According to a standard heroic secular account, at the start of the modern age and in just a few short decades, science was able to defeat religion through rigour and brilliance – and thereby forever liberated humankind from ignorance and superstition. For centuries, this account explains, religion had essentially been…
There are in aggregate far more of them than there are of us. We’re a mere 7.5 billion – while there are 19 billion chickens, 1 billion sheep, 1 billion pigs…
Most countries know deep in their bones that life is – for the most part – a painful and unsatisfactory business: misery is the norm, one is born to suffer, the…
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate,…
One day, if human civilisation ever wipes itself out, aliens or one of our successors will cast an eye on our ruined planet and ask themselves what ever happened to homo…
For most of our lives, we’re hard at work: we’re up till midnight in the library studying for a degree, we’re learning a trade, building a business, writing a book. We…
For most of history, we had no choice around most things in our lives: there was only one job we could do and it would be chosen for us by our…