Gur yvtug va gur erfgebbz cebonoyl unq erqqre gvag guna gur bhgfvqr, juvpu jnf cebonoyl syhberfprag, evtug? Jura lbh jrer bhgfvqr, erq frafvgvir pryyf va lbhe rlrf (naq lbhe oenva) jrer yrff nqncgrq guna oyhr naq terra frafvgvir pryyf.

Jura lbh jrag va, gur vasbezngvba guebhtu erq frafvgvir pryyf sybbqrq sbe n juvyr naq gur vasbezngvba guebhtu gur bgure pryyf gung jrer nqncgrq gb bhgfvqr yvtugvat qvzvavfurq.

Lbh unq cebonoyl qenax yrff jngre gung qnl naq lbhe hevar jnf qnexre, fb gur rssrpg jnf zntavsvrq. Nsgre n yvggyr juvyr, lbhe rlrf naq lbhe oenva nqncgrq gb gur yvtugvat naq rirelguvat frrzrq abezny ntnva.

It's well known that we're all a lot stupider and a lot more ready to believe things when we first wake up. So here's my story.

I woke up a bit before my 7:00am alarm in the spring when the sun was rising not long before I got I up. It was just barely starting to lighten outside a little and I didn't feel like sleeping anymore, so I sat up and looked out the window as I had the nicest view from that apartment that I will likely ever have. I could see across the valley and just over the next set of hills there was the rising sun, a brilliant flat orange but not so strong that I couldn't simply look, at enjoying its color. The sky around still had most of the darkness of night, none of the reddening of sunrise which made the sun look all that brighter in contrast to such a subdued background. A single dark cloud cut a narrow horizontal line across the sun just over the midpoint.

I thought it was the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen and decided to take a picture of it even though I knew that my poor phone camera would do an abysmal rendition of it. It took me a bit to get the phone into camera mode as I really hardly used it. But then I looked back out at the sunrise to snap a picture and there I see that this beautiful sunrise had receded! It was shrinking back before my eyes, as if it had decided to turn around and go back under the world. I just watched helplessly torn at the idea that here this immaculate sunrise was wrong was going away and just wasn't right. It seemed so sad and all I could do was snap a few pictures of it as the top dropped off the horizon. The sky was dark still and I took a few last forlorn pictures of the sun that was no more.

It was about that time that I realized that my window faced due West and I had often seen the sunset through it and so could never see the sunrise. My wits were about me just enough to check that it was infact just before 7:00 AM not PM. But after that I was baffled. What had I just witnessed? If this wasn't the sun, what was that beautiful orange globe? And here the most stirringly grand thing I had seen in a long time was not what I had thought... I checked the news, and there were no large fires or explosions being reported and either way at such a distance something that large would have to have been downright cataclysmic. I was together enough to not seriously consider aliens, but I was rapidly coming up with all the other increasingly-implausible explnations.

Vg cebonoyl jba'g fhecevfr lbh gb xabj gung vg jnf va-snpg gur zbba frggvat. V gubhtug gb purpx guvf va nabgure gra zvahgrf be fb naq Jbysenz Nycun fubjrq zr gung V unq npghnyyl jvgarff n fbzrjung erznexnoyr pbvapvqrapr. Gur zbba gung zbeavat orna nyzbfg rknpgyl qhr Jrfg naq fb jnf whfg cnfg orvat n shyy zbba (avargl avar cbvag rvtug sbhe creprag vyyhzvangrq). Vg'f frggvat pbeerfcbaqrq gb nebhaq svsgrra zvahgrf orsber gur fha evfr. Vg'f beovg jnf pybfr gb crevtrr fb vg jnf arneyl nf ynetr nf cbffvoyr.

V unir arire frra gur zbba tybj benatr nf vg qvq gung zbeavat. V pna fgvyy srry rpubrf bs gur ybff naq pbashfvba V sryg nf gur jbeyq gbbx njnl gung jbaqreshy fhaevfr. Ohg V raqrq hc trggvat zber bhg bs guvf guna V jbhyq unir unq vg orra 'whfg' nabgure tbetrbhf fhaevfr.

Jryy, gung jnfa'g fb fcbbxl.

It's well known that we're all a lot stupider and a lot more ready to believe things when we first wake up. So here's my story.

I woke up a bit before my 7:00am alarm in the spring when the sun was rising not long before I got I up. It was just barely starting to lighten outside a little and I didn't feel like sleeping anymore, so I sat up and looked out the window as I had the nicest view from that apartment that I will likely ever have. I could see across the valley and just over the next set of hills there was the rising sun, a brilliant flat orange but not so strong that I couldn't simply look, at enjoying its color. The sky around still had most of the darkness of night, none of the reddening of sunrise which made the sun look all that brighter in contrast to such a subdued background. A single dark cloud cut a narrow horizontal line across the sun just over the midpoint.

I thought it was the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen and decided to take a picture of it even though I knew that my poor phone camera would do an abysmal rendition of it. It took me a bit to get the phone into camera mode as I really hardly used it. But then I looked back out at the sunrise to snap a picture and there I see that this beautiful sunrise had receded! It was shrinking back before my eyes, as if it had decided to turn around and go back under the world. I just watched helplessly torn at the idea that here this immaculate sunrise was wrong was going away and just wasn't right. It seemed so sad and all I could do was snap a few pictures of it as the top dropped off the horizon. The sky was dark still and I took a few last forlorn pictures of the sun that was no more.

It was about that time that I realized that my window faced due West and I had often seen the sunset through it and so could never see the sunrise. My wits were about me just enough to check that it was infact just before 7:00 AM not PM. But after that I was baffled. What had I just witnessed? If this wasn't the sun, what was that beautiful orange globe? And here the most stirringly grand thing I had seen in a long time was not what I had thought... I checked the news, and there were no large fires or explosions being reported and either way at such a distance something that large would have to have been downright cataclysmic. I was together enough to not seriously consider aliens, but I was rapidly coming up with all the other increasingly-implausible explnations.

Vg cebonoyl jba'g fhecevfr lbh gb xabj gung vg jnf va-snpg gur zbba frggvat. V gubhtug gb purpx guvf va nabgure gra zvahgrf be fb naq Jbysenz Nycun fubjrq zr gung V unq npghnyyl jvgarff n fbzrjung erznexnoyr pbvapvqrapr. Gur zbba gung zbeavat orna nyzbfg rknpgyl qhr Jrfg naq fb jnf whfg cnfg orvat n shyy zbba (avargl avar cbvag rvtug sbhe creprag vyyhzvangrq). Vg'f frggvat pbeerfcbaqrq gb nebhaq svsgrra zvahgrf orsber gur fha evfr. Vg'f beovg jnf pybfr gb crevtrr fb vg jnf arneyl nf ynetr nf cbffvoyr.

V unir arire frra gur zbba tybj benatr nf vg qvq gung zbeavat. V pna fgvyy srry rpubrf bs gur ybff naq pbashfvba V sryg nf gur jbeyq gbbx njnl gung jbaqreshy fhaevfr. Ohg V raqrq hc trggvat zber bhg bs guvf guna V jbhyq unir unq vg orra 'whfg' nabgure tbetrbhf fhaevfr.

Jryy, gung jnfa'g fb fcbbxl.

I have a recurring memory glitch that tells me I used to be able to levitate or fly. According to this memory, I used to be able to float a few feet off the ground simply by jumping up and holding there, choosing not to come down. There's a specific sensation memory associated with this, a tugging or lifting feeling in my abdomen.

The inference that follows, since I can't do it now, is that I forgot how to do it, or lost the ability somehow. This is moderately disappointing until I tell myself that it's just a memory glitch and humans can't levitate.

I have a few hypotheses about this:

• It's a memory of a dream, possibly a recurring dream. Dreams of flying are pretty common.
• It's a distorted memory of being picked up and carried as a small child.
• It's a distorted memory of a childhood habit of jumping off of things. (Which I did frequently, sometimes getting in trouble in grade school for jumping off of things that were too high for an adult to safely jump off of, but never injured me any.)

The most anomalous experience I can recall was when I was 14 or maybe 15. My workplace was a makeshift walk-down below ground level, in which the restroom was constructed from plywood with a bare electric light bulb hanging over it IIRC. At the time of this incident, I was being frequently harassed by a co-worker about the same age as myself. While using the restroom on one occasion, it seemed for an instant that I was spraying blood into the toilet, yet in the next instant there was no sign of blood anywhere and the water in the bowl seemed perfectly clear. I initially assumed that this was some sort of prank on the part of my co-worker, yet I couldn't explain why there was no residue of blood to be seen, nor where there was any opening through which he could have sprayed it.

Later I wondered if it might have been a laser pointer, but the lack of any apparent aperture makes this just as unsatisfying an explanation. I'm also not sure these had been invented at the time (probably 1976.)

One plausible explanation eventually occurred to me: vg znl unir orra n genafvrag vyyhfvba pnhfrq ol n pbfzvp enl uvggvat zl bcgvp areir.

I have no studies to cite, but in my personal experience, expanding my social circle from almost exclusively a rather ideologically narrow grouping of political activists, to people with whom I shared various other sorts of interests, I became much less defensive about my beliefs and much more capable of revising them, and in fact did so for a number of them. In real time, I perceived this as a consequence of no longer being totally dependent on the first group for my senses of community and identity.

I'll have to reread before I can make a comment specific to this story. But I found the collection as a whole (Stories of Your Life and Others) incredibly stimulating. I don't think I've ever seen so many really original ideas between two covers.

Well, what I like about that comic is that it implicitly accepts that killing a fellow child in a murderous rage would be OK if that child denied the existence of Jesus, because Jesus is real!

All right, both very fair points. Let's shift gears; please help me leave a line of retreat.

How do atheists generally cultivate altruism? Note that I'm NOT claiming that atheists are less moral on average, still less that theism is somehow required for certain levels of morality. Both of those are really stupid things to say.

What I am concerned about is that even upon being exposed to the logic of non-zero-sum games, some people remain remarkably selfish and/or cynical. Is there any way to deliberately increase their altruism and/or idealism without resorting to mysticism or religion?

I'm struggling with this myself right now.

I've long had the idea that, if I ever raised a child from a young age, I'd introduce Santa Claus as a make-believe game. I might be a little coy about it: tell the story of Santa and see if the kid can figure out the truth without giving a direct answer one way or the other; but I wouldn't lie. OK, there's a plan, but it's all theory, since I'll probably never raise a child.

But now I'm dating the single parent of a six-year-old. She is raising her child to believe in both Santa and Jesus; she herself knows the truth about Santa but still believes in Jesus. One the one hand, I've played the Tooth Fairy for the child; I removed the tooth from her pillow and put quarters under it, at her parent's request. On the other hand, I told her —in response to a direct question— that I don't believe in Jesus. (Then she asked me if I understood that I have to accept Jesus to go to Heaven, and her mother gave her a lecture on tolerance, in the course of which we learnt that not everything taught at her Christian elementary school is necessarily correct, so that was good.)

I am not raising this child, and her mother and I have such different views on how to do so (Santa, and even Jesus, hardly even begin to cover it) that I have decided not to make any effort to even help to raise her. (ETA: Not that I've been asked to, but I have my answer if I ever am asked.) I am her friend and occasionally her baby sitter, but I am not her parent and probably never will be (and certainly never will be without a long discussion about it, some years into the future).

Still, if she asks me a direct question about Santa, then I'm not sure how I'll answer it.