37 ideas
| 7458 | The reliability of witnesses depends on whether they benefit from their observations [Laplace, by Hacking] |
| 3441 | If a supreme intellect knew all atoms and movements, it could know all of the past and the future [Laplace] |
| 23125 | Most good social changes are incremental, rather than revolutionary [Gopnik] |
| 23126 | Conservatives often want peace, prosperity and tolerance, but not social fairness [Gopnik] |
| 23132 | Conservatives believe obedience and rank are essential to social order [Gopnik] |
| 23128 | The opposite of liberalism is dogmatism [Gopnik] |
| 23142 | People are fallible, so liberalism tries to distribute power [Gopnik] |
| 23143 | Liberals have tried very hard to build a conscience into their institutions [Gopnik] |
| 23141 | Left-wingers are inconsistent in their essentialist descriptions of social groups [Gopnik] |
| 23124 | Liberal community is not blood ties or tradition, but shared choices, and sympathy for the losers [Gopnik] |
| 23127 | Liberal community includes flight from the family, into energetic reforming groups [Gopnik] |
| 23129 | Right-wingers attack liberal faith in reason, left-wingers attack its faith in reform [Gopnik] |
| 23133 | Cosmopolitan liberals lack national loyalty, and welcome excessive immigration [Gopnik] |
| 23138 | Modern left-wingers criticise liberalism's control of culture [Gopnik] |
| 23139 | Liberalism's attempt to be neutral and colour-blind erases cultural identities [Gopnik] |
| 23135 | Classic Marxists see liberalism as the ideology of the bourgeoisie [Gopnik] |
| 7337 | In Mosaic legal theory, crimes are sins and sins are crimes [Johnson,P] |
| 7339 | Because human life is what is sacred, Mosaic law has no death penalty for property violations [Johnson,P] |
| 23140 | Environmental disasters result not from capitalism, but from a general drive for growth [Gopnik] |
| 23130 | Popular imperialism gives the poor the belief that their acts have world historical meaning [Gopnik] |
| 23131 | Patriots love their place, but nationalists have a paranoid ethnic hostility [Gopnik] |
| 7353 | The Pharisees undermined slavery, by giving slaves responsibility and status in law courts [Johnson,P] |
| 23136 | Liberal free speech is actually paid speech [Gopnik] |
| 23134 | A 'free' society implies a free market, which always produces predatory capitalism and inequalities [Gopnik] |
| 7340 | Mosaic law was the first to embody the rule of law, and equality before the law [Johnson,P] |
| 7338 | Man's life is sacred, because it is made in God's image [Johnson,P] |
| 7348 | The Jews sharply distinguish human and divine, but the Greeks pull them closer together [Johnson,P] |
| 7336 | A key moment is the idea of a single moral God, who imposes his morality on humanity [Johnson,P] |
| 7341 | Sampson illustrates the idea that religious heroes often begin as outlaws and semi-criminals [Johnson,P] |
| 7342 | Isaiah moved Israelite religion away from the local, onto a more universal plane [Johnson,P] |
| 7355 | The Torah pre-existed creation, and was its blueprint [Johnson,P] |
| 7344 | Judaism involves circumcision, Sabbath, Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, New Year, and Atonement [Johnson,P] |
| 7345 | In exile the Jews became a nomocracy [Johnson,P] |
| 7347 | Zoroastrians believed in one eternal beneficent being, Creator through the holy spirit [Johnson,P] |
| 7349 | Immortality based on judgement of merit was developed by the Egyptians (not the Jews) [Johnson,P] |
| 7354 | The main doctrine of the Pharisees was belief in resurrection and the afterlife [Johnson,P] |
| 7356 | Pious Jews saw heaven as a vast library [Johnson,P] |