philosophy

"It’s hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them. … I’m a winner. It’s not being a poor sport or anything like that. If somebody beats you up, you’re not going to congratulate the…"

"Belief in God is apparently a psychological artifact of mammalian reproduction."

"Seeing our creation’s name in print made us feel like minor gods; we had summoned into existence a human being, or at least the illusion of one."

"A philosophy does not play its role as an actor during a recital; it interacts with other philosophies and with other facts, and it cannot know the results of the interaction between itself and other …"

"A strong duty to relieve suffering that does not discriminate between species would require radical changes in the ways that we relate to other animals. It would, for example, require an end to the pr…"

"If God can be found through the medium of any drug, God is not worthy of being God."

"The most important motivation for the research work that resulted in the relational model was the objective of providing a sharp and clear boundary between the logical and physical aspects of database…"

"In our modern world we have seen inaugurated the reign of a dull bourgeois rationalism, which finds some inadequate reason for all things in heaven and earth and makes a god of its own infallibility."

"In early physical systems we have optics dealing with phenomena perceived by the eye; acoustics treating of auditory percepts, and so on. The subjective concepts of "tone" and "colour" have now been r…"

"If our society ever opted for Orwell’s Big Brother approach, the instrument of choice for oppression would have to be the credit wake. In a totally noncash economy with only a vestigial barter black m…"

"There is a mystery about the Jews … and within this mystery lies the reason for the folk pride of the house of Abraham. This pride exists despite the disabilities that come from many centuries of ostr…"

"A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise"

"A harmonious being cannot believe in God. Saints, criminals, and paupers have launched him, making him available to all unhappy people."

"Every major industry was once a growth industry. But some that are now riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are very much in the shadow of decline. Others, which are thought of as seasoned growth indust…"

"The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity — it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But…"

"All acts of reasoning seem to me to be different cases of one uniform process which may perhaps be best described as the substitution of similars. ..The chief difficulty consists in showing that all t…"

"It's not too much to say that every indication of Design in the Kosmos is evidence against the Omnipotence of the Designer. For what is meant by Design? Contrivance: the adaptation of means to an end.…"

"I was also upset to hear of a black conservative in Virginia named Jay Parker. How could a black man call himself a conservative? In a twist of fate, they both are dear friends today, and the youthful…"

"Religion survives science and secular ideology not because it is prior to or more primitive than science or secular reasoning, but because of what it affectively and collectively secures for people."

"To be associated with industry no longer carries the stigma of profiteering, exploitation and of being uncaring as it did when I was at school."