“It is said that science has presented humans with three hammer blows to its sense of self-importance. Copernicus taught us that the Earth was not at the centre of the universe; Freud showed us that our instincts are emotional and sexual rather than rational and godly; and Darwin demonstrated that we were descended not from angels but from apes. To this we might add the gene-centred view of life which shows that in many cases we are not the final beneficiaries of our own behaviour; the buck stops not with us but our genes.”
― Evolutionary Psychology: An Introduction
― Evolutionary Psychology: An Introduction
“Do not spare a building because it is beautiful or old. Think of what it can do for you, and if the answer is that it can demonstrate your Will, then it must be pulled down to its foundations. Be an iconoclast. You’re doing these people a favour. They may realise life is more than stone and sculpture, and the gods don’t give a damn.”
― The Dark Lord's Handbook
― The Dark Lord's Handbook
“theistic equivalent of slapstick or a clumsy God or perhaps one sneezing or kicking up a pebble—can account considerably better for our present situation than can an intentional act of Creation. The humanlike God we’re prone to worshipping could be a long-dead intergalactic sea horse that, rooting through an ancient seabed for plankton in some unknown dimension, incidentally dislodged the one grain of sand that held all of our own infinite cosmos intact.”
― The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life
― The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life
“(Democracy: a brilliant invention, that Penbury wished he had thought of, whereby citizens could voice their political will on pieces of paper, which actually gave them little or no choice, that were then deposited in a sealed box which, when opened elsewhere, were emptied onto the nearest fire and ignored while the politicians brokered real power between themselves. Genius.)”
― The Dark Lord's Handbook
― The Dark Lord's Handbook
“It’s time to quit fucking around, don’t you know that? When you start to see colored footprints on the sidewalk, it’s time to quit fucking around and go to the doctor.”
― Insomnia
― Insomnia
Alan’s 2025 Year in Books
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