In his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1998), Robert Cialdini describes an experiment that illustrated the power of the word "because." The experiment was conducted by Harvard social psychologist Ellen Langer, who found that people are highly motivated by the form of others’ reasons, even reasons lack persuasive content. …
Americans agree strongly that it was a mistake for the United States to invade Iraq: An Associated Press-Ipsos poll last month found that 59 percent of Americans say the United States erred in going to war in Iraq. Among Democrats, 84 percent said the war was a mistake, up from…
Brian Palmer reports on this statement of a USMC training officer, a captain: "Over the last 12 months or so we killed about 1000 Iraqis at blocking positions and checkpoints," the captain told the grunts. "About 60 -- six zero -- we could demonstrate that, yeah, he was a bad guy.…
In my opinion, these are two topics that should always be discussed together. I’ve collected these quotes over the years:
Heaven: “a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable, that nobody has ever ventured to describe a whole day in heaven, though plenty of people have described a day at the seaside.” –George Bernard Shaw
Theist and atheist: the fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name. –Willard R. Espy
“We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything.” — Thomas Alva Edison
“I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with the sense, reason, and intellect, had intended for us to forgo their use.” –Galileo Galilei
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.” –Frank Lloyd Wright
“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.” — Susan B. Anthony
“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” – Albert Einstein
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this. –Bertrand Russell…
Would we harm our selves in ways that we would never let others harm us? Yes, actually. We do this all the time. This common occurrence has long intrigued me.
About fifteen years ago, I was trying to lose weight. A diet book I was reading presented a hypothetical, which I have embellished:
…Imagine that a gang of strangers repeatedly broke into your house. Each time they broke in, they brought a large basket of food with them. Each time they broke in, they tracked you down and forced you to eat food that you didn’t need or want. “Stop that!” You would yell. “I’m not hungry. Go away!” Nonetheless, the strangers forced you to eat food that you didn’t want. They returned every few hours and repeated his attack on you. Every time you tried to exercise, the strangers appeared and made you sit on the couch to watch television instead.
Over the course of months, the excess food the strangers forced you to eat caused your body to bloat larger and larger. Your clothing stopped fitting. It became difficult to get in and out of your car. Most of your acquaintances gossiped about how you had become “fat.”
And it got even worse. You became diabetic. You got depressed. You constantly cursed those strangers for making you obese and unhealthy. You bought special burglar-proof doors and windows (but they didn’t work). Because this gang repeatedly violated your rights, you even considered buying a gun to defend yourself from