Glimpses

Einstein was a pacifist, but he was not a radical absolute pacifist. He recognized that there are times when military force is the only thing people will understand. Interestingly, the control of military force is one of the few things Einstein thought would be best controlled by a large organization, very large in fact. Einstein in his essay “Atomic War or Peace” calls for a super-national government that is focused solely on keeping the peace through control of military actions.

This is the first entry in a long time, but oh well.

Why is it the case that Einstein is right in saying “Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are lecture halls, but far from numerous the young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice.” The interesting thing is Einstein was saying this as a non-Christian. In Intro to Philosophy, Dr. Forsberg is fond of saying that the greatest gift God has given us is our mind. I agree completely with him. What separates us from the animals is our capacity to think and reason, to know “good” from “evil” at a deep psychological level.

This semester I am taking a class called Ethics of Einstein. As the name of the class suggests it is focusing on the life of Einstein but specifically on his ethics. Our syllabus says we will be engaging in a study of his responses to the ethical dilemmas he faced in his time, that this class will be a study of Einstein as person of conscience. Before I get started talking about the class and what I’ve read and what has been discussed I want to take a minute look at the definition of ethics. Merriam-Webster’s defines ethics to be:

This semster to round out my 15 hours required to graduate I am taking a course titled "Ethics of Einstein." Our syllabus says we will be engaging in a study of his responses to theethical dilemmas he faced in his time, that this class will be a study of Einstein as person of conscience.

A ray tracing project from my computer graphics class. We built our own ray tracers from the ground up, its pretty cool!

Preface:
In English, eleventh grade, we had to write a short story about
supernatural powers. I enjoyed writing it and afterwards continued to
work on it. I would forget about it for several months but then find it
again and work on it a little more. What you are about to read is, I
believe, the final version.

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