
Miyamoto Musashi (unknown artist)
To be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear.
To take the body seriously
is to admit one can suffer.
[Read more…]
Miyamoto Musashi (unknown artist)
To be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear.
To take the body seriously
is to admit one can suffer.
[Read more…]
I do a lot of public speaking; usually a couple of conference keynotes, and a dozen or more invited talks every year. During conference dinners and meet and greets, there is sometimes alcohol, and it’s hard to pass up a free drink, especially when it’s sometimes quite excellent.
When the world’s on the Way,
In the thread about Bletchley Park, Dunc made a comment about the “foreshortening effect of living in a country with less history.” That reminds me of two stories about history, that my dad told me.
Jean Meslier
In order to avoid all embarrassment, they tell us that it is not necessary to know what God is; that we must adore without knowing; that it is not permitted us to turn an eye of temerity upon His attributes.
Jean Meslier
We are assured that the dogma of another life is of the greatest importance to the peace of society; it is imagined that without it men would have no motives for doing good. Why do we need terrors and fables to teach any reasonable man how he ought to conduct himself upon earth?
One of my personal agendas in blogging here is to help people defeat the assumption that someone whose interests appear to be aligned with theirs on one thing, is aligned with theirs on most things.
Jean Meslier
We may be asked if atheism can suit the multitude? I reply, that every system which demands discussion is not for the multitude.
It was a lovely spring day in 2000, around May, I think, that I decided to fire up the jeep and drive to work in it for a change. The jeep (I don’t have pictures, unfortunately) was a 1976 CJ-5 with a V-8 engine, a moderate lift, big tires, and steel I-beam front and rear bumpers. I bought it for $2500 off Norm L., who had owned it for a decade or so and wanted to get rid of it because he never drove it. It was a great thing to pull stumps with, or put the wheel locks in, and go 4x4ing around the yard in when the snow got deep. Since it had no top, it just filled with snow in the winter, but you could climb in, sit in the snow, and start right up.
Jean Meslier
Whoever has formed true ideas of the ignorance, credulity, negligence, and sottishness of common people, will always regard their religious opinions with the greater suspicion for their being generally established.