10 MAR 2017 by ideonexus

 Stapleton's Use of Religious Terms

At the risk of raising thunder both on the Left and on the Right, I have occasionally used certain ideas and words derived from religion, and I have tried to interpret them in relation to modern needs. The valuable, though much damaged words "spiritual" and "worship," which have become almost as obscene to the Left as the good old sexual words are to the Right, are here intended to suggest an experience which the Right is apt to pervert and the Left to misconceive. This experience, I should s...
Folksonomies: language religiosity
Folksonomies: language religiosity
  1  notes
 
29 MAY 2014 by ideonexus

 When Science Became a Profession

The possibilities of modem technology were first in practice realised in England by the energy of a prosperous middle class. Accordingly, the industrial revolution started there. But the Germans explicitly realised the methods by which the deeper veins in the mine of science could be reached. In their technological schools and universities progress did not have to wait for the occasional genius or the occasional lucky thought. Their feats of scholarship during the nineteenth century were the ...
  1  notes

Rising from the prosperous classes and the reliance on occasional genius to a methodology for producing consistent results.

09 JAN 2013 by ideonexus

 Humanism

The humanist is filled with wonder and admiration at the creatures that are human, at their capacity for accomplishment, for sacrifice, at the intricacy and precision of that nervous system which has made it; it possible for them to stand where they do today in nature' hierarchy. We are convinced that if we use to an eve greater extent our unique capacities for discovery and for for cooperation, the future of our race will be a brilliant and a happy one.
Folksonomies: humanism
Folksonomies: humanism
  1  notes

A concise definition of the Humanist worldview.

05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus

 The Universe is One Great Machine

Look round the world, contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to end...
Folksonomies: nature cosmos
Folksonomies: nature cosmos
  1  notes

Made up of smaller machines.

11 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Contemplation of Nature Makes a Mind Noble

Science, regarded as the pursuit of truth, which can only be attained by patient and unprejudiced investigation, wherein nothing is too great to be attempted, nothing so minute as to be justly disregarded, must ever afford occupation of consummate interest and subject of elevated meditation. The contemplation of the works of creation elevates the mind to the admiration of whatever is great and noble ; accomplishing the object of all study,—which, in the elegant language of Sir James Mackint...
Folksonomies: nature god naturalism
Folksonomies: nature god naturalism
  1  notes

Because we are seeing the mind of god, which inspires noble thoughts.

01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus

 Nothing is Fun Until You're Good at It

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, ...
Folksonomies: parenting
Folksonomies: parenting
 2  2  notes

A meme about the difference between Chinese and Western mothers, where Chinese mothers force their children to keep at tasks until they master them.