A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.
C. S. LewisRead
Looking for God-or Heaven-by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters.
Interpretation
Searching for a transcendent being in the universe is misguided, similar to expecting to find an author among their characters.
C. S. Lewis illustrates the folly of looking for God or Heaven in the vastness of space, suggesting that such exploration will not reveal the divine. Instead, itβs akin to reading Shakespeare's works with the expectation of encountering Shakespeare himself, indicating that the author and their characters inhabit different realms of existence.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture on philosophy to illustrate the relationship between belief and understanding.
A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.
I enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I think that was a good thing and do not think it was condemned by God. But I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
Forgiving and being forgiven are two names for the same thing. The important thing is that a discord has been resolved.
I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. It doesn't change God - it changes me.
The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred
Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. It means self-responsibility, and not leader worship.
I prefer to work with grey characters rather than black and white.
The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, the revolutionary methods of Marx and Lenin, the social contract theory of Hobbes, the "back to nature" optimism of Rousseau, and the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.
Michelle Alexander's brave and bold new book paints a haunting picture in which dreary felon garb, post-prison joblessness, and loss of voting rights now do the stigmatizing work once done by colored-only water fountains and legally segregated schools. With dazzling candor, Alexander argues that we all pay the cost of the new Jim Crow.
We forget that, although freedom of speech constitutes an important victory in the battle against old restraints, modern man is in a position where much of what "he" thinks and says are the things that everybody else thinks and says; that he has not acquired the ability to think originally - that is, for himself - which alone gives meaning to his claim that nobody can interfere with the expression of his thoughts.
You ought not to be rude to an eagle, when you are only the size of a hobbit, and are up in hid eyrie at night!
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