Tag: Voltaire

• Does the love of heaven make one heavenly?

  Why do find myself so attracted to articles about religion? I am not an adherent -religion does not stick to me- nor am I tempted to take the famous wager of the 17th century philosopher, Pascal: dare to live life as if God exists, because you’ve got nothing to lose if He doesn’t, and everything…

  gozzter

  December 16, 2020

  Uncategorized

  Alain de Botton, BBC Future, Catholicism, Charon, Christianity, Constantine, Edict of Milan, Edict of Thessalonica, God, Hinduism, Karl Marx, Linda Woodhead, Pascal’s Wager, polytheism, religion, Sigmund Freud, Sumit Paul-Choudhury, the River Styx, Theodosius, University of Lancaster, Voltaire

• A Predilection for Extinction?

    There appears to be a lot of concern about extinctions nowadays -everything from spotted owls to indigenous languages pepper the list. Things around us that we took for granted seem to be disappearing before we even get to know or appreciate them. One has to wonder whether this is accompanied by furtive, yet anxious,…

  gozzter

  June 24, 2020

  Uncategorized

  Anthropocene, Arthur Lovejoy, Candide, demography, existence, extinction, Imm, Immanuel Kant, Leibniz, Oxford University, Principle of Plenitude, the Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Moynihan, Voltaire

• The Problem of Freedom

  The rough, shadowed texture of a log fallen across a meandering stream, the scattered sparkles of the water as it murmurs briefly to a rock it passes, the deep, barely moving green of the leafy tunnel that shrouds the gently dancing blue beneath -these are what I know of freedom: permission to imagine, permission to…

  gozzter

  September 9, 2015

  Uncategorized

  abstract, Alison Gopnik, baby, baby’s movements, baby’s thoughts, due date, Fetal distress, Freedom, Non stress test, NST, permission, problem of freedom, Robert Frost, The Philosophical Baby, ultrasound, Voltaire