Should we live in hope?
We can and should anticipate getting what we want. But desire and expectation riding in tandem is different from them becoming fused, part of the same blend of belief and emotion called hope.
ReadAuthor: Julian Baggini
God’s artillery opens fire
It’s hard to resist the pull of military metaphors when talking about the recent battles between religion and the so called new-atheists: Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchins, Sam Harris et al. Fighting talk is only natural when combatants on both sides have often been vicious in their attacks. And like the western front in World War I, for all the blasts and flashes, neither side ever manages to advance its trenches. Yet in the very definition of madness, both forces persist in trying the same tactics that have never worked before as though they might suddenly prove efficacious….
ReadDo we have too many things?
A whole generation is growing up consuming a lot which it does not think of as stuff at all. But they are still consuming, more than ever. And although experiences may not be things, they are being bought and sold, acquired as memories and treated as commodities. If the transition we are seeing is from ownership to consumption, it may not take us very far in the direction of post-materialism after all.
ReadHow important is friendship?
A man is judged by the company he keeps, but it’s not always clear what the verdict will be when he chooses to retain a friend who behaves abominably. Consorting with rogues is hardly the hallmark of an honourable gent but, at the same time, someone who doesn’t stand by his pals when the chips are down is not considered much of a mate. So what’s a true friend to do?
ReadDo we need emotional intelligence?
The biggest problem with multiplying intelligences is that it opens the door for people to deflect criticisms on the basis that the critic simply lacks the appropriate one. “Spiritual intelligence”, for instance, cannot be a straightforward capacity since there is wide disagreement about what it means to be spiritual and whether all sorts of allegedly spiritual phenomena are real. Yet on some definitions, a materialist atheist would simply be spiritually thick. A substantive, contentious worldview can thus be disguised as an objective cognitive capacity. A clever move, but not one that can be described as truly intelligent.
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