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My friend is dead
Close your eyes for one moment and take one deep breath. Now pay attention. My friend Jeff was wrongfully arrested. While in custody they used a power drill on him and burned him in the face and eyes with acid before they shot him in the head. I have a hard time not crying every time I think about it ( Read more... ) -
a compendium of essential reading
(feel free to skip the essay and head right to the juicy links)
It is of absolutely fundamental importance for the vast majority of the human species to realize our common humanity. It is not an exaggeration to say that our lives depend on it. As technology continues to give each of us more power, and the corresponding effect that we have on others ( Read more... ) -
critical look at The Ethics of Belief
I agree very heartily with Clifford’s argument that founding a belief on insufficient evidence is unethical. I furthermore think that the claim does not require modification because it is not only irrational to choose to be irrational but also unethically irresponsible to choose to be so ( Read more... ) -
Global Government
There are important ideas about global government that need to be debated ( Read more... ) -
On Nietzsche's "The madman"
When Nietzsche’s madman proclaims the death of God, first he is claiming specifically that belief in God as traditionally understood is superlatively untenable and more broadly, all absolutes and all teleologies are unfounded, unsupportable human constructs. Where others looked at the world around them and saw purpose and order, Nietzsche saw ( Read more... ) -
direct excerpt from Nietzsche's The Gay Science
335
Hurray for physics!----How many people really understand how to observe? And among the few who do understand it--how many observes themselves? "One is always furthest from oneself"--all who try the reins know this, to their own discontent. And the saying, "Knowing yourself," in the mouth of a god and spoken to human beings, is virtually ( Read more... ) -
my criticism of Kierkegaard’s description of the movement and leap of faith
Kierkegaard (hereafter K.) takes up the gauntlet on the side of voluntarism in its long-standing debate against intellectualism. Most if not all of K.’s arguments proceed from the assumption of the existence of God , and to the extent to which this assumption is granted, he is fairly convincing in his aim to show that the only viable way to ( Read more... )