I believe in the right to require persuasion as a condition of participation — but this right is accompanied by a two-fold obligation: 1) to persuade and 2) to be open to being persuaded.

I believe every human being has an equal right to be regarded as an individual.

By extension, I believe every individual has the right to voluntarily associate or disassociate with any political body, and that no organic consideration (sex, race, class, etc.) may override it. This is principled non-prejudice.

I believe truth is a matter of trade-offs. Especially when it seems logically impossible, there is an otherwise. Practical awareness of this fact is a major component of what has been known as wisdom. Wisdom is incomplete without otherwisdom.

I believe in the perpetual possibility of radical surprise, and that we feel its approach as anxiety, its arrival as dread and its overcoming as epiphany.

Religion that lacks practical attitudes toward otherwisdom, expectation of radical surprise and navigation of dread is pseudo-religion. Fundamentalism is not religious extremism, religion gone too far; fundamentalism is religion betrayed.