Source: Extreme Liberal’s Blog
EQUALITY: Every Single American
Reply
Category Archives: Metaphysics
ART: Famous People Painting
This painting is truly amazing, but more surprising is that it has been “computerized”.
Click on the link below and see a larger version of the picture.
Roll your mouse over the characters and the program tells you who is, each of them.
Click in the body, and you will be re-directed to the Wikipedia life and history of each.
ANTITHEISM: Richard Dawkins / Christopher Hitchens Tribute
FREETHOUGHT: Nine Great Freethinkers and Religious Dissenters in History
[…]
It’s no surprise that so many influential thinkers and creative types have come from the ranks of these intellectual revolutionaries. Organized religion tends to reward people not for thinking creatively or critically, but for reciting and defending the dogmas of the previous generation. Throughout human history, it has consistently been true that hidebound theocracies have been mired in poverty, backwardness and intellectual stagnation, whereas the most dramatic advances have come about in times and places where people had the freedom to think for themselves, to freely question and debate. The lives of the men and women recounted here bear testimony to this.
1. Albert Einstein . . .
2. Robert Ingersoll . . .
3. W.E.B. DuBois . . .
4. Zora Neale Hurston . . .
5. Elizabeth Cady Stanton . . .
6. Asa Philip Randolph . . .
7. Robert Frost . . .
8. Emma Lazarus . . .
9. Yip Harburg . . .
PHILOSOPHY: Marxism, Morality, and Human Nature
[…]
. . . [I]t is hard to believe that morality is nothing more than ruling-class ideology. Most people become socialists [underline added] because they think that some things should be opposed not just because they threaten their own material interests, but because they think they are wrong in and of themselves—racism and sexism, imperialist wars that kill hundreds of thousands of people, a system that destroys people’s lives in order to make a tiny number of people fantastically rich.
[…]
IN HIS Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 and elsewhere, Marx starts with a very different understanding of human nature. In this conception, we are not naturally competitive, rather, we are social creatures who cannot survive without cooperating with each other. Modern science confirms this view. Humans did not evolve as a collection of atomized individuals constantly at war with one another, but in social groups that depended on mutual support.
[…]
Warfare became a feature of human society only as a consequence of specific historical developments—crucially the establishment of permanent settlements with accumulated wealth, and the emergence of “social hierarchy, an elite, perhaps with its own interests and rivalries.” Rather than war being the expression of some general human propensity towards violence, it reflects the interests of those at the top of society who are most likely to benefit from it.
Evidence of this kind supports the view that human beings are not naturally violent, selfish, competitive, greedy, or xenophobic, it is not natural for human societies to be organized hierarchically or for women to have lower social status than men, and capitalism does not exist because it uniquely reflects human nature, as its defenders often claim.
HEALTH CARE: Socialized Medicine: Why Everyone Should Share the Costs / Al Stefanelli
“A society will be judged by how it cares for it’s weakest members.”
Understand, I do not begrudge anyone from earning a profit, nor do I have anything personally against the entrepreneurial spirit. We should all do what we can to better ourselves. However, I am of the position that health care is not a privilege, but a right. As well, I reason that we are all morally obligated to ensure that each of us has access to it. That the United States does not have a national health care program is a major moral failure, and what we have in place is little more than a venue for unethical profiteers within the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.
[…]
The United States needs a tax-payer funded (single-payer) national health care system. Totally and completely socialized and incurring no costs to anyone beyond what their taxes pay. Those who cannot pay due to disability, unemployment or other circumstances beyond their control should have the same access as those who do.
In my opinion, putting a dollar ahead of the health and welfare of a human being is immoral. National or Socialized medicine should be a no-brainer.
[…]
There should never be any individual who’s life is less important than a number on a profit and loss ledger.
QUOTE: Epicurus
Epicurus (341 BCE – 270 BCE)
Ancient Greek philosopher as well as the founder
of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism
Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
PHILOSOPHY: The Atheist and Death
Whether you die from a long, painful illness or quietly in your sleep or from violence or misadventure, the final moment for every single person is the same: UNconsciousness. That transition will either be quick and sharp, or slow, like falling asleep. Regardless, ONE second afterwards, you’re not there to experience anything. As Wittgenstein put it “Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.” There is nothing to fear in the experience of death for, to the last second, we are alive and not dead; and then once dead, we experience nothing at all.
EDUCATION: How the Conservative Worldview Quashes Critical Thinking
. . . High-stakes testing is an artifact of the conservative belief that education is about acquiring a required body of knowledge that’s been determined by experts. If it’s not in the book, you don’t need to know it. And the ultimate outcome — the purpose of this whole process — is to graduate with a credential that will certify your acceptability to the established hierarchies of the economic world.
In the conservative model, critical thinking is horrifically dangerous, because it teaches kids to reject the assessment of external authorities in favor of their own judgment — a habit of mind that invites opposition and rebellion.
[…]
Given this reality, the college-as-job-training model the conservatives are promoting looks patently insane. Subjects like logic and philosophy, anthropology and rhetoric, foreign languages and history provide the mental flexibility, deep perspective, and sharp critical thinking skills that allow one to make one’s own way on unfamiliar landscapes, a skill that’s useful when the world keeps changing around you. People with rich liberal arts backgrounds are also far better prepared for leadership roles, and better positioned to recognize and seize on whatever opportunities fate throws their way.
[…]
It’s obvious that stripping these mind-expanding fripperies out of the curriculum — as conservatives are proposing, often with no push-back at all from liberals — serves the narrow, functional conservative view of education and citizenship very well.
[…]
The conservatives are not wrong: for 150 years, the schools have been the leading promoter and disseminator of progressive values. It’s precisely because they understand the power of education to preserve democracy that they’re now doing their best to dismantle that system, and replace it with one that produces followers, subjects and serfs.
ATHEIST COMEDY: The Great Flood
Always Question Authority 