Thought for the day
"In politics, absurdity is not a handicap." - Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)
Superstition, Religion and Reason Quotes
At this Cape Cod history and genealogy page, you can find a collection of hundreds of quotes regarding superstition and reason. I had not seen many of these quotes before. Here's a sampling: A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. - Winston Churchill You…
Demi-gogs R Us
I wondered recently, during an idle conversation, whatever became of that monumental media presence Rush Limbaugh. Now I know. He's been upstaged. Check out the following quote: "They're almost always biologists—the "science" with the greatest preponderance of women. The distaff MIT "scientist" who fled the room in response to Larry…
Candidates around the US leave voters “ignorant.”
The Founding Fathers of the United States feared the effects of a largely uninformed populous. In the 1700s, Democracy still struck many people as a dangerous proposition, reliant on the education and devotion of the masses. With an unaware voting public, the logic went, Republic could turn to tyranny. We cannot idly expect the government to afford us our basic rights; we instead must always fight to retain them. Thomas Jefferson said it succinctly: “If the nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.” Fellow Virginian James Madison explained it this way:
A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both. A people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
How ironic that Virginia voters have some of the worst access to candidates’ positions of any state in the nation. Public ignorance doesn’t get the blame this time, though. The majority of Virginian candidates up for election this November have neglected to fill out the nation’s foremost position survey, Project Votesmart’s National Political Awareness Test (NPAT).
Project Votesmart launched nationally in 1992. The nonpartisan organization, created by the diverse likes of George McGovern, John McCain, Bill Frist, Michael Dukakis, and Jimmy Carter, aims to create the most comprehensive database of information on candidates bidding for office. Project Votesmart’s website features background information and incumbents’ voting records, vast …
A sampling of Bertrand Russell quotes
Yesterday I wrote a post describing how I discovered Bertrand Russell while I was an intellectually frustrated and isolated teen-aged boy. Back then, I was startled to see someone else who was publicly critical of religious institutions. Thinking about those days yesterday provoked me to scour the Internet today for some of Russell’s well-known quotes. There are many more Russell quotes out there than these; he was a prolific writer.
Russell, best known for being a mathematician and logician, dismayed many people while he was alive. After all, he didn’t believe in God. He spoke openly of sexual pleasure being a good thing; he protested against the Vietnam war. Now, however, many of his writings seem only like common sense.
I admired Russell’s clean writing style, his sense of wit, his astute observations and his good heart.
- It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
- “The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.”
- The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
- One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
- The most