Daily Archives: March 11, 2009

The Ancient Romans Were Big Water Consumers

So says Spiegel today: [In ancient Rome] there were thousands of fountains, drinking troughs and thermal baths. Rich senators refreshed themselves in private pools and decorated their gardens with cooling grottos. The result was a record daily consumption of over … Continue reading

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Mental Health Break: Peter, Paul, and Mary Sing Pete Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer”

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“It is right it should be so”? William Blake and the Problem of Suffering

In the below lines from “Auguries of Innocence” (written in the first decade of the 1800s) William Blake suggests that suffering and joy are necessarily woven together—and are, metaphorically, the clothing of the soul. But why suffering must accompany joy … Continue reading

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A LIBERAL AND HUMANIST Mythic Hero: Out of Compassion for Our Suffering and Ignorance, He Stole Fire from Heaven and Gave It to Mankind—and For This He Endured the Punishment of Zeus. An Image of PROMETHEUS Bound to a Rock, and a BIRD Plucking at His Liver

He fought the gods and, by exposing their injustice, delegitimized them, and won.

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Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Jews Forced by Nazis to Scrub a Street in Vienna

Nazis in Vienna force Jews to scrub a street as non-Jewish spectators look on: Source: U.S. Holocaust Museum. Photograph is in the public domain.

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Do Chimpanzees Have Autonoetic (Self-Knowing) Consciousness?

Santino, the stone gathering and throwing chimpanzee in a zoo near Stockholm, raises a number of interesting issues—one of them being the degree to which animals (besides humans) might have AUTONOETIC CONSCIOUSNESS. Accessing your “autonoetic consciousness” (your knowledge of yourself as … Continue reading

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An Animal in Violation of Matthew 6:25-34? A Chimpanzee is Documented Mentally Modeling His Future States and Preparing for Them!

Recently, a chimpanzee in a zoo near Stockholm has been documented by scientists ANTICIPATING HIS FUTURE EMOTIONAL STATES AND PREPARING FOR CIRCUMSTANCES THAT HAVE NOT YET ARRIVED. So says the BBC today: Santino, a chimpanzee at the zoo in the city … Continue reading

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