You are here: Home » Archives for Nathan

The Metaphysics of Creating Your Own Reality: Focus, Schrödinger’s Cat, Mystery Boxes, the Rapture, and Timeline Jumping

Written by on · Leave a Comment

From a psychological perspective, the idea that “focus creates one’s reality” suggests that an individual’s attention and cognitive prioritization shape their perception and experience of the world by filtering sensory information and amplifying what aligns with their focus. This process, often linked to mechanisms like the brain’s reticular activating system, influences beliefs, emotions, and behaviors, effectively constructing a subjective reality based on where one directs their mental energy. The principle […] Read more »

The Path to True Liberty: Reason Over Rebellion

Written by on · Leave a Comment

Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Cline and Jim Fay advocates for raising responsible, self-confident children through empathetic discipline and natural consequences. The book emphasizes allowing children to make choices within clear boundaries, fostering accountability by letting them experience the logical outcomes of their decisions. It promotes a parenting style that balances love with firm guidance, avoiding punitive measures to encourage critical thinking and independence. Rebellion is a counterfeit […] Read more »

Breaking the Punishment Trap: How Punitive Mindsets Undermine Reasoned Consent

Written by on · Leave a Comment

Consent is the voluntary agreement to an action or proposal, expressed either explicitly through clear statements or actions, or implicitly through conduct that reasonably indicates acceptance. In legal contexts, implied consent may be inferred from suffering (enduring without objection) or tolerance (allowing without resistance), though these must align with rational, uncoerced choice to be morally valid. Coercion is the act of compelling someone to act or agree through threats, intimidation, […] Read more »

Jesus Walking on Water: A Metaphor for Neutralizing Life’s Storms

Written by on · Leave a Comment

22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. 25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out […] Read more »

The Illusion of Control: How Zooming-Out Liberates Us

Written by on · Leave a Comment

Human consciousness often clings to a zoomed-in state, fixated on personal narratives, viewpoints, and structures that provide an illusion of control. This hyper-focused perspective stems from a primal need for safety, where individuals anchor themselves to familiar stories and rigid frameworks to navigate life’s uncertainties. By staying zoomed-in, people believe they can manage their environment, relationships, and outcomes. However, this narrow focus creates a self-imposed “control Matrix”—a mental construct reinforced […] Read more »

Deconstructing the Victim Mindset: Choosing Truth Over Fear

Written by on · Leave a Comment

A victim mindset is a cognitive pattern where individuals consistently perceive themselves as powerless targets of external circumstances, blaming others or events for their difficulties. This mindset resists personal responsibility and change, often clinging to a narrative of helplessness to avoid confronting uncomfortable truths. Socratic humility is the intellectual virtue of recognizing and embracing the limits of one’s knowledge, fostering openness to learning and growth. It counters arrogance by encouraging a […] Read more »

The Core of Individualism: Humility, Empathy, and Courage

Written by on · Leave a Comment

Intellectual Humility: Having a consciousness of the limits of one’s knowledge, including a sensitivity to circumstances in which one’s native egocentrism is likely to function self-deceptively; sensitivity to bias, prejudice and limitations of one’s viewpoint. Intellectual humility depends on recognizing that one should not claim more than one actually knows. It does not imply spinelessness or submissiveness. It implies the lack of intellectual pretentiousness, boastfulness, or conceit, combined with insight […] Read more »

The Eight Intellectual Character Traits & the Eight Intellectual Standards

Written by on · Leave a Comment

The Eight Intellectual Character Traits: intellectual humility, intellectual courage, intellectual empathy, autonomy, integrity, intellectual perseverance, confidence in reason, and fairmindedness. NOTE: All text below is from the book “The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools (Thinker’s Guide Library)” by Richard Paul & Linda Elder. Intellectual Humility: Having a consciousness of the limits of one’s knowledge, including a sensitivity to circumstances in which one’s native egocentrism is likely to […] Read more »

Confronting and Overcoming the Victim Mindset Within and Without

Written by on · Leave a Comment

Karpman’s Drama Triangle is a psychological model describing dysfunctional social interactions through three roles: the victim, who feels powerless and seeks rescue; the persecutor, who blames or oppresses; and the rescuer, who intervenes to “save” but often perpetuates the cycle. These roles create a dynamic of blame, dependency, and conflict, trapping participants in unhealthy patterns. The Empowerment Dynamic (TED) Triangle is a constructive alternative to the Drama Triangle, featuring three […] Read more »

The Great Reset as a ‘Great Reckoning’ of Accounts Due

Written by on · Leave a Comment

We are individually and collectively approaching “Childhood’s End”. The Great Reset is a proposed global rebalancing of societal and economic systems, envisioned as a reckoning where individuals and institutions face accountability for their moral and transactional choices. It forces an internal confrontation with one’s ledger, aligning outcomes with the standards—reasoned or exploitative—chosen by each. Klaus Schwab’s concept of the Great Reset is a proposed global initiative to reshape societal and […] Read more »

Certainty as a Substitute for Truth

Written by on · Leave a Comment

Deductive rigidity refers to the strict application of fixed premises to reach conclusions, often stifling inquiry by treating those premises as unchallengeable, leading to inflexible and potentially flawed outcomes. In contrast, abductive reasoning offers flexibility by inferring the best explanation from observed facts, adapting to new evidence and context to align further with truth. The maxim “You can be dead sure and dead wrong” exposes a fundamental flaw in human cognition: the tendency to […] Read more »

Abductive Reasoning and the Pursuit of a Moral Life

Written by on · Leave a Comment

A rational process is a moral process. You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the evidence and evade the effort of the quest – but if devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of […] Read more »

The Transcendence of Law & the Path to a Non-Transactional Agape-Based Existence

Written by on · 2 Comments

Law is the shadow of reason; whereas children require rules from their parents to navigate life, adults instead use reason to guide their morality and decision making. ~Nathan Martin Laws are only meant to be an age appropriate way to communicate reason, and what is reasonable, to small children. Spiritually and psychologically mature adults do not need laws then, as they have reason to guide their morality and ethical decision […] Read more »

Prolonged Childhood: How Schooling and Laws Cause Dependency

Written by on · Leave a Comment

The word “authority” derives from the Latin “auctoritas,” originally meaning “growth,” “influence,” and, crucially, “authorship” – referring to someone who originates or brings something into being. This etymological root reveals how attributing authority to another implies granting them the power to “author” our actions, beliefs, or even our life’s direction, essentially ceding control over our own narrative to their will or judgment. The concept of prolonged childhood has become a […] Read more »

Law as a Type and Shadow of Reason

Written by on · 4 Comments

John Locke’s “law of reason” refers to the natural capacity of human beings to use rational thought to discern moral and ethical principles that govern just interactions, independent of external authority. It is an internal guide, accessible through reflection, that aligns individual actions with objective truths about reality and human rights. Law, at its core, represents a fundamental failure to trust in individual reason. While proponents often frame it as […] Read more »