by Dr Roland Chia | Dec 21, 2015 | Pulse
December 2015 Pulse Secularists have long ridiculed religion by portraying it as dangerous and divisive. Secularism, they insist, is not only objective since it is based on the natural sciences and empirical rationalism; it is also more tolerant and neutral, and...
by Dr Roland Chia | Dec 7, 2015 | Pulse
December 2015 Pulse In an interesting essay published in 1998, the well-known Australian populariser of science Paul Davies asks a provocative question: ‘Is the Universe Absurd?’ In crafting his answer, Davies begins by pointing out the marvellous things about our...
by Dr Roland Chia | Nov 16, 2015 | Pulse
November 2015 Pulse In his 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker argues that “violence has been in decline for long stretches of time” and that “we may be living in the most peaceful era of our species’ existence.”...
by Dr Roland Chia | Nov 2, 2015 | Pulse
November 2015 Pulse In his speech during the 2011 Presidential Address Debate, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong alluded to the rising income inequality in Singapore when he said: ‘the most successful Singaporeans will continue to do very well. The average Singaporeans...
by Dr Roland Chia | Oct 19, 2015 | Pulse
October 2015 Pulse On a chilly January morning this year, two heavily-armed Islamic terrorists barged into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris and fired 50 shots, killing 11 people and injuring 11 others. The terrorists shouted...
by Ethos Institute | Oct 4, 2015 | Pulse
October 2015 Pulse In their essay ‘Developing Civil Society in Singapore’, Gillian Koh and Debbie Soon offer a brief but helpful account of the genesis and metamorphosis of civil society from pre-independent period to the present. The authors also discuss some of the...
