morality

Bits and Pieces — January 21, 2026

Fandango8 Comments

I thought today I would share with you a few items of interest, to me, anyway.

No Grand Plan

Canadian novelist and essayist Stephen Marche wrote “The best way to understand the current [U.S.] administration is to accept that there is no grand plan or guiding ideology, beyond the thrill of exercising power for power’s sake.”

Nobody Has Better Morality

When Donald Trump was asked by The New York Times if he sees any limits on his power, replied: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that could stop me. I don’t need international law.”

Flipping the Bird

Trump, while touring the Ford F-150 plant in Michigan, mouthed “Fuck you” twice and flipped the bird at a factory worker who shouted the president was a “pedophile protector” in reference to the administration’s piecemeal release of the Epstein files.

The worker, TJ Sabula, was suspended but said he had “no regrets whatsoever.”

Whitewashing History

When the Smithsonian Trump National Portraits Gallery swapped out a photo of Donald Trump in its “American Presidents” exhibition, the museum also removed wall text that referred to his two impeachments and the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The new photo’s caption simply identifies Trump as the 45th and 47th president.

Polishing His Image

The man who was photographed laughing and waving as he stole the House speaker’s lectern during the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot is running for office in Florida. Adam Johnson, pardoned by Trump after serving 75 days in prison, filed for a seat on the Manatee County Commission on the riot’s fifth anniversary and is using an outline of the photo of him with the lectern as his campaign logo. His notoriety, Johnson said, is “good for getting the buzz out there.”

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — June 16th

Fandango27 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (16th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on June 16, 2014 on my old blog.

Q&A

I came across a post* at a site called “Today Christian.” Don’t ask why I was reading a website called Today Christian; it’s a long, sad story. The post was titled “10 Questions for Every Atheist.”

As an atheist I thought, “That’s cool. I can answer ten questions. Let me have at it.”

So here are the ten questions and my ten answers:

1 — How did you become an atheist?

I started to think for myself.

2 — What happens when we die?

We die. It’s over. Over and out. Don’t beam me up, Scotty.

3 — What if you’re wrong? And there is a Heaven? And there is a Hell?

Well I’ll be damned.

4 — Without God, where do you get your morality from?

From my parents, my teachers, the people I respect, the society in which I live, my desire to survive and be well, and my belief that everyone else desires and deserves to survive and be well.

5 — If there is no God, can we do what we want? Are we free to murder and rape? While good deeds are unrewarded?

Yes, we can do what we want as long as it is not hurtful or harmful to ourselves and/or to others and is subject to the terms and conditions set forth in my answer to #4, which would, therefore, preclude such activities as murder and rape or needing to be rewarded for doing “good deeds.”

6 — If there is no God, how does your life have any meaning?

Life has meaning through the deeds we do and the people we touch.

7 — Where did the universe come from?

Long ago and far away there was a big explosion. I think. I don’t know for sure. I don’t really need to know. Do you really need to know? How will knowing or not knowing where the universe came from make a difference in your life? (Sorry, I’m supposed to be answering questions, not asking them. My bad.)

8 — What about miracles? What about all the people who claim to have a connection with Jesus? What about those who claim to have seen saints or angels?

Miracles? You mean Smokey Robinson and the Miracles? Great group. As to all those people who claim to have a connection with Jesus and who claim to have seen saints or angels, I think they’re pretty much like those people who claim to have been abducted by aliens or who claim to have seen UFOs or ghosts or seen Jesus in their grilled cheese sandwich.

9 — What’s your view of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris?

I haven’t read everything they’ve written or heard everything they’ve said, but from what I have read and heard, I generally agree with them. Not about everything, but about most things.

10 — If there is no God, then why does every society have a religion?

We, as humans, tend to seek answers. If we don’t know the answers, we create these supernatural deities who supply us with answers to the questions we can’t answer. And then we worship these deities — these gods — we’ve created. And we build a hierarchy and develop dogma and rituals around how we worship these deities and we call that religion. Every society in human history has created gods. Some have created a bunch of gods. Some have created just one super god. And everybody believes that their god is the one true god and that their religion is the one true religion. Nobody likes to believe that they don’t know the answers to the big questions. So God becomes the answer. How convenient.

How would you answer these ten questions?

* This site apparently doesn’t exist anymore.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #3 — Revisited

FandangoLeave a comment

FPQ

Today is move day and, no doubt, my day will be focused on getting my shit together in the new house once the movers deliver, so once again, I hope you won’t mind a rerun of Fandango’s Provocative Question #3 from November 28, 2018.

Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question. By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

So without further delay, this week’s provocative question is:

“Is morality objective or is it subjective? If you believe it’s objective, what is its source? If you believe it’s subjective, how do you know whose concept of morality is correct?”

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

And most important, have fun.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #33

Fandango26 Comments

FPQWelcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration. By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

For this week’s provocative question, I am going to leverage a recent provocative post from Marilyn Armstrong in which she wrote about what it means to have a moral compass.  In her post, Marilyn wrote that she believes the concept of a moral compass is how one defines right and wrong, independent of religious beliefs. She wrote, “I’ve concluded that ‘religiosity’ and ‘morality’ have little to do with each other because you either have a moral compass — or you don’t.” You can read Marilyn’s full post here.

There are also those who believe that morality is a set of definitive laws gifted to humanity by God, where God has determined what is “right” and what is “wrong,” and these determinations are deemed to be unimpeachable. In other words, morality cannot exist without God. Thus “morality” and “religiosity” are inextricably intertwined.

So the question this week is this:

Do you believe that one can be moral without believing in God or being religious, or do you believe that you must believe in God in order to have a moral compass and to live a moral life?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

Share Your World — About Life, Death, Beauty, Morality, and Perfection

Fandango11 Comments

SYWMonday means Melanie’s Share Your World prompt. Today our host has become quite philosophical in her questions. She wants us to talk about the living and the dead, about beauty and morality, about technology and emotions, and about perfection and gratitude. A tall order, indeed!

Anyway, let’s do this!

Why do we seem to respect the dead more than the living?

I don’t respect the dead more than the living. I respect what people accomplish (or accomplished) and the manner in which they live (or lived) their lives, living or dead.10F97ABA-FC27-4699-9CD7-4A7C3A826D3A

Why is beauty associated with morality?  Or not?   (a few weeks back I asked a similar question, but the key word was MORTALITY, not MORALITY).

I hate to be argumentative today, but I don’t associate beauty with morality. Physical beauty has more to do with appearance than with positive actions or good deeds. In fact, so-called “beautiful people” often have advantages in life not available to those whose appearances are less attractive and, therefore, may be less empathetic. So, in my opinion, beauty and morality are unrelated. 

Have gadgets and apps taken away emotions?

Huh? What do gadgets have to do with emotions? As to apps, I think that social media apps, especially Twitter, have intensified emotions, as people who use those apps tend to feel freer to express strong, especially negative, emotions as they hide behind the anonymity and the distance those types of apps provide. These social media apps have also reduced face-to-face human interactions to a great extent.48F6CE61-0B8C-4D5D-8A7E-A5DD7F646B01

Is there a perfect life? What’s your version of a perfect life if you care to share?

For something to be perfect it must be free from flaws or faults. Life doesn’t work that way. No person is perfect; no life is perfect. True perfection is an unrealistic goal and attempting to achieve a perfect life can only set one up for disappointment and frustration.

If you’d like, please share something uplifting or for which you are grateful.

I’m grateful for this perfect life that I am leading. 😏

Fandango’s Provocative Question #3

FandangoLeave a comment

FPQEach week I will pose what I think is a provocative question. By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

So without further delay, this week’s provocative question is:

“Is morality objective or is it subjective? If you believe it’s objective, what is its source? If you believe it’s subjective, how do you know whose concept of morality is correct?”

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

And most important, have fun.

The Solution for Hate In Perilous Times

Fandango16 Comments

CE4D50FB-D98A-404E-90E6-AC5F62052B0DI’ve been debating with myself about whether or not to post this. I read a post a few days ago by a blogger who will go unnamed for reasons that will become apparent. I try not to be reactionary when I read another blogger’s post if that post strikes a sour note with me. I say to myself, “Let it go, it’s just someone else’s opinion.”

Blogging offers us a forum to express our opinions and beliefs, and I’m sure that some of the opinions I’ve expressed in my posts do not sit well with everyone who reads them.

That said, this post is a reaction to something a blogger, one I follow, wrote. And if you’re that blogger and you read this post and recognize your words, I hope you won’t take what I’m about to write personally. I follow your blog and I do enjoy much of what you write.

Anyway, this blogger wrote that he or she “believes in predetermined fate.” Okay, I get that. Apparently a lot of people believe in predestination. I don’t. But that’s just what I believe. It doesn’t make me right or the blogger wrong. We are all entitled in this country to our own beliefs and to freely express them. At least so far.

Then this blogger wrote something that was hard for me to swallow. He/she wrote, “We are known in the womb by the creator, God. His plan for us is already in place. He knows the ending before we do. He knows that our existence is for the greater good.”

So why do I have a problem with that? Well first, there’s simple arithmetic. There are approximately 132 million babies born every year across the globe. That’s about 360,000 births a day, 15,000 per hour, 250 every minute, and four every second.

Now I know a lot of people believe that God created everything…the entire universe and all things in it, including all forms of life. But to me, to believe that God knows and has developed some sort of in-the-womb, individualized plan for each and every one of those 360,000 babies born each day seems, shall I say, a bit far-fetched.

Second, if “we are known in the womb by the creator, God,” as this blogger said, and “God knows that our existence is for the greater good,” why, then, is there hate; why do people do bad things that are against “the greater good”? Are hate and evil part of “the greater good,” part of “His plan for us”? A plan that is already in place while we are just fetuses in our mothers’ wombs?

But still, I wasn’t that bothered by what that blogger wrote because people are free to believe whatever weird shit they choose to believe. That’s their business, not mine.

Then the blogger wrote that “the solution is the example we set.” I think the blogger was referring to the solution for hate in these perilous times, but I’m not 100% sure.

Anyway, the blogger continued, “we cannot be that example without a relationship with the almighty.” That was the statement that really pissed me off.

The implication of what this blogger wrote is that one cannot live a moral, decent, good life and set a positive example for others without believing in the existence of some invisible but all knowing, all powerful, ever-present supernatural being.

Now in all fairness, I don’t know for sure if that’s what the blogger was actually implying, but that is how I took it.

And if, as the blogger suggests, it is true that moral values are instilled in us in the womb by God, does that mean that we, as intelligent human beings, couldn’t — or wouldn’t —have been able to figure out on our own, without God, that murder, rape, and theft are bad? Would we all be running around murdering, raping, and stealing were it not for this omnipotent being who set our courses while we were still in the womb and who watches everything that we do all of the time? Is that the only reason we “behave” ourselves? And does that mean that those who don’t believe in God’s existence are incapable of being moral and do not serve “the greater good”?

Okay, there you have it. Rant over. I’ll probably take a whole raft of shit over this post and may even lose a few followers. I guess that’s a risk worth taking.

So what are your thoughts, readers? Am I being overly sensitive?