If you only live through others, you are not quite alive, for you can never decide for yourself.
If you only live through yourself, you are never quite alive, for you have no reasons to make any decisions.
Author: ashepherd
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In Praise of Pragmatism
Pragmatic acceptance of the facts is the only way to deal with evil. Hatred is the admission of ultimate defeat, allowing your foe to preoccupy and control you.
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Exemplars
I completely disagree with Descartes, Pascal and Kant about the existence of God. I think their conclusions that God exists were a desperate resort to wishful thinking. And yet they gave more to my atheism than anyone who came after them denying the existence of God. They gave me an example of intellectual courage and a method of systematic doubt.
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Set Theory
Where the set theory fails:
there is a large set of things that I find pretty,
there is a larger set of things that I find interesting,
and a still larger set of things that I find pretty interesting.
However, only two of them overlap. -
Poetry
In the rare cases when they don’t rely on knee-jerk sentimentality, bad poets make you think: ‘these feelings are much stranger and stronger than what I feel, it must be what deep feelings are like and what I am supposed to feel…’ Good poets make you think: ‘this is exactly how I feel when I have no words to describe it…’ Brilliant poets make you think: ‘Huh? What? Why? Wow!’
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Freedom of Religion
I consider freedom of thought and belief essential for the functioning of a society I want to live in and, therefore, I am for the people’s freedom to practice their religion. Unfortunately, most religions violently disagree.
