Thomas Ramey Watson

truth

The Fundamentalist Christian Chokehold On America

The fundamentalist chokehold on American politics seeks to destroy the religious and cultural plurality on which the country, and the Declaration of Independence, was based. These theological divisions – which pit believers against non-believers, and those who believe correctly against those who don’t – are a major contributor to America’s sharply divided politics. When someone …

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Five Myths about Self-Love

From Sarah Lamb’s insightful essay: I hate self-help books. Well, I do now. I hate them because they tell us how we should be. They tell us, if we only did things this way—the author’s way—then we will be happy and truly understand what it means to love ourselves. The day I gave up reading …

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Religion Failed Us—but we Still Need It.

from Samuel Kronen’s excellent essay: To live a religious life, we must engage in a spiritual practice. I don’t think there is any way around this. To remain in contact with that what is beyond ourselves, beyond the domain of our individual thoughts, we must find some way of continually remembering that this connection exists …

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This Simple Mental Shift Can Enrich Everything In Your Life

Those who are able to shift away from the obsessive chase for more, Twist says, often experience a renewal of sorts. “When you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need, it frees up oceans of energy,” she says. That energy, Twist continues, can then be channeled into a different …

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What It Took Me Far Too Long To Realize About Loneliness

The author of Searching for John Hughes offers us an honest, unflinching look at his struggles with isolation. Jason Diamond Oprah.com I’ve dealt with depression for most of my life. But it had been a long, long time since I’d been truly isolated, nobody there when I got home or waiting in the next room. …

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9 Signs You’re Dealing With An Emotional Manipulator

A few years ago, Facebook, in conjunction with researchers from Cornell and the University of California, conducted an experiment in which they intentionally played with the emotions of 689,000 users by manipulating their feeds so that some users only saw negative stories while others only saw positive stories. Sure enough, when these people posted their …

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