As many know, Christopher Hitchens (the cheeky British gadfly of God) has esophageal cancer. Although he announced this and took a break to undergo treatment, I noticed last week he had resumed writing some columns. Yesterday, I found this recent video interview over at The Atlantic; it is simultaneously heart-wrenching and moving.
It is heart-wrenching because [...]
Tags:afterlife·atheist·cancer·Christopher Hitchens·David Hume·deathbed·gadfly of God·God is Not Great·Hitch-22·immortality·James Boswell·Jeffrey Goldberg·prayer·Samuel Johnston·Scottish Enlightenment·The Atlantic·video interview
While doing some background research on the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), I discovered that he had been much influenced by Lucretius, who lived in the first century BCE (around the time of Julius Caesar) and published a six-volume treatise titled On the Nature of Things. As if writing philosophy in narrative form were [...]
Tags:ancestor worship·atomic theory·Charles Darwin·Christianity·classics·cultural evolution·David Hume·David Sedley·Epicurean·Epicurus·evolution·Greco-Roman·Herbert Spencer·Julius Caesar·Lucretius·materialism·naturalism·Nietzsche·On the Nature of Things·Plato·Platonic philosophy·prehistory·Scottish Enlightenment·skepticism·survival of the fittest·Thomas Hobbes
