In the intellectual tradition of the West, through the Middle Ages, until the modern era, Theology was considered the “queen of the sciences.” With the demise of Roman law and order the Catholic Church was the guarantor of European social order in the Middle Ages. God’s law, the cathedrals and monasteries were the conservators…
Can’t focus on anything in particular this morning. Thus, I offer for consideration a selection of aphorisms from Nietzsche in section 4, Epigrams and Interludes, found in Beyond Good and Evil. This is a playlist, some of Nietzsche’s Greatest Hits. 69. One has watched life badly, if one has failed to see the hand…
There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, with many rungs; but three of these are the most important. Once men sacrificed human beings to their God, and perhaps just those they loved the best–to this category belong the first-born sacrifices of all primitive religions, and also the sacrifice of the Emperor Tiberius in…
How pleasant to know that Epicurus is part of our Grecco-Roman heritage. The culture of the West owes a great deal to the intellectual ideals of Greece and Rome. The Epicurean spirit is one of hospitality, of generous invitation. The host and keeper of this place, where you will find the pleasure of the…
I struggle to write this morning. I awakened to the details of the Republican replacement for the ACA. The Affordable Care Act was a work in process, an attempt to blunt the double digit annual increase in health care cost. The measure was a heroic attempt. The real issue always has been and is…
O sancta simplicitas!………….. Giving our senses a passport to everything superficial, our thoughts a godlike desire for wanton leaps and wrong inferences!–how from the beginning, we have contrived to retain our ignorance…… And only on this solidified, granitelike foundation of ignorance could knowledge rear itself hitherto, the will to knowledge on the foundation of…
WANTING TO LIVE ACCORDING TO NATURE So, you want to live according to nature? Imagine a being like nature: Wasteful beyond measure, Indifferent beyond measure Without purposes and consideration, Without mercy and justice, Fertile and desolate and uncertain at the same time; Imagine indifference itself as a power—– How could you live according to…
Saturday and I am up early. The days are longer and I am thankful for extended day light plus a morning that offers me hot coffee and music. As I arrived here at Starbucks Paul Simon’s Mother and Child Reunion played on my car radio. I’ve witnessed Paul Simon in concert and I felt…
Sloth – Laziness is really fear. We can’t bear to get down to our work, because if we were to apply ourselves, we risk terrifying humiliation. We might not succeed as well as we’d like, we might find a task too hard, we may realise we’re not yet equipped to undertake it or be mocked…
Over the years Don has contended for a thorough going cause/effect description of reality. We’ve enjoyed exchanges exploring the possibility or impossibility of free will. This story is for you, Don. “Explain free will,” I said. “Imagine a copper penny that is exactly like an ordinary penny except that for this discussion it has…
