#log

This is where the will to grapple with our hard and pressing environmental problems begins: in relationship to something other that you love beyond any utility, beyond any logic. ↗

— Susan Freinkel

#empathy #environment #death

Darwin, with his Origin of Species, his theories about Natural Selection, the Survival of the Fittest, and the influence of environment, shed a flood of light upon the great problems of plant and animal life. These things had been guessed, prophesied, asserted, hinted by many others, but Darwin, with infinite patience, with perfect care and candor, found the facts, fulfilled the prophecies, and demonstrated the truth of the guesses, hints and assertions. He was, in my judgment, the keenest observer, the best judge of the meaning and value of a fact, the greatest Naturalist the world has produced. The theological view began to look small and mean. Spencer gave his theory of evolution and sustained it by countless facts. He stood at a great height, and with the eyes of a philosopher, a profound thinker, surveyed the world. He has influenced the thought of the wisest. Theology looked more absurd than ever. Huxley entered the lists for Darwin. No man ever had a sharper sword -- a better shield. He challenged the world. The great theologians and the small scientists -- those who had more courage than sense, accepted the challenge. Their poor bodies were carried away by their friends. Huxley had intelligence, industry, genius, and the courage to express his thought. He was absolutely loyal to what he thought was truth. Without prejudice and without fear, he followed the footsteps of life from the lowest to the highest forms. Theology looked smaller still. Haeckel began at the simplest cell, went from change to change -- from form to form -- followed the line of development, the path of life, until he reached the human race. It was all natural. There had been no interference from without. I read the works of these great men -- of many others – and became convinced that they were right, and that all the theologians -- all the believers in "special creation" were absolutely wrong. The Garden of Eden faded away, Adam and Eve fell back to dust, the snake crawled into the grass, and Jehovah became a miserable myth. ↗

— Robert G. Ingersoll

#evolution #jehovah #knowledge #myth #science

The Americans provide still more advanced military assets and equipment; the Europeans are lagging behind. And eventually it will be difficult to co-operate even if you had the political will to co-operate because of the technological gap. ↗

— Anders Fogh Rasmussen

#assets #because #behind #co-operate #difficult

I have seen nothing and nothing but death and destruction. Creation yes, but more death than birth. Mankind has learned nothing from their forefathers…their ancestors. It is true what they say, history does repeat itself, Delacroix and those after history are left to make history but how can they make history when history has already been made? - Damion Nicodemeus; Chapter 1: Christian’s Training ↗

— S.C. Parris

#dialogue #history #history-repeating-itself #inspirational #the-dark-world

History's greatest composers would be appalled to hear their greatest works reduced to distorted hold music for businesses. ↗

— michael p naughton

#technological-progress #technology #business

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point, however, is to change it. ↗

— Karl Marx

#change #ideology #philosophy #resistance #struggle

The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides taught that the only things that are real are things which never change... and the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything changes. If you superimpose their two views, you get this result: Nothing is real. ↗

— Philip K. Dick

#nihilism #philosophy #post-modernism #reality #truth

As often as we made love I remembered what my poet told me, that this man was born of a goddess, the force that moves the stars and the waves of the sea and couples the animals in the fields in spring, the power of passion, the light of the evening star. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#mythology #passion #poetry #love

That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. ↗

— Flannery O'Connor

#christianity #prologue #death

The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. ↗

— Plato

#plato #socrates #death