Tag Archives: Dostoevsky

Absent Good Reasons and Evidence, Trust No One

Posted on April 15, 2014 by

I don’t like this t-shirt. It cheer-leads obfuscation, mystification, authority. A better statement would be, “I’m a professor. If I make a claim, doubt it and ask for the reasons and evidence I have in support of the claim. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why was Socrates Put to Death?

Posted on March 4, 2014 by

At Slate, David Auerbach summarizes philosopher Rebecca Goldstein’s take on why Socrates died: Goldstein [in her new book, Plato at the Googleplex] argues that Socrates was ultimately executed because he deferred to no one’s authority and tore down Athens’ idealized … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Burger King in Russia, Circa 2011

Posted on December 14, 2011 by

Thought experiment. Imagine resurrecting the following figures from the Russian and Soviet past: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Czar Nicholas, and Lenin. Show them the ad below. Tell them this is what is being promoted to Russian youth as desirable in the year … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I Plank, Therefore I Am

Posted on May 26, 2011 by

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                . If you don’t know what planking is, it’s where you have somebody take a picture of you lying, typically face down, rigid as a board, in an unexpected place. You then post it on the Internet. In the above photo, for … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Checkmate: Death and Determinism are the Two Absolute Truths of Atheism

Posted on April 28, 2011 by

It’s sometimes asserted that atheism admits of no ultimate or absolute truths, but in the “D Girl” episode of the Sopranos (Season 2) is a rather nice exchange between Tony Soprano and his therapist, Dr. Jennifer Malfi, that suggests otherwise. The exchange concerns … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Critical Thinking Tip #4: Distinguish Experts from Authorities

Posted on January 30, 2011 by

Experts know more about their subject of expertise than you do. So, if you discover that you possess a view that contradicts the vast majority of experts, it’s more likely than not that they’re right and you’re wrong. In determining … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jared Loughner: An Atheist Motivated by Nihilism?

Posted on January 11, 2011 by

Of all the ink spilled so far over Jared Loughner’s shooting in the head of a Jewish congresswoman, Gabriella Giffords, the Mother Jones interview with Loughner’s long time friend, Bryce Tierne, is, I think, most illuminating, particularly with regard to Loughner’s underlying obsessions: … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Top Secret America: An Alien Has Landed?

Posted on August 8, 2010 by

I just read Part 1 of the Washington Post’s investigative report on “Top Secret America.” Below is my brief digest of Part 1, accompanied by what I regard as the article’s key quotes. The full piece is here. The Washington Post calls the Fort Meade cluster of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Existential Flungness in a Twilight Zone Episode

Posted on May 28, 2010 by

The first ten minutes of this Twilight Zone episode is Rod Serling channeling Beckett, Kafka, and Sartre. It’s very cool. Unfortunately, the rest of the episode is not on YouTube. I know the ending, though, and will tell you what it … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

An atheist’s despair at the universe’s apparent lack of purpose—and a plea for meaning?

Posted on May 18, 2010 by

Some of the lyrics: Give me something to believe. Cause I am living just to breath. And I need something more to keep on breathing for. So give me something to believe. Is atheism a dead end that leads to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Structural Demolition and the Religious Psyche

Posted on February 23, 2010 by

Hmm. I understand the metaphor, but there’s also something vaguely disturbing about mixing a spiritual message with the primitive glee of tearing down a real building:

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Adam Kirsch Reviews Zeev Sternhell’s New Book on the Enlightenment v. Romanticism

Posted on January 18, 2010 by

Are you an Enlightenment universalist, a brooding Romantic, or a Rorty-like Pragmatist trying to split the difference? Regardless of your answer, a new book has just come out with a very definite point of view on the question (the author … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Can an Authoritarian Tree Produce Good Fruit? Thinking about John Calvin’s Geneva

Posted on November 3, 2009 by

After Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth? Here’s the historian Will Durant, from his book The Reformation (1957, pp. 473-474), on what John Calvin’s Geneva was like in the 16th century: Calvin himself, austere and severe, dreamed of a community … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Meat Eating Combined with Running Makes You Smarter?

Posted on September 26, 2009 by

Well, not exactly. But according to Harvard scientist Dan Lieberman, it was a big factor in making  you smart in the first place. Here’s his syllogism: Starting about two million years ago, our ancestors’s ever increasing ability to run long distances … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Notes from Underground

Posted on July 2, 2009 by

Who will speak from the insistent vantage of the ontological mystery? Against the best efforts of our contemporary advocates of scientism, positivism, and reductionism, below is a succinct explanation for why religion, poetry, Dostoevsky’s “underground man,” and Camus’s “Sisyphian hero” cannot just cede the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Irony, Contingency, Solidarity: It’s Not Easy Being Green—Especially in Iran

Posted on June 10, 2009 by

Perhaps you’ve noticed that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was opposed in the recent election by a man with rather bold and outspoken followers who had a particular fondness for green. In fact, you may have observed that there’s a lot of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

“What is called resignation is confirmed desperation” (Henry David Thoreau)

Posted on June 2, 2009 by

Escaping from freedom into the ecstasy of resignation and submission (1967): Or another way to look at it: “Atheism is a ferocious system, that leaves nothing above us to excite awe, nor around us to awaken tenderness” (R. Hall).

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This Hans Holbein Painting of Christ after Crucifixion Sparked Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Imagination

Posted on March 10, 2009 by

While living in Bern, Germany, Fyodor Dostoevsky was mesmerized by the Hans Holbein painting below. Dostoevsky saw what the painting depicted as the pivot on which faith or unbelief must rest. One must either believe that God raised Jesus’s body from … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Mental Health Break: Harry Tuttle Doesn’t Like Paperwork, and He is at Your Service!

Posted on February 2, 2009 by
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Quote of the Day

Posted on January 10, 2009 by

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote this arresting passage in his short story, “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”: [P]eople appeared who began devising ways of bringing men together again, so that each individual, without ceasing to prize himself above all others, might not … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment