My wife and I are planning to have children soon(ish) and perhaps that (in conjunction with our growing concerns of raising a family in an over-sexed society) sparked our conversation about sex ed. My wife brought up the conversation and we began to wonder what the best way to teach children about sex would be. What struck us first was how simple it would be to answer any number of similar questions: what’s the best way to teach your children about crossing the street? Or what’s the best way to teach them about the importance of education? The answer to both questions requires teaching children early and often, even before they are ready to grasp the concepts. Continue reading →

I don’t set many goals. This may be surprising to people who see me as a highly motivated person. Because I don’t struggle to be effective with my time, some people might assume I’m a goal setter. But I’m quite the opposite. While it is true that many successful people set goals, I am not convinced that I therefore should follow. Historically, many successful people also smoked.

It was about eight years ago as I began college that I first noticed that I didn’t like setting goals. Continue reading →

Think back with me: what’s the last book you read? Not your textbooks or your washing machine owner’s manual, but your free-time reading. Was it from Oprah’s Book List or maybe the New York Times Bestsellers? The newest spine-freezer or rib-tickler or even (yikes) bodice-ripper?

In the spirit of the coming New Year and self-improvement, let me try to convince you to change up your reading habits. Let’s consider C. S. Lewis’s advice:

It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.[1]

Ugh, those stuffy relics they tried to get me to read in Humanities 101?

Yes, precisely. Reading old books will save us from ourselves. Continue reading →

This is my defense of Islam (and Christianity for that matter). I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who suggested that religion produces extremism. This may be the case, but to no greater extent than any paradigm produces extremism.

Marx saw all history as reducible to class struggles. Many feminists see the world as simply the saga of gender roles. We all have that friend who has internalized the platitudes of a self-help book and with a knowing look, uses them to explain everything. Religions are not all that unique. Continue reading →

Michael, my husband, has Cerebral Palsy. While he is able to walk, all of his muscles are contracted, and his movements tend to be broad and imprecise. At a glance, he looks pretty disabled: he is difficult to understand by most who do not know him and some who know him well; his walk leaves his torso rocking from side to side, and his fingers fumble to achieve a solid grasp on whatever he is holding or trying to manipulate Continue reading →

In a previous post, I discussed the parallels between my experiences in romance and religion. In brief, I suggested that love—and specifically marital love—is about choosing an individual more than feeling a certain way. The view of love as an overwhelming romantic attraction is problematic not only because it is unrealistic, but because it is fundamentally egocentric, focusing not on another person, but on one’s own emotional high. This egocentric approach to love seems likely to lead to unhealthy relationships and infidelity. That word—infidelity—suggests a connection between romantic relationships and religion. My earlier post focused on the leap of faith involved in choosing a religion and a romantic partner. In this post, I discuss the implications of a non-egocentric view of love as it relates to ending a relationship or leaving religion. Continue reading →