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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
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" There is such a thing as fanaticism, it is always wrong, and if you disagree, you're wrong too. "
Julian Baggini
Disagree
Always
You
" 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
" It's not leftovers that are wasteful, but those who either don't know what to do with them or can't be bothered. "
Julian Baggini
Leftovers
Who
Either
" True virtue would never liken its rewards to points on a loyalty card, not because it is its own reward, but because it is not something we should practice to accrue future benefits. "
Julian Baggini
Reward
Loyalty
Future
" This is the deal: we are happy to single out people as superior just as long as they don't accept the description themselves. We want heroes and idols, but we also want egalitarianism, and that requires proclamations of humility from our gods. "
Julian Baggini
People
Happy
Heroes
" If philosophy is to be a valuable part of life, we have to appreciate it for its own sake, and not just for what it's done for us lately. "
Julian Baggini
Done
Philosophy
Life
" 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
" 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become harder to promote the beneficial side of emotions such as anger is that the moral vocabulary of good and bad has been replaced by the self-help lexicon of positive and negative thinking.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
Positive
Moral
" True respect means taking other people's beliefs seriously and assuming they are adult and intelligent enough to be able to cope with it if you tell them, clearly and civility, why you think they are totally, utterly and disastrously wrong. "
Julian Baggini
Respect
People
Think
" Right and wrong are not simply matters of evolutionary impacts and what is natural. "
Julian Baggini
Simply
Wrong
Matters
" Trying to keep up with health advice can feel like surfing the Net for weather forecasts: what you find is always changing, often contradictory and rarely encouraging. "
Julian Baggini
Weather
You
Advice
" 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
People
Moral
" If you believe you are right, then you should believe that you can make the case that you're right. This requires you to deal with serious objections properly. "
Julian Baggini
Believe
Deal
You
" The mark of a mature, psychologically healthy mind is indeed the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity, but only as much as there really is. Uncertainty is no virtue when the facts are clear, and ambiguity is mere obfuscation when more precise terms are applicable. "
Julian Baggini
Facts
Healthy
Live
" There are many things you shouldn't measure. Don't, for example, try to measure how much you love your wife! "
Julian Baggini
You
Love
Example
" If there's one thing that makes me cynical, it's optimists. They are just far too cynical about cynicism. If only they could see that cynics can be happy, constructive, even fun to hang out with, they might learn a thing or two. "
Julian Baggini
Fun
Learn
Me
" 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
" The capacity to make free choices is not something we either have entirely or not at all. Rather, choices become freer the more they are the result of our own capacity to reflect on and assess facts and arguments. "
Julian Baggini
More
Free
Own
" The reason to be an atheist is not that it makes us feel better or gives us a more rewarding life. The reason to be an atheist is simply that there is no God and we would prefer to live in full recognition of that, accepting the consequences, even if it makes us less happy. "
Julian Baggini
God
Recognition
Live
" On social networking sites, we may expose ourselves, but we choose to do so. We are in control and, often wrongly, we do not feel we are giving away tradable data. "
Julian Baggini
Giving
Networking
Feel
" Atheists should point out that life without God can be meaningful, moral and happy. "
Julian Baggini
God
Out
Happy
" The only good reason to embrace a philosophical position is that you are convinced it is true or at least makes sense of the world better than the alternatives. "
Julian Baggini
True
World
You
" The modern believer is not suspicious enough, which is perhaps why, when they try to construct arguments in their defence, the convictions are left doing all the work and reason, debilitated by neglect, weakly fails to prop them up. "
Julian Baggini
Reason
Work
Why
" It may not have the virtuous ring of the golden rule, but the maxim 'never say never' is one of the most important in ethics. "
Julian Baggini
Ethics
Say
Ring
" Being a good neighbour is about compassion, which is as warm-blooded as justice is cool-headed. "
Julian Baggini
Compassion
Good
Which
" Progress is more of a challenge for the cynic but also more important and urgent, since for the optimist things aren't that bad and are bound to get better anyway. "
Julian Baggini
Challenge
Progress
Important
" 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
" Perhaps the biggest myth about cynicism is that it deepens with age. I think what really happens is that experience painfully rips away layers of scales from our eyes, and so we do indeed become more cynical about many of the things we naively accepted when younger. "
Julian Baggini
Think
Experience
Become
" I don't think anyone who genuinely embraced sincerity, charity and modesty could be intolerant or divisive. "
Julian Baggini
Sincerity
Who
Charity
" When you try to cool down hot emotions, what tends to happen is that you end up either repressing them or losing them altogether. Neither is desirable. Without emotion, much social interaction loses its meaning or changes for the worse. "
Julian Baggini
Changes
Cool
End