The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity?

The moral landscape is the framework I use for thinking about questions of morality and human values in universal terms.

Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.

It's not so much religion per se, it's false certainty that worries me, and religion just has more than its fair share of false certainty or dogmatism. I'm really concerned when I see people pretending to know things they clearly cannot know.

Unlike statements of fact, which require no further work on our part, lies must be continually protected from collisions with reality.

Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches.

Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds - and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe.