Is Pride a Deadly Sin, or a Necessary Virtue?

Pride in one’s past means taking credit for one’s specific achievements, pausing to recognize oneself with either “I did it,” or “This is good.” It means taking credit, as a self-made being, for simply being who one is. This includes taking credit for one’s accomplishments of character and personal development. […] The two perspectives of pride in the past and pride in the future are inseparable, because one cannot achieve […] Read more »

Character as the New Standard of Judgment

Most conceptions of divine judgment, such as is found through a superficial reading of Revelation 20:11-15, fixate on actions as the primary subject of evaluation, treating deeds as isolated transactions to be weighed. Yet this perspective fundamentally misunderstands causality: actions are mere effects, outward manifestations of an inner landscape of character, belief and willful focus. While external forces—genetics, upbringing, cultural conditioning—shape this terrain, they never erase the sovereign space of […] Read more »

The Path to True Liberty: Reason Over Rebellion

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

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 »

The Core of Individualism: Humility, Empathy, and Courage

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

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 »

Transcending the Veil: Depth, Trauma, and the Expansive Consciousness

Transactional Love is a conditional exchange where affection or care is offered with the expectation of receiving something in return, such as validation or reciprocation. It operates like a contract, driven by external motives and often tied to a sense of obligation or debt. Non-Transactional Love is given freely without expecting repayment, rooted in genuine care and intrinsic motivation. It prioritizes authentic connection and truth, unbound by calculations or external rewards. The […] Read more »

The Morality of Negotiation vs “My Way or the Highway’s” Deductive Rigidity

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. Transactional Love is a conditional exchange where affection or care is offered with the expectation of receiving something in return, […] Read more »

From Transactional Fairness to Virtuous Pride: A Non-Transactional Motivation in One’s Life

Transactional Love is a conditional exchange where affection or care is offered with the expectation of receiving something in return, such as validation or reciprocation. It operates like a contract, driven by external motives and often tied to a sense of obligation or debt. Non-Transactional Love is given freely without expecting repayment, rooted in genuine care and intrinsic motivation. It prioritizes authentic connection and truth, unbound by calculations or external rewards. The […] Read more »

The Mother Wound and Non-Transactional Love: A Mythological and Psychological Exploration

A psychological archetype is a universal, inherited pattern of thought, behavior, or imagery residing in the collective unconscious, shaping human experience and psyche. Those stemming from mythological traditions, like the Great Mother or Trickster, embody recurring motifs across cultures, reflecting timeless human struggles and aspirations as seen in figures like Sophia or the Serpent. Transactional Love is a conditional exchange where affection or care is offered with the expectation of receiving […] Read more »

Reflecting on the Message of Easter via a Transactional vs Non-Transactional Lens

Transactional Love is a conditional exchange where affection or care is offered with the expectation of receiving something in return, such as validation or reciprocation. It operates like a contract, driven by external motives and often tied to a sense of obligation or debt. Non-Transactional Love is given freely without expecting repayment, rooted in genuine care and intrinsic motivation. It prioritizes authentic connection and truth, unbound by calculations or external rewards. […] Read more »

Mistaking Depth for Narcissism: The Role of Shallowness and Cultural Bias

Has your depth ever been misunderstood to the point where you are personally shamed, judged, or attacked by shallow people? Getting misjudged, straw manned, and ridiculed by superficial and shallow people is a lot like children playing in a kiddie pool, where the children are judging a submarine navigating the depths of the ocean as if it was evil, mean, and scary due to its capacity and size. If such […] Read more »

Breaking the Matrix: How Abductive Reasoning Unites Reality and Truth

Deductive reasoning, defined as starting with general premises assumed true and deriving specific conclusions—like “all dissenters disrupt order, so Jane, a dissenter, is disruptive”—often shapes how people perceive reality, mistaking their subjective lens for universal truth. This process can create a thought matrix, a rigid mental framework where premises from culture, authority, or personal experience dictate thought’s boundaries, defended dogmatically as reality itself. For example, someone shaped by childhood trauma […] Read more »

The Metaphysical Weight of Labor: Property, Purpose, and the Apple Tree

The concept of labor as a means to claim property has long fascinated philosophers, from the practical insights of John Locke to the metaphysical depths of Aristotle. At its core lies an assumption: when someone invests their effort into something—like cultivating an apple tree—they gain a right to it, not just legally but in a deeper, almost cosmic sense. This right might carry a “metaphysical gravity” or “momentum,” a weight […] Read more »

Integrating the Intellectual Character Traits to Make You a More Meaningful Reflection of God

“Who you become is infinitely more important than what you do, or what you have. You were purposefully created and created for a purpose. You are here at this very moment to become the-best-version-of-yourself—not some second-rate version of your parents, friends, siblings, colleagues, or even your heroes. Life is a quest to become perfectly yourself. It is through this quest that we become real…” – The Velveteen Rabbit Life is […] Read more »