E.T. > Recent Status Updates

Lets see if I can finish this !

“The purpose of life is to create experiences for which you will experience nostalgia later.”

“In a society where government, law, and morality are bound up with a religious creed, any attack upon that creed is viewed as menacing the foundations of social order itself.”
Wrt Islam

“While the poor solaced life with heaven, the rich sought heaven on earth.”

"(a professional) becomes a hollow bore and ceases to enjoy life if all he can interest himself in is his limited role in the universe."

"...to keep control in an alien environment one must impose
one’s own order on the wilderness."

"To fill free time with activities that require concentration, that increase
skills, that lead to a development of the self, is not the same as killing time
by watching television or taking recreational drugs."

“But if, thereafter, reason should fail, and science should find no answers, but should multiply knowledge and power without improving conscience or purpose; if all utopias should brutally collapse in the abuse of the weak by the strong: then men would understand why once their ancestors, in the barbarism of those early Christian centuries, turned from science, knowledge, power and pride to (religious) faith.”

“Not till wealth and pride should return in the Renaissance would reason reject faith, and abandon heaven for utopia.”
It didn’t happen in the Muslim Midde East but wait…

“Congregations like to be scolded, but not to be reformed.”
Another (seemingly) offhand comment from the wise author - the chief charm of reading this series.

The history of Arianism sect of Christianity was very interesting ! For the first time, reading a history of early Christianity.
I abandoned "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco earlier as I found Christian sectarianism too trivial, but may pick it up again.

"Their country is the back of a horse."
Proverb about Huns

“If anyone has persuaded you that there is anything more profitable to the human race than to pursue philosophy at one’s leisure without interruptions, he is a deluded man trying to delude you.”
-Emperor Julian, 4th Century AD

Approx 2000 pages - daunting but i hv gr8 interest in the topic of religion - both political and spiritual.
PS:- 1.50% actually 😛

“The so-called demographic dilemma would disappear as it would no longer matter whether Jews are a majority in such a (binational) state.”
One word - Lebanon
Second, NONE of the Muslim majority countries is a secular and liberal democracy - I would even say none are plural with equal rights to all religions and ethnicities. Arrogant of the author to assume a new Israel+Palestine can be the first.

Reading this to get anti-Israel POVs from Jews themselves.
Two issues so far :-
A) Did Israel have to be based in (erstwhile) Palestine ? In all my readings n listenings, unconvinced so far. Most significant historical fact left out - an equal no of Jews were kicked out by Arab countries in 1948.
B) What “provokes” terrorism ?
To me - RELIGIOUS Nazism. The evidence is damning unless u r blind and/or retarded.

“…quality was not a reliable predictor of longevity in television. In fact, it usually doomed a show to “cult” status and a short life at that time.”
Loving this !

Too much of personal life and irrelevant details. The science part is good but skipping a lot overall.

“…But the first Wonder is the Offspring of Ignorance; the last is the Parent of Adoration.”
-Plato

On holiday in 16th century England for a week :)

Parodies so far. All in good humour.
This is something else !

Probably, it will be goodbye Mr.Silva after this one as reviews of later books are not that good !

“There are no whole truths;
all truths are half-truths.
It is trying to treat them as
whole truths that plays the devil.”
Alfred Whitehead

“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end.
It is itself the highest political end.”
-Lord Acton

“If God were good,” observed C. S. Lewis, “He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.”

“This, too, is a story without end, as we continue to explore our humanity in the eternal Why.
And we see how we have come from seeking meaning to finding meaning in the seeking.”

“reasoning is like racing and not like hauling, and a single Arabian steed can outrun a hundred plowhorses.”
-Galileo

“Freud famously contended that in the course of modern history three thinkers had dealt enormous blows to humankind’s self-esteem. The three were Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud himself.”
Saari khudai ek taraf
Darwinbhai ek taraf !

“I have found you an argument, I am not obliged to find you an understanding.”
- Samuel Johnson

“Newton believed fervently that Pythagoras, Moses, Solomon, and other ancient sages had anticipated modern theories (including gravity) in every scientific and mathematical detail.
This picture of history was completely false, but Newton and many others had boundless faith in what they called “the wisdom of the ancients.” The belief fit neatly with the doctrine that the world was in decline.”