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" Cooking can be rewarding when it is a choice and no longer the onerous duty of the housewife, and when a dishwasher can lighten the load at the other end of the process. "
Julian Baggini
Cooking
Process
End
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" Being able and willing to complain is what makes us rational and moral animals, capable of seeing and articulating the difference between how things are and how they should be. "
Julian Baggini
Seeing
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" Wellbeing is a notion that entails our values about the good life, and questions of values are not ultimately scientific questions. "
Julian Baggini
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" No matter how convinced we are that someone is nasty, evil or just plain criminal, if they have not been convicted of any crime and support views that are upheld and defended by many law-abiding citizens, the only way to tackle them is through democratic debate. "
Julian Baggini
Debate
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" The idea that the mind can extend even beyond the body is an intriguing one, and is bound to become more pressing as we increasingly develop technologies that augment our natural abilities. "
Julian Baggini
Mind
Body
Natural
" I don't believe in God because certain reasons and arguments weigh more heavily in my mind than others, not because I have willfully decided to reject my creator, as many religious people seem to think. I could no more simply decide to believe in God than I could decide to like beetroot, just like that. "
Julian Baggini
Believe
More
God
" The reason Buddhism can be so naturalised is because, stripped of its supernatural elements, its core teachings can be giving a sound, secular philosophical interpretation. In other words, it becomes a religion acceptable to the contemporary, naturalistic mind only when it ceases to be a religion. "
Julian Baggini
Words
Giving
Religion
" Accepting that the world is full of uncertainty and ambiguity does not and should not stop people from being pretty sure about a lot of things. "
Julian Baggini
People
Uncertainty
World
" As a teenager, I increasingly had questions about religion to which I found no good answers. "
Julian Baggini
Answers
Good
Had
" One reason why it has become harder to promote the beneficial side of emotions such as anger is that the moral vocabulary of good and bad has been replaced by the self-help lexicon of positive and negative thinking. "
Julian Baggini
Anger
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Moral
" Christmas is a rare occasion when we are reminded that we have obligations to people we did not choose to be related to, and that love is not just a spontaneous feeling but something we sometimes really have to work at, with people we may not even much like. "
Julian Baggini
Work
People
Christmas
" Stress means something different if it is the result of rewarding work rather than struggling to keep the family out of debt. "
Julian Baggini
Keep
Family
Debt
" Being a good neighbour is about compassion, which is as warm-blooded as justice is cool-headed. "
Julian Baggini
Compassion
Good
Which
" Since Plato, we have been considering the nature of knowledge, the meaning of meaning and the status of the physical world. "
Julian Baggini
Been
World
Nature
" I don't feel proprietorial about the problems of philosophy. History has taught us that many philosophical issues can grow up, leave home and live elsewhere. "
Julian Baggini
Us
Live
Home
" It is true that legality is not morality, and sticking to the law is necessary for good citizenship, but it is not sufficient. "
Julian Baggini
Good
True
Morality
" Metaphorical tone deafness is when people are unable to discern what is of value in something. I think I'm tone deaf to poetry, for instance. Despite having studied it into a second year of university, most of it just leaves me cold. "
Julian Baggini
Poetry
Deaf
People
" Right and wrong are not simply matters of evolutionary impacts and what is natural. "
Julian Baggini
Simply
Wrong
Matters
" Many people are never happier than when they get the opportunity to complain, while others are deeply unhappy with how things are but just accept the fact. Complaint occurs when we refuse to accept that things are wrong and we do something about it, even if that something is simply articulating our unease. "
Julian Baggini
Accept
Opportunity
People
" Big sporting events and spectacles might give the national morale a shot in the arm, but they are too transient and taste-specific to stand as robust symbols of nationhood. "
Julian Baggini
Events
Morale
Stand
" If I hammer my own thumb while doing some DIY, it's not nice, but it's not the end of the world. To care obsessively about similar levels of discomfort in animals seems to be a case of mistaken moral priorities. "
Julian Baggini
Nice
World
Care
" Science works because the phenomenon being described can be relied on to remain the same. Even in quantum physics, where phenomena are changed by observation, the way in which observation interferes is regular and falls within a limited range of possibilities. Human culture, however, has the nasty habit of never staying the same for very long. "
Julian Baggini
Science
Long
Culture
" If there is an art of living, it is not something that can be taught timelessly. We have lessons to learn from Aristotle et al, for sure, but not if we simply uproot them from their epoch and stamp them into 21st-century soil. "
Julian Baggini
Living
Soil
Art
" If we find it hard to believe that winning millions might not be so lucky after all, we just don't have a good enough imagination. If I fantasise about winning the lottery, it doesn't take long before all sorts of worrisome potential consequences occur to me. "
Julian Baggini
Me
Believe
Winning
" Believers are right when they say that to understand a religion properly you need to get under its skin. But to understand it fully, you cannot stay there: you have to take a more objective view, too. "
Julian Baggini
Need
Skin
View
" True humility is expressed in deeds, not words. The humble are those who truly walk the same ground as everyone else - not necessarily with grovelling, hunched backs, but certainly not lording it over others, either. "
Julian Baggini
Walk
Humility
True
" Dover's cliffs call to mind the Roman invasion; the Battle of Britain; our proximity to, yet difference from, mainland Europe; and international trade and exploration, both fair and exploitative. "
Julian Baggini
Difference
Battle
Mind
" You should protest about the views of people you disagree with over major moral issues, and argue them down, but you should not try to silence them, however repugnant you find them. That is the bitter pill free speech requires us to swallow. "
Julian Baggini
Silence
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Moral
" The optimist underestimates how difficult it is to achieve real change, believing that anything is possible and it's possible now. Only by confronting head-on the reality that all progress is going to be obstructed by vested interests and corrupted by human venality can we create realistic programmes that actually have a chance of success. "
Julian Baggini
Success
Chance
Change
" Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice. "
Julian Baggini
Feeling
Virtuous
Wonderful
" If we now find ourselves looking down on the cheap and convenient, it is only because we now have better things which are affordable. "
Julian Baggini
Cheap
Down
Looking