In any dispute, each side thinks it's in the right and the other side is demons.

Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?

Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual.

The problem with the emotions is not that they are untamed forces or vestiges of our animal past; it is that they were designed to propagate copies of the genes that built them rather than to promote happiness, wisdom, or moral values.

The elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to dismiss other people's interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of compromise

The more you think about and interact with other people, the more you realize that it is untenable to privilege your interests over theirs.

The theory that religion is a force for peace, often heard among the religious right and its allies today, does not fit the facts of history.