Author Archives: rsree
Death on the Amber Shore
Warning: This, sadly, is a true story of incredible cruelty that you will not be able to get easily out of your mind once you have read it. It is one of many similar acts of unimaginable savagery making up the … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture
Tagged Anna Grube, death march, East Prussia, Holocaust, Jews, Konigsberg, Maria Blitz, Martin Bergau, Massacre at Palmnicken, Nazi Germany
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The Scourge of Mankind
One continues to wonder why anyone would be willing to kill a fellow human being just because they don’t share your religious beliefs. But for any student of European history it is not too difficult to be reminded of such … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture
Tagged Abbot of Citeaux, Béziers, Cathars, Charlemagne, Charles the Great, Christianity, Deuteronomy XIII, inquisition, Jihadi, Languedoc, massacre, Middle East, Muslims, religion, Roman Catholic Church, Saxons, Verden
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Mars
On October 12 of 2016 U.S. President Barack Obama vowed to help send people to Mars within the next 15 years, pledging to work with private companies “to build new habitats that can sustain and transport astronauts on long-duration missions … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture
Tagged cosmic radiation, Dead Planet, Jules Verne, Mars, Mars One, Mission to Mars, One Way Journey to Mars, Ray Bradbury, science fiction
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The Limits of Our World
Given that there are limitations to what we can achieve with our bodies in a physical sense – e.g., how high we can jump, or how fast we can run – it seems reasonable to think there are also limits … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Science & Religion
Tagged human cortex, intellect, limits of the world, sentiency, the world
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The Larger Context
Life’s larger context is defined, in the first place, by our ideas about our place in the world provided we see it in in terms of being intrinsically linked to everything else that is going on in it. Consequently, our … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Science & Religion, Uncategorized
Tagged creativity, evolution, technology, the larger context
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Spiritual Beliefs
Existential writers such as Søren Kierkegaard claimed that proof of God cannot be the outcome of a logical argument, such that God’s existence can never be a public or objective truth. Belief in God, consequently, must always be a private … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Science & Religion
Tagged God, gullibiliy, manipulation, religion, spiritual beliefs
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Dreams
‘Our birth is but a sleep and forgetting: The Soul, that rises with us, our life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar.’ (William Wordsworth) There are some who believe that reality is but a dream in … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture
Tagged Allegories, Dreams, emotional echos, meaning of dreams
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Religion
The suggestion that the human race is lost and absolutely hapless when it comes to understanding their place in the world has been expressed many times. In the mid 1600’s the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza wrote that people find themselves … Continue reading
Posted in People, Politics & Culture, Philosophy, Science & Religion
Tagged God, moral authority, religion
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A Solution in Search of a Problem
Much of what I am trying to do here is to get to the story behind the story, i.e., to get a glimpse of the greater context of what plays itself out every day as what we refer to as … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Science & Religion, Uncategorized
Tagged cosmology, infinte universe, life, living, meaning of life, the story behind the story
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