A re-post of my Galileo and the Modern Compromise: IN HIS OPEN LETTER to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615), Galileo offered a defense of science against the prevailing heavy hand of religious orthodoxy: “But I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has […]
Galileo, free speech & censorship, religion and science Read More »
A debate from 2014, I believe, between Andrew Bernstein and Dinesh D’Souza, hosted at the University of Texas. Arguments about religion typically fall into three categories: 1. Philosophical arguments about supernaturalism, faith and reason, the source of morality, and so on.2. Scriptural arguments about passages in the religion’s core texts.3. Historical arguments about the record
Christianity: Good or Bad for Mankind? Bernstein and D’Souza Read More »
From the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno’s 1913 The Tragic Sense of Life, on how Kant first destroys rational belief in the existence of God but then resurrects that belief on moral grounds. Or: how Kant’s head says No to God but his heart says Yes. Or: how mortal man cannot find God but the
Unamuno on Kant on God in the first two Critiques Read More »
[This is Appendix 3 of Nietzsche and the Nazis. Sources for the quotations are at the end of this post.] Appendix 3: Quotations on German anti-Semitism Martin Luther (1483-1546): “The Jews deserve to hang on gallows, seven times higher than ordinary thieves.” And: “We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them.”[189] Immanuel
Appendix 3: Quotations on German anti-Semitism [Nietzsche and the Nazis] Read More »
I’m all confused. The hot-headed Nietzsche’s startling line from his 1887 Genealogy of Morals has always stuck with me: “the truly great haters in world history have always been priests.” That’s from the First Essay, Section 7, in the context of his analysis of slave morality born of ressentiment. But now I read that, according
Religious zealotry, political intolerance, and the precarious status of free-thinkers. In Aeon magazine, a strong essay worth reading again by Steven Nadler on “Why Spinoza Still Matters.” At a time when Americans seem willing to bargain away their freedoms for security, when politicians talk of banning people of a certain faith from our shores, and
Why Spinoza still matters Read More »
Reprising this classic from the Department of Collegial Zingers: here is W. K. Clifford on an intellectual acquaintance: “He is writing a book on metaphysics, and is really cut out for it; the clearness with which he thinks he understands things and his total inability to express what little he knows will make his fortune
W. K. Clifford on philosophical writing style Read More »
In his open letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615), Galileo offered a defense of science against the prevailing heavy hand of religious orthodoxy: “But I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo their use and by some other
Galileo’s modern compromise: Letting science work *with* religion Read More »