Born on this date
December 25th was the birthday of a great man whose work and teachings changed the world forever.
posted by Infidel753 at 12:50 AM
25 December 2008
About Me
- Name: Infidel753
- Location: Portland, Oregon, United States
Individualist, pro-technology, pro-democracy, anti-religion. I speak only for myself and not for any ideology, movement, or party. It has been my great good fortune to live my whole life free of "spirituality" of any kind. I believe that evidence and reason are the keys to understanding reality; that technology rather than ideology or politics has been the great liberator of humanity; and that in the long run, human intelligence is the most powerful force in the universe.
Previous Posts
- What a bunch of perverts!
- Winter solstice
- The tiny master of eternity
- Missed opportunity
- We told you so
- 1.5 to 2 trillion tons
- Link roundup for 17 December 2008
- Have we been looking at the wrong election?
- Public views of Blagogate and Obama
- Quote for the day
God doesn't exist
Evolution happened
Global warming is real
Homosexuality is normal
Aging is a curable disease
The election was not stolen
Everything "spiritual" is a lie
Free speech is for everybody
Humans do not have "souls"
Men can't become women
Fetuses are not persons
Words are not violence
Taiwan is a nation
Pluto is a planet
7 Comments:
But in the link you provided here is to Isaac Newton and wikipedia says he was born on 4th January and not on 25th December.
Yet another great intellect with an unconventional schooling as a child. Curiously he was also a religious nut and a heritic. See also:
http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/the-ten-days-of-newton/?scp=1&sq=newton&st=cse
LOL! A nice switch!
I didn't know Newton was "highly religious" though. That is surprising.
Prash -- Look again. It was 25 December on the calendar in use in England at that time.
Blurber/Christie -- It's indeed a paradox that the man who did so much to move the Western mind from revelation-based thinking to evidence-based thinking was indeed religious; many people manage to compartmentalize their minds so that they can believe conflicting things at the same time, and of course in those days atheism was hardly an option (today 93% of members of the American Academy of Science are atheists, a telling figure in such a religious country).
I regard "heretic" as an honorable title; it comes from the Greek word hairetikos, meaning one who is able to choose -- that is, one who comes to his own conclusions about what to believe rather than blindly accepting beliefs handed down from the past.
Addendum: Blurber's link explains the calendar difference in more detail. Also, apparently Newton's "heresy" consisted of disbelieving in the trinity, which should be considered a mark of intelligence, since the concept is incomprehensible.
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus." -- Thomas Jefferson
Also on this day....Rod Serling, Anwar Sadat, Jimmy Buffet, Annie Lennox, Karl Rove, Robert Ripley, collector of odd facts...
Have a Great day.
Interesting.....Certainly an odd collection of people!
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