I have been reading quite a bit. I have a Nook and a Kindle Fire
so it's quite handy to take books with us while traveling. The most
recent books I enjoy are:
1. "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson: A compelling story of a complex
human being.
2. "The Swerve: How the World Became Modern" by Stephen Greenblatt:
An amazing story-telling of Western civilization to the Renaissance
and Enlightenment.
3. "Knocking on Heaven's Door: How physics and Scientific Thinking illuminate
the Universe and Modern World" by Lisa Randall. An explanation of
the complex universe [or multi-verse] we live in from quantum physics
to the cosmos. Highly recommended.
I really enjoy the free time to re-educate myself with books,
Netflix, magazines, newspapers, online Wikipedia,...
The difference I find that books [those I mentioned before] are much
more complex and are difficult to present in a different media such as
TV. I don't deny the power of visual presentations; we were quite
impressed with Netflix's "Downton Abbey" series and other
science programs from PBS. "Mao's last dancer" movie on Netflix
was also quite a powerful message. But it is not easy to present
ideas from "The Swerve" or Lisa Randall's "Touching Heaven's..."
books in video format.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
An agnostic Epicurean
Many believe organized religions have done much more harm throughout history
than good. One just has to be reminded of four centuries of the
Catholic Church's savage Medieval Inquisition and its ill-gotten wealth to this day, the brutal
oppression of women and people of other faith by Islam and the ludicrous
promise - preventing oppressed, poor, less educated/fortunate people to make
change to their present life - of the "next life" by Buddhism. Or their Hindu
misfortune is due to their previous life's bad Karma. In addition, many core
tenets of religious belief systems fail utterly under scientific and
philosophical examinations.
There are many psychological studies showing that reincarnation and stories
of past life are just "false memories". At worst, the invented
reincarnation stories - mostly from poor, less educated communities in India - are scams allowing children of the poorer Hindu caste to gain entrance into the higher
caste. [Note: boys claimed to be the reincarnated [dead] husband of wealthy land-owner's
daughter. In fact, the barbaric practice to burn alive widows came from the
needs to preserve family's wealth.]
A writer in our today's local newspaper explains himself very well below.
"Consider Russell's Teapot, an idea first proposed by Bertrand
Russell, who postulated that if he were to claim that a teapot were orbiting the sun somewhere
between Earth and Mars, the burden of proof of the teapot's existence would be his, not those who doubted his claim. I assume that most people who believe in God would
claim that a teapot orbiting the sun was preposterous, and they wouldn't feel
obligated in any way to prove that it didn't exist.
Personally I think a teapot orbiting the sun is highly unlikely, but
not impossible. It doesn't violate any laws of physics that I am aware of. I also
don't believe in the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, although I concede that there might be one chance in a quadrillion that they exist."
than good. One just has to be reminded of four centuries of the
Catholic Church's savage Medieval Inquisition and its ill-gotten wealth to this day, the brutal
oppression of women and people of other faith by Islam and the ludicrous
promise - preventing oppressed, poor, less educated/fortunate people to make
change to their present life - of the "next life" by Buddhism. Or their Hindu
misfortune is due to their previous life's bad Karma. In addition, many core
tenets of religious belief systems fail utterly under scientific and
philosophical examinations.
There are many psychological studies showing that reincarnation and stories
of past life are just "false memories". At worst, the invented
reincarnation stories - mostly from poor, less educated communities in India - are scams allowing children of the poorer Hindu caste to gain entrance into the higher
caste. [Note: boys claimed to be the reincarnated [dead] husband of wealthy land-owner's
daughter. In fact, the barbaric practice to burn alive widows came from the
needs to preserve family's wealth.]
A writer in our today's local newspaper explains himself very well below.
"Consider Russell's Teapot, an idea first proposed by Bertrand
Russell, who postulated that if he were to claim that a teapot were orbiting the sun somewhere
between Earth and Mars, the burden of proof of the teapot's existence would be his, not those who doubted his claim. I assume that most people who believe in God would
claim that a teapot orbiting the sun was preposterous, and they wouldn't feel
obligated in any way to prove that it didn't exist.
Personally I think a teapot orbiting the sun is highly unlikely, but
not impossible. It doesn't violate any laws of physics that I am aware of. I also
don't believe in the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, although I concede that there might be one chance in a quadrillion that they exist."
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