Mahatma Gandhi, the mid-20th century non-violent Indian nationalist and philosopher, who famously led the Indian nation out of the British Empire, once wrote, "To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of truth face to face, one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life."
Still I Am One
Musings of a Quakerly-inclined Unitarian
“I am only one, but still I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”
Edward Everett Hale
Friday 15 March 2024
A Huge Challenge
Friday 8 March 2024
God Beyond Proof
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor, theologian and passionate campaigner against the Nazi regime. For this "crime", he was imprisoned by Hitler's regime in April 1943, and executed by them on 9th April 1945.
Friday 1 March 2024
Human Being as Spirit
This week's philosophical quote, by the Danish Existentialist philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, reads, "A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? The spirit is the self. But what is the self?"
Friday 23 February 2024
The Nature of Truth
Edith Stein was a German Jewish philosopher who later converted to Catholicism, and became a Discalced Carmelite Nun. She died in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942 and was canonised by the Church as a saint and martyr, St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
She once wrote, "But this is the essence of all human philosophising: truth is only one, but it is divided for us into truths that we must conquer step by step."
Friday 16 February 2024
Gardens of the Mind
I love the idea that our minds are like gardens, and that it is up to us to cultivate "thoughts, ideas and visions of great beauty" as the anonymous author of Thought for Today put it on 6th February. We need to tend them carefully. I also believe that our wider communities (whether of family, work colleagues, friends or congregations) can be seen as gardens in need of tender care. Like this beautiful walled garden at Delapre Abbey in Northampton...
Friday 9 February 2024
Setting Our Priorities
The 20th century philosopher and author, Albert Camus, once wrote something like, "The greatest saving that can be made in the world of thinking is to accept the incomprehensibility of the world and to take care of people."
- What needs to be done
- What we can do together as a society
- What you can do as an individual
- Some of us can do more than others (including politicians, media and TV producers, journalist, and celebrities and influencers)
Friday 2 February 2024
Nothing Occurs at Random
This week I have come across a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher named Leucippus. According to Wikipedia, he "is credited with developing the philosophical school of atomism. He proposed that all things are made up of microscopic, indivisible particles that interact and combine to produce all the things of the world." He developed this theory with his student Democritus, in the 5th century BCE.
But the Wikipedia article is careful to point out that there are great differences between Leucippus's 'atomism' and modern atomic theory: "Instead of the purely material atoms of Leucippus, modern atomic theory shows that fundamental forces combine subatomic particles into atoms and link atoms together into molecules."
In his work, On Mind, he wrote, "Nothing occurs at random, but everything from reason and by necessity." Yet at the same time, he rejected the idea that there was an intelligent force (or deity) controlling the universe.