We live in a culture that teaches us to protect ourselves from criticism. Some of us choose to hide behind a false front, presenting the world with an image that is different than how we feel inside. Some find fault in others as a way to avoid the same tendencies in themselves.

When I was in high school, I was deathly afraid of public speaking. I had a project due in a history class that required that I make an oral presentation, and the closer the deadline came, the more I started to panic. I forged a doctor's note to get myself out of class. Then I did it the next day and the next. I'm not sure why I thought I...

The gods of ancient Rome and Greece didn't care if you lived a moral life. They only demanded that you honor them. Honoring them sometimes meant engaging in the same kind of highly questionable behavior they did. Socrates got in trouble and was branded an atheist because he pointed out that the...

One of the most surprising developments in the Weinstein sexual exploitation allegations is its effect in causing so many to come forward with similar allegations against other alleged abusers, and in particular, those in the Hollywood industry. Some have suggested that the courage of a few inspired them, but I think it’s at...

Mainstream American culture shows an increasingly permissive attitude towards non-marital sex. Outside of a few ethnic subgroups (communities which have morals that are resistant to these changes) the percentages show a rapid and significant...

I was in San Diego with my kids last year, and we were spending the day in Balboa Park. As we were walking around, we noticed a table set up in the courtyard, run by a group of atheists. They were there to share their opinion on why Christianity was false. It was a kind of counter-evangelism;...

Imagine if you could have fun all day, from morning until evening. Not just contentment, but actual fun. Imagine if that fun didn't make any physical demands on you, aside from the attention it required. You don't even have to leave your bedroom. I'm not talking about television, but we may have found ourselves whiling away hour after hour when we unexpectedly fall in love with a show that has five seasons available on DVD. This is what...

The world around us is adapting to electronic media and information technology. How we think about community, experience the world, share our lives with others, communicate with the people we care about, value ourselves, and even consider what counts as a "place" and why we don't feel the need to actually be there—all of these have changed over the last two decades.

Have you ever spent a lot of time and energy (and maybe money) on something, and then later, for whatever reason, lost interest in it? I'm sure most of us who are Boomers* and Gen X wish we could take back and repurpose the many thousands of hours we have spent watching TV shows which, on rerun, seem incredibly dull, low-resolution and cheesy. Yes, you could have used that time to learn to...

Shame is a strange thing; it can be regarded in two completely different ways. If you search for it on Amazon, you will find hundreds of books to help you relieve yourself of it. It is the negative, convicting emotion that we have violated a moral standard. Psychologists provide guidance in relieving...

This Bud Light commercial from 1995 (it was the first in a series of commercials) made the expression, “I love you, man” part of popular culture. The thing that made the commercial so hilarious and compelling, at the time, is that you didn't hear guys say “I love...

This quote, from one of C.S. Lewis's great works, is part of a letter written by the demon Screwtape to the junior demon Wormwood. The “Enemy” mentioned here is God. I have been worried about the future, at various points over the years. To such a degree that I have had difficulty doing anything else.