Is the Dawkins-Hitchens PR campaign against religion worth the effort?

Posted by Robert Hanrott on 27 August 2007, 2:12 am

…..the more important a particular belief is to us, the more strongly we will ignore or reject evidence suggesting that we are wrong. So what are the most central beliefs that people hold? Their religious beliefs, their political beliefs. Certainly many scientists have held beliefs deeply that have taken a few hundred years to overturn, …

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Words of the wise

Posted by Robert Hanrott on 26 August 2007, 2:03 am

American women like quiet men. They imagine they are listening. To be serious though, hard as it is to be a genuine Epicurean, one of the defining characteristics of the Epicurean garden was, and ought to be, the fact that you shouldn’t simply expound, you should listen. By actually listening, in contradistinction to simply hearing, …

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Judgment on Ligeti

Posted by Robert Hanrott on 25 August 2007, 2:56 am

….Figures emerge from broken reflections contained in the mobile fluid of perpetual semiquaver tremolandos and arpeggios."* And Epicureans plant potatoes. *From a programme note by Paul Griffiths on Gyorgy Ligeti’s five Etudes for Piano Solo

Diversity

Posted by Robert Hanrott on 24 August 2007, 2:36 am

The Harvard political scientist, Robert Putnam, famous for Bowling Alone, his book on declining civic engagement, has found that the greater the diversity of a community the fewer people vote, the less they volunteer, and the less they give to charity or work on community projects. In the most diverse communities neighbours trust each other …

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Can medical doctors be regarded as educated people?

Posted by Robert Hanrott on 23 August 2007, 3:00 am

The alleged involvement of medical doctors and , maybe, other people involved in medicine in the recent terrorist plots in the UK raises an interesting point. Has the study of medicine become so pressurized and so technical that young doctors have no time to get a true education that opens the mind , allows them …

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Epicurus Today

Moderation, Enjoyment of Life, Tranquility, Friendship, Lack of Fear

Archive of entries posted by Robert Hanrott

Is the Dawkins-Hitchens PR campaign against religion worth the effort?

Words of the wise

Judgment on Ligeti

Diversity

Can medical doctors be regarded as educated people?