I'm someone who typically leans on the left of center on political spectrum but today, I realized something intrinsic to human nature and its emotions that made me consider shifting my compass towards right of center (capitalism).

The core thought process here is asking yourself this fundamental question of which human emotion or tendency gives rise to these ideologies.

Capitalism is primarily driven by human greed, be it the greed to put tasty food on your table or better your living standard by getting a new equipment or acquire more stocks in some limited company. Greed for more resources is the motivation here.

On the other hand, the Communist and Socialist ideologies are primarily driven by much darker emotions of fear and envy. The envy is that the "rich capitalist" has a lot more resources than I have, and/or the fear is that the wealth inequality may increase even more due to inflation and my resources will naturally decline over the due course of time.

Despite the world being an unfair place and such fears even having some validation in economic data, I want to still insist that even though both emotions are roughly in the same realm of darkness (and beneath the realm of positive spiritual emotions like love and compassion), greed is way more preferable than fear/envy.

We can understand this with the help of an often used analogy of Would you rather your Foe be an X or Y?:

If you're lost in a forest, would you rather be chased by a Lion or a Cheetah?

I remember reading this anecdote or puzzle many years ago somewhere. Most people would answer Cheetah here as it would seem a less ferocious animal than Lion. However, when you consider that Cheetah can climb trees while Lions can't, you might reconsider that answer as you might get lucky if there is a tree around which you can use to climb and save yourself. However, what really makes Cheetah more ferocious is that it kills just for survival. Cheetah doesn't care if it's hungry or not, it sees you as a threat to be eliminated just due to some innate tendency (fear?). On the other hand, a Lion is more likely to kill you only if it's hungry (greed for meals?).

Would you rather your foe be a ruthless capitalist or a ruthless communist?

A ruthless capitalist is the Lion in above example. They might come after you but only if the cost-benefit analysis of coming after you makes sense and they materially gain something like money, wealth, data, etc. But a ruthless communist, on the other hand, would come after you regardless and blinded by the ideology just because you own more resources (or fall in a higher income strata than them). A ruthless communist will always try to shame you while reminding you of your "privileges" regardless of who you are because their ideology is powered by fear.

If we talk about religious ideologies like Christian Supremacy, Zionism, Islamist, Hindutva, etc, they also roughly fall in this same category as Communist/Socialist, they're also primarily driven by fear. As you climb up the wealth ladder, the fear of blaspheming your religious doctrine declines and the fear of losing the already acquired wealth increases - which is very much a positive fear because this fear doesn't harm anyone, it merely seeks to preserve and protect.

We know there is massive wealth inequality in this world, it isn't just or fair in any manner. But the way towards betterment is using the path of higher emotions like love, compassion and even positive greed and not the darker emotions of fear and envy. Wouldn't you agree?

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, today is the hiemal solstice. Today is the shortest day of the year, and for the next half of the year, the period of daylight will only get longer.

Since ancient times, people have marked this day each year, through celebration and through the construction of buildings that line up with the sun or stars on this day; for instance, Stonehenge in Britain and Newgrange in Ireland both act as solstice indicators. Celtic, Chinese, Indian, ancient Roman, and even ancient Hebrew solstice ceremonies are recorded in various forms, with some (such as Newgrange) dating as far back as 3200 BC.

Today, many of these solstice ceremonies have been wrapped up into the Christian winter holiday of Christmas. For instance, the Celtic tradition of hanging evergreen plants, such as holly and ivy, as a sign of hospitality became the British Christian tradition of hanging mistletoe. Even the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah bears a striking resemblance to the Celtic idea of the Yule Log, a fire that was meant to burn for twelve days without re-fueling.

In addition, the solstice itself remains meaningful to many, both in mainstream religions and in neo-Pagan revival movements. So, to all of you who celebrate, happy Solstice, and may the sun shine warm on your face for the rest of the year.

My wife just found a candle that was gifted to her by a coworker that contained this phrase and it caused somewhat of a debate about its destiny, which made me wonder... are we discussing religion and/or the lack thereof here? /r/atheism became a circlejerky hive of scum and villainy, can we do better? Or is a topic so inherently divisive inherently beyond reproach? Can emotion and anecdotal experiences ever compete on even footing with logic and reason?