Age of Enlightenment emerges from birth canal

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The Age of Enlightenment has been in gestation for about 300 years. Recently I saw a video that made me feel like I was in the delivery room watching it finally be born.

If I were stranded on a deserted island, this is the one video would I want everyone else in the world to watch:

Neil deGrasse Tyson … from the Beyond Belief Conference at the Salk Institute, 2006.

The strength of our convictions

“You can’t reason people out of something they weren’t reasoned into.”

Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745)

“Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B.

Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745)

Drapier—or anonymously. He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire: the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.

He is remembered for works such as Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapier’s Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Tale of a Tub.”