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Reading for the 2nd time


“Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good--" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.”
― Heretics
― Heretics
“You say that your scientific peers “have no just right to expectâ€� the “imperfectâ€� geological record to refute your theory, yet you maintain the “just rightâ€� to manipulate, as “requiredâ€�, that very same “imperfectâ€� record to “proveâ€� your theory. This is Orwellian double-think.”
― God vs. Darwin: The Logical Supremacy of Intelligent Design Creationism Over Evolution
― God vs. Darwin: The Logical Supremacy of Intelligent Design Creationism Over Evolution

“Now we are able to rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes â€� and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away and he that sits upon the throne will say, ‘Behold, I make all things new.”
― The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?
― The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?
“You need to quit being a floor that everyone walks on and turn yourself into a wall that no one can pass through.”
―
―

“Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love; close enough on the surface but, to the nonsucker, not exactly the same thing”
― The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
― The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
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