13 Sep, 2023
There's a Dutch saying that translates like the shore will stop the ship (ie, #16). There's no English equivalent. To some extent, it means that you can only push someone or things so far before they break (eg, source). I was reminded of this saying after reading that the GOP in Alabama ignores court rulings. My blog title has an implicit question: Is reality (eg,...
7 Sep, 2023
Recently, Pope Francis made an intriguing comment about faith versus ideology: “In other words, ideologies replace faith.” See National Review, 28 August 2023: Pope Francis Says ‘Reactionary’ U.S. Catholic Church Has Replaced Faith with ‘Ideology’. It's intriguing because any Religion = ideology. In my blogs, I separate faith from Religion. As I once said to someone...
30 Aug, 2023
In various blogs, I mentioned the various names of a Supreme Being, like Ahura Mazda, Allah, God, Jupiter, Odin, Shiva, Yahweh and Zeus. Recently, I wondered: if there’s just 1 God then why has God so many names?? The ultimate answer may well be in Mahatma Gandhi's message below. Scientists have never found any culture without evidence of...
8 Jun, 2023
Until recently, I didn't appreciate this topic. In my view, it was a hobby horse (Dutch: stokpaardje) of the liberal-left. Today, my perspective is shifting following its drivers, being: (i) increasing life expectancy or demographics, (ii) being irrelevant to society, (iii) declining religion, and (iv) urbanisation. In many countries, the average age of the...
5 Jun, 2023
Recently, I noticed this strange question above in an Aeon-Psyche article: Do we have good reasons to believe in beliefs? A radical philosophy of mind says no. Last Saturday, a new friend said the following: "Believing is in the nature of mankind; it's a clear feeling. You're almost born with it." I couldn't agree more with what he said. It was in a slightly...
25 May, 2023
The phrase above is from Baruch Spinoza's book Ethics (1677). In the Latin language, it was: "Deus sive Natura". Wiki: "For Spinoza the whole of the natural universe is made of one substance, God, or, what's the same, Nature, and its modifications (modes)." I suppose, this comes close to my views. Big Think, The Well, newsletter 25 April 2023 The...
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