When you kill a man to defend an idea, you're not defending an idea. You're killing a man.

I'd like to believe that like Galileo, I would have the courage to see the world clearly, in all its cruelty and beauty, "without hope or fear," as the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis put it. Take free will. Everything I know about physics and neuroscience tells me it's a myth. But I need that illusion to get out of bed in the morning. Of all the ( Read more... )

Principles only mean something if you stick to them when it's INconvenient!

I love religious moderates. Aside from the fact that I consider myself one after a fashion, although I tend to take a strongly secular stance in the political arena. These people, when they speak up, provide such a calming effect on what is almost always a hotly contentious subject. It's nice to be reminded that not all people are extremists of ( Read more... )