
Source: Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics & the Visionary Experience
Source: Napalm & Silly Putty
Source: Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics & the Visionary Experience
“Mathematics is universal. But very little else is.”
Source: The Heritage Universe, Summertide (1990), Chapter 10, “Summertide Minus Eighteen” (p. 119)
Massad, in his book Desiring Arabs (2008).
Desiring Arabs
Sam Harris in debate on ABC Nightline (23 March 2010) "Does God Have a Future?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_kAk2Naz-A&t=1m25s
2010s
Context: The God that our neighbors believe in is essentially an invisible person. He’s a creator deity, who created the universe to have a relationship with one species of primates – lucky us. And he’s got galaxy upon galaxy to attend to, but he’s especially concerned with what we do, and he’s especially concerned with what we do while naked. He almost certainly disapproves of homosexuality. And he’s created this cosmos as a vast laboratory in which to test our powers of credulity, and the test is this: can you believe in this God on bad evidence, which is to say, on faith? And if you can, you will win an eternity of happiness after you die. And it's precisely this sort of god and this sort of scheme that you must believe in if you're going to have any kind of future in politics in this country, no matter what your gifts. You could be an unprecedented genius, you could look like George Clooney, you could have a billion dollars and you could have the social skills of Oprah and you are going nowhere in politics in this country, unless you believe in that sort of god.
Source: Civilisation (1969), Ch. 13: Heroic Materialism
(1635) as quoted by W. W. Rouse Ball, A History of the Study of Mathematics at Cambridge https://books.google.com/books?id=Pl32YkKFIhsC (1889) pp. 41-42.
“The Church alone was universal patron”
Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)
Context: The wood-carving, the glass windows, the sculpture, inside and out, were done mostly in workshops on the spot, but besides these fixed objects, precious works of the highest perfection filled the church treasuries. Their money-value was great then; it is greater now. No world's-fair is likely to do better today. After five hundred years of spoliation, these objects fill museums still, and are bought with avidity at every auction [.... ] Royalty and feudality spent their money rather on arms and clothes. The Church alone was universal patron, and the Virgin was the dictator of taste.
The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)
"Evolution of the Human Brain" (1964), p. 2
Context: Prior to the advent of brain, there was no color and no sound in the universe, nor was there any flavor or aroma and probably rather little sense and no feeling or emotion. Before brains the universe was also free of pain and anxiety.