Art from “The Peace of Wild Things” We are incomparable to machines. We are flawed. We are high in capacity for failure. We are prone to error. We are jagged. We are inefficient. We are progressing with the possibility of regression. We are human and we are more connected to…
Pierre Gassendi(22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the first data on the transit of Mercury in 1631.
He wrote numerous philosophical works, and some of the positions he worked out are considered significant, finding a way between skepticism and dogmatism. His best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity.
"Man lives very well upon flesh, you say, but, if he thinks this food to be natural to him, why does he not use it as it is, as furnished to him by Nature? But, in fact, he shrinks in horror from seizing and rending living or even raw flesh with his teeth, and lights a fire to change its natural and proper condition. … What is clearer than that man is not furnished for hunting, much less for eating, other animals? In one word, we seem to be admirably admonished by Cicero that man was destined for other things than for seizing and cutting the throats of other animals. If you answer that ‘that may be said to be an industry ordered by Nature, by which such weapons are invented,’ then, behold! it is by the very same artificial instrument that men make weapons for mutual slaughter. Do they this at the instigation of Nature? Can a use so noxious be called natural? Faculty is given by Nature, but it is our own fault that we make a perverse use of it."
Letter to Van Helmont, quoted in The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-eating by Howard Williams (London: F. Pitman, 1883), pp. 103-104.
The word, “persistence” popped into my mind this afternoon as I was engaging in reflection and considering what to write. The verb “to persist” is derived from the Latin, “persistere” which is a compilation of two concepts, “per” (thoroughly) and “sistere” (come or cause to stand still). The one who…
Visit any church or pastor’s library, or religious book store and ask for the section where the books on spiritual disciplines, discipleship, and devotionals are stored. Peruse the classics online. Read a few samples and, if your brain works like mine, you might start feeling really inadequate spiritually. You want…
Today, your assignment it to see the spark in someone in whom you do not expect a spark. Find the spark and do or say what you can to keep it going to the next step of intensity. Protect it from the torrential rain of criticism or the inertial force…
Get great business information and coaching and network with others at
Art from “The Peace of Wild Things” We are incomparable to machines. We are flawed. We are high in capacity for failure. We are prone to error. We are jagged. We are inefficient. We are progressing with the possibility of regression. We are human and we are more connected to…
Pierre Gassendi(22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the first data on the transit of Mercury in 1631.
He wrote numerous philosophical works, and some of the positions he worked out are considered significant, finding a way between skepticism and dogmatism. His best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity.
"Man lives very well upon flesh, you say, but, if he thinks this food to be natural to him, why does he not use it as it is, as furnished to him by Nature? But, in fact, he shrinks in horror from seizing and rending living or even raw flesh with his teeth, and lights a fire to change its natural and proper condition. … What is clearer than that man is not furnished for hunting, much less for eating, other animals? In one word, we seem to be admirably admonished by Cicero that man was destined for other things than for seizing and cutting the throats of other animals. If you answer that ‘that may be said to be an industry ordered by Nature, by which such weapons are invented,’ then, behold! it is by the very same artificial instrument that men make weapons for mutual slaughter. Do they this at the instigation of Nature? Can a use so noxious be called natural? Faculty is given by Nature, but it is our own fault that we make a perverse use of it."
Letter to Van Helmont, quoted in The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-eating by Howard Williams (London: F. Pitman, 1883), pp. 103-104.
The word, “persistence” popped into my mind this afternoon as I was engaging in reflection and considering what to write. The verb “to persist” is derived from the Latin, “persistere” which is a compilation of two concepts, “per” (thoroughly) and “sistere” (come or cause to stand still). The one who…
Visit any church or pastor’s library, or religious book store and ask for the section where the books on spiritual disciplines, discipleship, and devotionals are stored. Peruse the classics online. Read a few samples and, if your brain works like mine, you might start feeling really inadequate spiritually. You want…
Today, your assignment it to see the spark in someone in whom you do not expect a spark. Find the spark and do or say what you can to keep it going to the next step of intensity. Protect it from the torrential rain of criticism or the inertial force…
Get great business information and coaching and network with others at
