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May 23, 2010

the sense of the sacred

The sense of the sacred is not necessarily a good thing; it can lead one to do terrible things. Of course for that very reason in the nineteenth century people said we should stop believing in the sacred, and then we won't do terrible things any more. Then we had two very atheist dictators, called Stalin and Hitler, who between them killed even more people than anyone had killed in the name of the sacred.


Hilary Putnam

Posted by amin at May 23, 2010 10:32 AM