Science
Philosophy
Music (including playing my bass)
Baseball (go Tigers!)
MMA. Georges St. Pierre is the MAN!
Ridding the world of the poisonous idea that it is somehow a virtue instead of destructive to all of humanity to believe things without reason.
I'd like to meet:
Bertrand Arthur William Russell [Third Earl Russell] (1872-1970) of course. Who else? Heres a bit of why:
"My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity."
"I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs."
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some others."
"One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it."
"Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindness in favor of systematic hatred."
"Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false."
"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
"The whole conception of a God is a conception derived from the ancient oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men.... We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages."
"If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it's still a foolish thing."
"There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dares not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed."
"Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do."
"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand."
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.... This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."
Music:
Lately I can't stop listening to Sea Legs by The Shins. Great song!Edit: The entirety of the Wincing the Night Away disc is beautiful and brilliant. Listen to it!
Movies:
Too many to list but Taxi Driver and The Princess Bride are at the top.
Television:
I find that now even the so-called "educational"
channels such as even my former favorites are filled with nonsensical shit about ghosts and the Naked Archaeologist whose only real interest is in twisting things to fit what the Holey Babble says and paranormal this and anthropomorphic gods that and blah blah fucking blah. The idea that TV is shit is not new but there has always been SOMETHING worth viewing. And while there still is a little bit (Animal Planet for instance) there is only a very little bit and more that is positively ignorant.
In what I think of as "regular TV", I like Two and a Half Men and the Law and Orders.
Californication is the BEST show on TV.
Books:
Why I am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell. Anything by Bertrand Russell actually. He is the most important person you'll ever read.
Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel C. Dennett.
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.
god is not Great - How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens.
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. Incredible book!
The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond.
Heroes:
Bertrand Russell. Also Larry Bird, Friedrich Nietzsche and Denzel Washington.
