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Monthly Archives: March 2015
Gay Marriage: Should Empathy Or Thomistic Intellect Be The Deciding Factor For Heterosexual Opinion?
With regard to gay and lesbian marriage, maybe empathy is not the way to go. Maybe Aquinas-style intellect separated from empathy is correct. Aquinas, after all, was quite tough on Jews without apparent pangs of conscience. He called them “Christ-killers” … Continue reading
The Separation of Church and Sex
Masturbation is liberation. In light of the fact that God appears to be hidden and silent, what could be the (non-question begging) foundations for proscribing sexual behavior? Sex seeks to hijack the mind and body to a very particular agenda … Continue reading
God Is Maximally Existent; Existence is Good; Therefore God Is Maximally Good?
A bait-and-switch I notice among Thomist theologians and philosophers: they’ll say that existence is good; and God is the most existent Being; therefore God is maximally good. He has the greatest degree of “ontological Goodness.” (Imagine the sweetest and largest … Continue reading
Tony Perkins: “There’s a shared desire to come behind a candidate.”
Calling Dr. Freud. This is in The New York Times today: “There’s a shared desire to come behind a candidate,” said Tony Perkins, the President of the Family Research Council, a national lobbying group that opposes abortion and equal rights … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged equal rights, Freud, gay rights, tony perkins, women's rights
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Why Adam and Eve Never Existed (Illustrated By An Analogy To Birds On An Island)
Imagine an island off the coast of a continent. Two birds from the continent–a male and female–get swept up by a storm and find themselves stranded on this island. They go on to mate and a new species of bird … Continue reading
From The Brothers Karamazov To The Holocaust: Could You Will It Again and Again?
In the Brothers Karamazov, a little before the Grand Inquisitor section, Dostoevsky describes the death of an eight year-old, and this is sufficient to cause Ivan in the novel to reject the whole notion that a good God made the … Continue reading
God’s Pregnancy Test: The Law of Non-Contradiction and the Holocaust
With regard to God’s existence, what happens when we apply the law of non-contradiction to the Holocaust? God is said to be all good and powerful–but the Holocaust happened; therefore if God is good, he’s not all powerful, and if … Continue reading
Does The Holocaust Render Natural Law Problematic?
Think about the Holocaust in relation to natural law. Even if the Holocaust doesn’t give you pause in relation to God’s existence, it nevertheless functions as an impasse to comprehension. What was God up to in letting the Holocaust happen? … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged God, Holocaust, natural law, philosophy, religion, thomism
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Art Students Recreate Nude Masterpieces
The following link is interesting: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/20/artsy-nudes-sva_n_6913694.html
Life on Enceladus?
It appears that beneath the ice of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, is an ocean with sand resting on its bottom and heat vents reaching 190 degrees. Life around the vents? Possibly. Cassini will get within thirty miles of Enceladus … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged astronomy, Enceladus, extraterrestrials, life, science, space
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Steven Pinker Says Violence Is On The Decline. Really.
A short and excellent talk, by Steven Pinker, on the global decline of violence.
“Why the Germans? Why the Jews?” Thinking about Gotz Aly’s New Book, 70 Years after Auschwitz
Given that this week marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I’d like to share a new book on the Holocaust that I’ve been reading: Gotz Aly’s Why the Germans? Why the Jews? It raises the question of … Continue reading
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Tagged american exceptionalism, Auschwitz, Holocaust, Politics
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How Do You Know? Factive Verbs in Relation to Political, Religious, and Scientific Discourse
I’m thinking about factive verbs this morning in relation to such things as global warming, God’s existence, evolution, the future of the stock market, etc. ESTABLISH, for example, is a very strong, emphatic verb, as in, “I’ve established the truth … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, God, language, philosophy, Politics, religion, science, verbs
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Prometheus Unbound 