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Weekly Soul: Week 17 - Deeply Hidden Instincts and Values

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  Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -17-   I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.   Diane Ackerman   Psychologists love to talk about depth. Depth psychology. Deeply-hidden instincts and motivations. Deeply-held values. Fine, but in a world with three (or more) dimensions, there is also length and width. Between the two, I find that width is the far more intriguing. A widely-lived life invites and embraces passion. Enthusiasm. Sometimes, exuberance. You can be faithful to those deeply-held values, but you are also entitled to be passionate and to experience the thrill of being alive. The 2007 film, The Bucket List , popularized the title phrase and made it part of everyday common language. Lead characters played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, both terminally ill w...

Daily Excerpt: How to Argue with an Atheist (TL Brink) - Step #4. Develop a Priority of Your Values

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    Excerpt from  How to Argue with an Atheist , by Professor TL Brink              STEP #4: Develop a Priority of Your Values     STUDENT: Dr. Brink?  I have been thinking about what you said about the limits of science, that science cannot prove which values that we should commit ourselves to.   BRINK: Would you wish to dispute that point?   STUDENT: Not directly. I agree that values are one thing and facts another, and that facts cannot be used to prove values, but I still like science.   BRINK: So do I.   STUDENT: I mean I still choose science and choose its values.   BRINK: How so? If science does not prove which values we should choose, what does it mean to choose the values of science?   STUDENT: What I mean is that science is valuable because it achieves certain values. If gives us technology that helps us attain important values, such as health and comfort.   BRINK: Correct you a...