We all read Voltaire’s “Candide” in our school days and the mantra still ricochets in our heads, “Oh yes, this is the best of all possible worlds” as the hero Dr. Pangloss goes about his series of misadventures. Voltaire was satirizing the words of an intellectual giant, a fellow…
One of mankind’s greatest intellectual triumphs is its discovery of a love of wisdom commonly known as Philosophy. Unfortunately, especially in the United States, any mention of the term solicits a roll of the eyes and an insult about an ivory tower or some scatterbrained professor with mismatched socks.…
I’m for strict gun control and believe the evidence for its support is overwhelming. And like most gun control advocates, I have no problem with hunting weapons or pistols for personal protection. It’s hard to argue against these even if you love Bambi as I do. On the other…
The Four Horsemen have done us a great service. They have exposed religion to the eye of analysis and have declared with eloquence that not only is it not beyond criticism but in a civilized society its public examination is fundamentally demanded. They have exposed the horror, degradation, murder and rape that religion often fosters, the abuse heaped on children in the name of sanctity, and the extremists for their dangerous ignorance and denial of science.
Stephen Hawking may have said it best when he asked, “Why did the universe bother to exist at all?” If all this is truly random and arguably meaningless, what, in nature’s name, is the fricking point?
Perhaps the most telling revelation in the book is the author’s discovery that sociopaths often use one particular emotion...It’s the ultimate empathic emotion called pity. If you pity someone you let them get away with anything.
Science fiction is a world of ideas. That’s why we allow its practitioners such leeway in the quality of their prose. It is rather hard to be a man of ideas and a prose stylist – it’s rather like a metrosexual engineer – a rare breed. When you throw…
By: Einsteinlite Bonjour Laziness is a funny little book. It’s a laugh out loud book really, at least for the nonconformists out there who have ever had the pleasure of working for a megalithic Corporation. If you’re a guy who jumps up and salutes during the pledge of allegiance…
By: EinsteinLite Recently my girlfriend and I watched a documentary about the Himalayas which centered on the amazing creatures of the Tibetan plateau. While getting an up-close view of the visage of the Himalayan fox, we were both struck by the symmetry, color coordination and regal features of this…
By: EinsteinLite A colleague used to visit my cube and say something like “Hitch-em-up’s at it again” and we’d both chuckle with understated glee. By this he meant that the notorious Christopher Hitchens had penned yet another controversial article and that I must absorb it as quickly as possible.…