Sunday, January 25, 2015

Lessons from Charlie Hebdo: Cutting through the crap

We should take this chance to look back at the Charlie Hebdo murders with sobriety and reflect on its lessons. Up until this point, a rational analysis of what got us here has been hard to come by and drowned out by louder, populist voices. Marches by anti-immigrant parties, violent demonstrations in the Muslim world to the follow-up cover featuring Muhammad and liberal attacks on the “limits” of free speech simply do not contribute to such reflection, they only shove a narrow interpretation where it cannot possibly fit.

Overcoming Faith: Obstacles to letting go of my Religion

I stopped believing in God when I was 18. Unlike most, I cannot point to one single watershed moment between my religious life and non-belief. There were glimpses I suppose, fits and starts when I felt it slipping, but never a reverberating snap.

Freed Will: Escape from My Fib’s Goad

Freed Will: Escape from My Fib’s Goad

A review of "Free Will" by Sam Harris

We are our upbringing, our genes, our friends and animosities. We are randomness and deep-seated urges, but are we more?

Why Does the World Exist?

Why Does the World Exist? - by Jim Holt

"But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?"

- William Shakespeare. “Hamlet.” Act 3, Scene 1, Page 3

What would it take to explain the universe’s existence? When it comes to every day events, finding a prior cause or at least where to look for one is almost trivial. Just imagine that your PC fails to turn on. Without giving it any thought, you would check if it was plugged in correctly and then see if everything was connected. The cause would be in the neighborhood of the PC itself, existing in time and nonrandom. The same cannot be said to apply to theories about the existence of our world.