United States Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

-  United States Declaration of Independence

Poor "Michael Jordan"...and "Michael Bolton"

Poor Michael Jordan...can't be as bad as Michael Bolton though...

Smoking and lotteries

Rationality and Materialism according to C.S Lewis

"If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too.  If so, then all our thought processes are mere accidents-the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms.  And this holds for the materialists' and astronomers; as well as for anyone else's.  But if their thoughts are merely accidental by-products...why should we believe them to be true?  I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give a correct account of all the other accidents."

- C.S Lewis

Three basic principles about China - The Diplomat

1) China is so vast in terms of land and people that it sees itself as an enclosed universe onto itself.

2) China’s overpopulation and its limited natural resources mean that the Chinese economy and political system are both based on a national zero sum game of exploiting the peasantry. 

3) This exploitation of the peasantry is so convenient and lucrative it becomes the elite’s raison d’etre, which in turn leads to a stagnant inward-looking authoritarian political order and philosophy that fears progressive ideas as much as peasant rebellions.

- The Diplomat

A Morning Prayer

Punishment versus Rewards - Aldous Huxley

In the light of what we have recently learned about animal behavior in general, and human behavior in particular, it has become clear that control through the punishment of undesirable behavior is less effec­tive, in the long run, than control through the rein­forcement of desirable behavior by rewards, and that government through terror works on the whole less well than government through the non-violent manip­ulation of the environment and of the thoughts and feelings of individual men, women and children. Pun­ishment temporarily puts a stop to undesirable behav­ior, but does not permanently reduce the victim's tend­ency to indulge in it.

- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

The End Result of History according to Calvin (and Hobbes)

Did Jesus exist? - Bart Ehrman, an agnostic historian answers

...And so, with Did Jesus Exist?, I do not expect to convince anyone in that boat. What I do hope is to convince genuine seekers who really want to know how we know that Jesus did exist, as virtually every scholar of antiquity, of biblical studies, of classics, and of Christian origins in this country and, in fact, in the Western world agrees. Many of these scholars have no vested interest in the matter. As it turns out, I myself do not either. I am not a Christian, and I have no interest in promoting a Christian cause or a Christian agenda. I am an agnostic with atheist leanings, and my life and views of the world would be approximately the same whether or not Jesus existed. My beliefs would vary little. The answer to the question of Jesus’s historical existence will not make me more or less happy, content, hopeful, likable, rich, famous, or immortal.

But as a historian I think evidence matters. And the past matters. And for anyone to whom both evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it quite plain: Jesus did exist. He may not have been the Jesus that your mother believes in or the Jesus of the stained-glass window or the Jesus of your least favorite televangelist or the Jesus proclaimed by the Vatican, the Southern Baptist Convention, the local megachurch, or the California Gnostic. But he did exist, and we can say a few things, with relative certainty, about him.

-Bart Ehrman

Happy Easter!

Coloring for Lazybones

Photoshop vs Real Cate Blanchett - Mike Cosper

Tim DeLisle, editor of Intelligent Life, commented on the un-edited photo of Cate Blanchett, saying:

When other magazines photograph actresses, they routinely end up running heavily Photoshopped images, with every last wrinkle expunged. Their skin is rendered so improbably smooth that, with the biggest stars, you wonder why the photographer didn't just do a shoot with their waxwork.

 A part of the answer is probably this : (quoted from James K. A. Smith)

It's not so much that we're intellectually convinced and then muster the willpower to pursue what we ought; rather, at a precognitive level, we are attracted to a vision of the good life that has been painted for us in stories and myths, images and icons. It is not primarily our minds that are captivated by rather our imaginations that are captured, and when the imagination is hooked, we're hooked.

- obtained from Mike Cosper's Gospel Coalition article

Moral Relativism - Sam Harris

From Sam Harris himself

"While few philosophers have ever answered to the name of 'moral relativist,' it is by no means uncommon to find local eruptions of this view whenever scientists and other academics encounter moral diversity. Forcing women and girls to wear burqas may be wrong in Boston or Palo Alto, so the argument will run, but we cannot say that it is wrong for Muslims in Kabul.... Moral relativism, however, tends to be self-contradictory. Relativists may say that moral truths exist only relative to a specific cultural framework - but this claim about the status of moral truth purports to be true across all possible frameworks. 

In practice, relativism almost always amounts to the claim that we should be tolerant of moral difference because no moral truth can supersede any other. And yet this commitment to tolerance is not put forward a simple one relative preference among others deemed equally valid. Rather, tolerance is held to be more in line with the (universal) truth about morality than intolerance is. The contradiction here is unsurprising. Given how deeply disposed we are to make universal moral claims, I think one can reasonably doubt whether any consistent moral relativist has ever existed."

- Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape

Greed is the Beginning of Everything - Tomas Sedlacek

 In a SPIEGEL interview, Czech economist Tomas Sedlacek discusses morality in the current crisis and why he believes an economic policy that only pursues growth will always lead to debt. Those who don't know how to handle it, he argues, end up in a medieval debtor's prison, as the Greeks are experiencing today.

SPIEGEL: It's easy to increase consumption, but decreasing it is much more difficult to do. Doesn't the uneven distribution of wealth also propel the wheel of desire, based on the motto that I want what others have?

Sedláček: Yes, the social ladder becomes sticky on the way down. The view of economists is that each individual seeks to maximize his benefit. The only problem with this is that we cannot precisely define what the optimal benefit is for us. We don't know what we want. That's why we need comparisons, examples and suggestion. Try imagining an object of your desire, a beautiful woman, for example. It doesn't work as an abstract idea, because the imagined image in your head is volatile. You need a photo, a description, a model. Someone has to tell you what you think is so great that you find it irresistible -- society, neighbors and colleagues, but also the advertising and entertainment industry, ads, films and books. All desires that exceed our basic biological needs are determined by culture. We want to live as if we were actors portraying ourselves.

Thanks to Kai for the article

Don Draper in 1977?

via Vulture

Can This Bring Long-Term Prespective? - Football365's article on Fabrice Muamba

"Saturday night. We were all shocked.

As the news about Fabrice Muamba's condition broke, it was a natural reaction for many people to say how this situation really 'puts everything into perspective'; that in the face of such an awful thing, football and all its business simply does not matter. And they were right. Here was a matter of life and death; there is no bigger, more profound struggle...

...If Fabrice Muamba's collapse did really 'put things into perspective' and if those words are profoundly felt, all these problems could evaporate. They do not need to exist. A better world is possible.

Perhaps we need a graphic reminder that we are all human and that more unites us than divides us. And if Saturday's events illustrated anything, it was precisely that. After a season of, at times, bitter rancour let's hope this moment of darkness ends up illuminating a new path."

- From Football 365 "Can This Bring Long Term Perspective"?