the mind, the mind decides what to believe or not.

Now I realize that can't be so.  There are two things seriously limiting our freedom to choose what to believe -- indoctrination and the reality checker we have that keeps us at least relatively sane.

If my boss tells me I am fired, I can't "choose" to believe otherwise.  Our brain's reality checker can identify such a thought and nip it off.  Problems happen when we already believe things (from education or from indoctrination -- it doesn't matter which).  The reality checker compares a new piece of information with what we "know," and either accepts it or rejects it.  If something doesn't fit in our existing beliefs, the reality checker rejects it -- and then often goes on to figure out rationalizations or excuses for why our existing beliefs should prevail.

To actually choose what to believe would require a level of mindfulness far beyond what any of us are likely to achieve, and would probably not be a good thing as our choices would then become either random or maybe personality driven, and this is tantamount to insanity.

The end conclusion I draw is that beliefs are a bad thing.  They are furniture we sit on without noticing their presence, but they control us a lot -- a hovering presence controlling us, especially when the beliefs came from indoctrination and therefore are either false or at least not properly supported with evidence.

The secret to breaking indoctrination is well known -- "cognitive dissonance."  Unfortunately some people are so rigid and arrogant about their beliefs that no amount of evidence raising doubts is allowed to penetrate.  Further, the memes (mainly religions but also other ideologies) that provide the indoctrination have built into themselves tricks for providing the indoctrinated person with rationalizations to get around even the strongest evidence.  The best example of these tricks is "faith" treated as a virtue and not as the serious vice it really is.

In the end if we want to be spiritually and intellectually mature and honest with ourselves, we need to abandon all beliefs and realize that nothing is certain, that the best we can hope for are reasonable, evidence based opinions.  Some things, of course, we can almost treat as beliefs -- such as the proverbial "the sun will come up tomorrow" -- but even here we cannot be certain, just asymptotically close.

A "modernist" view of "reincarnation" or rebirth is that mind is a process (which is easy enough to confirm by sitting quietly and watching it process thoughts and sensations and so on) that functions independently of the brain, but which inhabits (one might even say parasitizes -- although it is a symbiosis more than a parasitic situation) a sentient being and when that being dies goes and finds another.

One could, as many Hindus and Buddhists do, assert that this is true because they have faith it is true -- on perhaps better evidence than Christians have for their Christ (incidents of deja vu and recalled previous lives), but to me it is not convincing evidence, not reproducible in any sort of scientific sense, so it remains to me an intriguing and maybe even probable afterlife, but not an item of belief.

The problem with Christian ethics is the word "sin."  Look at a person cross eyed and you have sinned no less than if you committed murder.  Look at a woman with lust and the man has sinned just as much as if he had raped her.

There is no sense of proportion in Christian ethics.

A rational ethical system recognizes that almost all if not all acts have good and bad consequences, some known to the person doing it and some not known.  There are therefore degrees -- and there are pluses and minuses to be considered.

Looking at someone and feeling lust can be very pleasurable, a plus (pleasure is a good thing) and, if it is kept private, should harm no one.  The words Jesus is supposed to have said, therefore, are just plain wrong and probably harmful if they generate guilt or fear.

Christian ethics seems to have come from a bunch of extremely judgmental, sex fearing men who almost certainly had their own personal problems.  Jesus said not to judge, but Christians are great at it.

When I think about the things I don't know or don't understand, it boggles my mind.

I don't care when exactly the Gospels and so on were penned.  They contradict each other and geographical reality and known history at many points, and are full of wonder stories that were probably made up on the spot (at least in the one attributed to Matthew), so they are not acceptable texts for historical purposes.  Things written by believers cannot be trusted regardless.

The fact is there is no reliable historian who wrote anywhere near that time of history that mentions either Jesus or a Nazareth.  The closest we have is the Christian fraud called the "Testimonium" of Josephus, and any objective observer can easily dismiss that (that so many Christians keep referring to it is testimony to their lack of real evidence).  Everything else of an objective nature dates from at least a century later.

Now it is true that absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it is strong evidence of absence.  Mainly the point though is that to compel belief, with the idea of moral turpitude if one does not believe, should require damn strong evidence, not such a huge lack of it.

It is important to not allow believers to put the Bible into a special category of documents.  We do not believe what Homer says for no reason other than that it contains stories of gods and miracles and so on, and the same test should apply to any ancient writing.

People do stupid things all the time, like go to avalanche prone slopes or ignore warnings about floods and drive into a flooded road, or smoke all their lives.  That doesn't mean we can be judgmental and leave them to their fate -- we must nevertheless do whatever can be done.

I think the threat of Ebola to most countries is way overblown -- it has been controlled with little difficulty in Nigeria and is now in full retreat in Senegal.  Any cases in Western countries, or even in a country like Vietnam, will be quickly isolated and contacts traced and the infection stopped.  It is nowhere near as dangerous as Bird Flue would be should it ever mutate into a more easily spread infection, and the Ebola virus is not like flue in the way it mutates.

Still, I approve of the scare tactics -- they provide political cover for spending a lot of money in Liberia that would otherwise be hard to get people to support (America's racism among many groups has shown itself here pretty clearly -- they couldn't care less about Africans except where it might put them at risk).

There is a disturbing fact that would bother me more if I thought the rise of technological civilization were at all likely: the fact that we see no sign of "them" is evidence such societies have short lifespans.

Two possibilities -- maybe technology contains within itself the certainty of self-destruction, or maybe there are things we don't know about (such as other dimensions or time travel or what-have-you) that advanced societies eventually find and disappear into, leaving our cosmos.  Of course it is also possible that everyone sooner or later holes up underground in a virtual reality.

Promiscuity is often denounced.  I don't see it that way.  It may be (actually it certainly is) a waste of time and a manifestation of insecurity (a need for constant reaffirmation that one is desirable) or maybe some other similar psychology, but it in itself is not evil or a sin or even bad karma.  If it is done with the main objective being to give one's partner pleasure, then it is actually good karma.

Where it gets ugly is when it involves infidelity (one is married or engaged and one has promised fidelity), since then it becomes lying and creates the likelihood of hurting someone.  Of course it also becomes ugly when precautions against disease spread and conception are not followed carefully.

The modern college student (especially young man) in the big cities of Vietnam finds himself in a sort of candy shop, and often prudence goes out the window (I never heard of a prudent college student anyway).  Men are safer with multiple partners, but women can produce a danger to themselves since some men are violently jealous after even one tryst.  This is grossly unfair, I know.

Staying in touch with reality is not an easy job for anyone.  It is so easy to get swept up in the moment by a bandwagon propagandist, or come to think something magical has happened by a skilled fraud using magic tricks, or come to believe things because the advocates play with the evidence and don't tell the whole truth (this is what religions do), or come to accept some nostrum from so much hoping it is true (wishful thinking) or even something simple like not wanting to be the odd man out in a group of believers and then have them turn on you with name-calling, such as "skeptic" (a title of honor in my mind).

Maybe one of the easiest ways to get out of touch with reality is to think that there must be truth (if there is smoke there is fire) of some sort in everything -- that the middle way between belief and disbelief is best -- no so, folks.  Belief must not happen and opinion assent happen only with good evidence.

Of course there is also just plain old insanity -- you know -- craziness, lunacy, paranoia out your ear, etc.

Whether Jesus existed or not as an actual person really is a matter of nothing more than historical interest.  Even if such a figure existed as a kernel around which myths evolved, the mythical Jesus never existed, and that is the one of interest.

The same thing can be said about Mohammed, who almost certainly existed as a real person but who did not do many of the things recounted about him, or of the Buddha (about whom there is less certainty).

This is a common thinking error in historiography -- that the existence of a myth tells us anything about history.  It doesn't.  Sometimes there is a historical kernel, but usually there is not, and we have no way to know.  There was no Troy, no Achilles, no Hercules, no Robin Hood, no King Arthur.  Since one cannot prove a negative, one cannot prove this, but one should assume it until there is good evidence otherwise, and the existence of the myth is not good evidence, especially if it contains miraculous or similar stuff.

The problems of interstellar travel can be overcome a few ways, and I think eventually will.  Human life expectancy may be greatly lengthened, or generational ships set out, or hibernation, and so on.  I don't think the light-speed barrier can be fudged, though.

The thing that makes their presence most unlikely is the great number of hurdles life would have to cross in order for "them" to be there -- some of which are almost certainly very unlikely.  Not that "they" don't exist, but they are almost certainly excruciatingly rare -- as rare as only one example in millions or billions of galaxies.

The way intelligent life can become common is for it to spread, and so far in our galaxy that hasn't happened or they would be here.

The historical existence of "Socrates" and of "Jesus" are different questions -- Socrates did not perform miracles and although he had his "voices," it was only his (reportedly) telling us about them that even gives us this idea.  No public miracles, no religious teaching -- just a steady inquiry into what might constitute "the good."  Even here Socrates did not pretend to have any answer -- he seems to have mainly just poked holes into what others thought.

That we have mainly Plato's word for what the man said, and this is really all just Plato's thinking, is understood.  Still there are independent reasons to think he was real, although almost certainly not quite what Plato describes.

The main issue is because there are no extraordinary claims here, the burden of proof is much lower.

We have an instinct to want to submit and worship (as well as to dominate).  It no doubt comes from the need of the group to follow a leader -- often otherwise no decision is made and generally no decision is the worst possible outcome.

We also have an instinct to believe what we were taught as children.  Again this probably evolved for group cohesion.

These instincts work by means of pleasure (joy, peace) and displeasure (fear, guilt) emotions triggered when we do something contrary to the instinct.

We flat-out don't understand what time is, whether past and future are realities or just illusions, what the present might be other than an infinitesimal between two illusions.  We also don't understand why it seems to have a direction forward (maybe it really does) when at the atomic level all events can go either forward or backward in time.

I think therefore it is a bit foolish to make statements like stuff has to exist for there to be time and that time is generated by events, although that seem the common-sense view.  Time is also one of the aspects of the "thing" called space-time, and flows at differing rates according to frame of reference -- stuff that works fine mathematically but the human mind is not built for and takes a good deal of thought to conceptualize.

Lack of belief in anything should be the default if one is rational in their approach to the world.  We are not entitled to "belief," but at best only to strong opinion.

I don't think (I have a strong opinion) that there is no God or gods.  This is based mainly on the weakness of the arguments presented for Him -- I have no need to assume the burden of providing evidence against.  Still, there is lots of evidence against -- from logical arguments to an objective look at the uncaring universe to the existence of suffering.  Theists have to rationalize out the kazoo to get around these problems with their view -- not a basis for sensible opinion forming.