Sam Harris, Lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDMOxjHIt0U at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley (November 10, 2010)
2010s
Context: "Religion" is a nearly useless term. It's a term like "sports". Now there are sports like Badminton and sports like Thai Boxing, and they have almost nothing in common apart from breathing. There are sports that are just synonymous with the risk of physical injury or even death … There is, I'm happy to say, a religion of peace in this world, but it's not Islam. The claim that Islam is a religion of peace that we hear ceaselessly reiterated is completely delusional. Now Jainism actually is a religion of peace. The core principle of Jainism is non-violence. Gandhi got his non-violence from the Jains. The crazier you get as a Jain, the less we have to worry about you. Jain extremists are paralysed by their pacifism. Jain extremists can't take their eyes off the ground when they walk lest they step on an ant... Needless to say they are vegetarian. So the problem is not religious extremism, because extremism is not a problem if your core beliefs are truly non-violent. The problem isn't fundamentalism. We often hear this said: these are euphemisms... The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism are the fundamentals of Islam.
2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)
Asatya or Anrita
In Sita Ram Goel: Jesus Christ - An Artifice for Aggression (1994)
1990s
2016, Hajj hijacked by oppressors, Muslims should reconsider management of Hajj (September 2015)
“They have fundamentally different problems than other people.”
On Washington politicians, "Chris Murphy: ‘Soul-Crushing’ Fundraising Is Bad For Congress" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/chris-murphy-fundraising_n_3232143.html, Huffington Post, 7 May 2013.
The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays by Albert Camus, An Absurd Reasoning : Absurdity and Suicide p. 3 (1942, 1955)
Absurdity and Suicide
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning
Context: There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect. If I ask myself how to judge that this question is more urgent than that, I reply that one judges by the actions it entails. I have never seen anyone die for the ontological argument.
Podcast (25 August 2006)
A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22 (1957), p. 206
Paraphrased variant: The most fundamental problem of politics is not the control of wickedness but the limitation of righteousness.
Quoted by Walter Isaacson, " Henry Kissinger Reminds Us Why Realism Matters http://time.com/3275385/henry-kissinger/", Time, 4 September 2014
1950s
“Lying at the heart of this ridiculous cameo of modern summitry is nuclear's fundamental problem.”
Article on Nuclear's Presentational Problem from the World Nuclear Association http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2002/ingham.htm's web site
As quoted in Synergetics Dictionary : The Mind of Buckminster Fuller (1986) by E. J. Applewhite
From 1980s onwards
