I'm quite prepared to admit that there are many cases where my actions do not make sense in light of a gut level acceptance of my beliefs.

Excellent, you are ahead of me. My initial reaction to the post was to run through a list of my prominent beliefs to see if they all made sense. They all did, and I only just barely was able to catch myself in time to think "What a coincidence, every single one?". Then the "Singularity as retirement plan" quote occurred to me.

starving children are very much an invisible dragon to me.

I support this 'x is my invisible dragon' turn of phrase!