ecclesiastes on Human Judgments

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Imagine you have an invisible recorder around your neck that, for all your life, records every time you say to somebody else, “You ought.” It only turns on when you tell somebody else how to live. In ...

The pioneering work of Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky has been popularized in recent years by the gamut of notable thinkers, including Malcolm Gladwell (Blink) and, in this cas...

Though in human terms, justice is portrayed as blind, the justice of God is wide-eyed and clear-sighted. . . . Not only is he the Judge, he is also the eyewitness who testifies to the facts—perfectly ...

Dear Everybody, We have a serious problem: All of us think we’re good people. But Jesus says we’re not. Sincerely, Brant P. Hansen …PS. IF YOU THINK I’M WRONG—about how we think we’re good people...

All our experience with history should teach us, when we look back, how badly human wisdom is betrayed when it relies on itself

My thought it is a wanton ranger,  It skips away;  I fear 'twill bring my soul in danger  On Judgment Day...

Postmodernism (the thinking of our age) is fiercely antinomian (without law). It is admitted that people make mistakes, but the word ‘sin’ is seldom mentioned and the idea that we all sin against God ...

There’s a somewhat naïve belief among some that, in general, most people are inherently good. While many Christians may not fully embrace John Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity (which I believe is ...

The search for knowledge can go wrong, not as a result of individual, erroneous judgments or of mistakes creeping in at different points, but because of one single mistake at the beginning… Faith does...

The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality, but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.

Many of us, when we know we are going to the dentist in a few days, suddenly start brushing and flossing our neglected teeth and gums, hoping that we will somehow trick the dentist into thinking that ...

In their book Friend and Foe, social psychologists Adam Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer cite a study by Emory University scientist Frans de Waal regarding comparison. De Waal trained capuchin monkeys ...

Intellect is therefore a vital force in history, but it can also be a dissolvent and destructive power. Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional ...

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.

Jacob Needleman has been a secular philosopher and a professor of philosophy of religion for many years at San Francisco State University. Some years ago he wrote a remarkable book called Why Can’t We...

The renowned Russian pianist and émigré Vladimir Horowitz (1904–1989) sometimes struggled with the nuances of the English language. During a meeting with Mrs. Hoover, the wife of U.S. President Herber...

The digital age’s technological advancements boast three major contributions to the improvement of human experience, which in turn have become its undeniable values: We have access to what we want wh...

"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very ...

The bottom line is this: never grow complacent. Never grow tired of learning. As soon as we stop learning we lose the capacity to grow and mature in our work and our relationships. This continual lear...

Adolf Eichmann was one of the Nazi architects of the Holocaust who escaped after World War II to South America, where he was caught in 1960 and taken back to Israel for a trial. He was tried, found gu...

Gathering information without processing and applying it is counter to how the mind works and how the brain is structured and has a deleterious effect on our mental and physical well-being, creating a...

Conversation would be much improved by the frequent use of three words: I don’t know.

After surveying an incredibly diverse cross section of college students across America, Donna Freitas found “the most pressing social media issues students face: the importance of appearing happy”—and...

I remember when ordering coffee was easy. There were really only two decisions—regular or decaf, and black or cream and sugar. Today, ordering coffee feels like applying for a bank loan. There are lit...

The more enlightened we are, the more greatness and vileness we discover in man.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

A life-threatening crisis came to my home when I was only 25. My wife suffered a near-fatal stroke and was rushed to the hospital, where doctors scrambled to keep her alive. Within hours, we were maki...

There is a time to go and do; there is a time to listen and reflect. Knowing which is a matter of spiritual discernment. If we were to ask Jesus which example applies to us, the Samaritan or Mary, his...

To see with God’s eyes, suppose we were to compare one person’s morals to being in Death Valley, 280 feet below sea level; another person’s morals to being in Denver, the mile-high city; and another p...