Blog Stats
- 2,886,739 readers since June 2008
Recent Comments
- ANSWER THE QUESTIONS - Essay Classes on Feminism for Beginners
- What does Lee Smolin mean when he says that the most fundamental theory can have no symmetries? – GrindSkills on Lee Smolin’s Time Reborn: Physics, Evolution, Atheism, and Buddhism
- Anon on Hanger 18: 1950s Military Clerk-Typist, June Crane, Claims That There Were Alien Bodies Stored at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio
- ra on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Mars on Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- lastunicorn5 on In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- Rhianna on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Nevaeh on Matthew 27:51-53: The Bible’s “Night of the Living Dead” Passage
- Dogwhistle politics explained on A List Of Republican Dog Whistles That No Longer Seem To Work
- Why Do Christian Fundamentalists Burn Books – theologyarchaeology on Does the Bible Advocate Book Burning?
- Philosophy homework help - Nursing Essays Center on Feminism for Beginners
- Philosophy homework help - Coursework Heros on Feminism for Beginners
- Pat on Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
- Answer the questions | Philosophy homework help | Writings Gate on Feminism for Beginners
- mike on Blogging UFOs: What Do You Make of Professor Robert Jacobs’s Bizarre UFO Testimony?
Top Posts
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- Walt Whitman: "To be indeed a God!"
- What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- "The Vision of Christ That Thou Dost See": William Blake on the Many Faces of Jesus
- Dissipation-Driven Adaptive Organization: Is Jeremy England The Next Charles Darwin?
- Fight or Flight? Two Ways to Read Matthew Arnold's Poem, "Requiescat" (1849)
- Trump's New Cancel Culture: Cancelling Black Voters
- Hanger 18: 1950s Military Clerk-Typist, June Crane, Claims That There Were Alien Bodies Stored at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio
- Ludwig Wittgenstein for Beginners
-
Recent Posts
Recent Haiku Tweets
- @abrahampiper Yahweh as a frustrated deity, much to be pitied! Abraham Piper's insight here, if thought about as a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 year ago
- RT @tbonier: More than 80M votes cast and we're not done yet. Thoughts: - It's too late for an "October surprise" to have a significant imp… 1 year ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: 1. Want to thank @DanielNewman for using his HUGE platform for this work. I want to clarify what this is. In the voter… 1 year ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: Tell me again about how old and feeble Joe Biden is??? twitter.com/ProjectLincoln… 1 year ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: Remember when you had a chance to choose country over party and you chose party @SenatorCollins? Well, @ProjectLincol… 1 year ago
Tag Archives: thomism
God Shadowed By Emptiness: Thomas Aquinas vs. The Buddhist Nagarjuna
Emptiness shadows theism. With regard to Thomas Aquinas’ method for grounding existence in being as opposed to change or emptiness (as the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna did), what I find interesting is how, despite himself, emptiness nevertheless shadows Aquinas’ theism. What … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged alan watts, aquinas, Buddhism, Christianity, Nagarjuna, philosophy, thomism
3 Comments
Form v. Change: Gay Marriage, Thomism, Capitalism, and Evolution
I’ve had a modest insight: the dividing line that I’ve been trying to articulate between Thomists and myself surrounding gay marriage can actually be pretty succinctly stated: Thomists take clues from the nature of form to guide them in how … Continue reading
Behavior Drives The Evolution Of Form: One Reason Thomistic Natural Law Theorizing Is Dubious
With regard to natural law theorizing (what constitutes rational or natural behavior for an individual), contemporary Thomists are not, in my view, taking proper account of the fact that, in the higher species of animals, form does not drive the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged gay marriage, natural law, philosophy, thomism, women's equality
7 Comments
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
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
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
Leave a comment
The New Pope’s Liberalism vs. Thomas Aquinas’s Leninism
Thomas Aquinas was the Leninist of his day; he was a Party man. For Aquinas, nothing should be done without reference to The Party. All focus should be on The Party. The Party is the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheist, ecology, entropy, God, hedgehogs, lenin, philosophy, thomism
Leave a comment
Arguing about Gay Marriage with Thomists: Love vs. Reproduction
The premises underlying Thomistic arguments against gay marriage are four: sex’s goal should be directed ultimately to reproduction; marriage is for the rearing of children and the union of man and woman; marriage is naturally a social institution for promoting … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Catholicism, gay equality, gay marriage, God, Jesus, love, thomism, women's rights
3 Comments
What’s a Penis, and What’s It for? Thomas Aquinas vs. Ludwig Wittgenstein
What’s better: to see a thing as having both essential and accidental features, and placing it in a genus-species hierarchy (Thomas Aquinas’ view), or to drop hierarchy and essentialism in definition altogether, and just see a thing as sharing “family … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheist, Nietzsche, philosophy, Thomas Aquinas, thomism, Wittgenstein
Leave a comment
What Love Is (A Definition)
What is love? I’d basically put it among the very broad family of “the better angels of our nature,” and in the genus of “seeking connection, harmony, and cooperation in a non-zero sum way.” As to the species of this … Continue reading
Thomistic Essentialism and Sex in the Real World
Virtually every healthy human adult on the planet has a sex life of some sort, and the effect of Thomistic sexual ideology (use sex organs for procreation only), were it to be seriously followed everywhere, would be the generation of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Catholicism, gay marriage, philosophy, religion, sex, thomism, women's equality
4 Comments
Sex, Thomistic Essentialism, and the Demographic Maintenance of the Catholic Church
With regard to sex, Thomism is a question-begging exercise that puts a veneer of essentialist metaphysics over the question, “Why is God upset if humans don’t make use of their sex organs in accord with their primary and essential function?” … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Catholicism, demographics, gay marriage, philosophy, sex, thomism
1 Comment
Love, Thomism, Jews, and Gay Marriage
Love is what you bring into your circle of concern. You value it for your own happiness and the happiness of the other. It’s what you’ve found a way to work with rather than wall yourself off from, marginalize, and … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, gay marriage, gays, God, homosexuality, love, philosophy, Thomas Aquinas, thomism
Leave a comment
What are Sex Organs For? Thomism vs. Evolution
We know that evolution high-jacks organs all the time to different purposes depending on context. The first tongue may have had the singular purpose of tasting, then it got used by the cat for cleaning the pelt, then by humans … Continue reading
What’s Really Essential About Us? Do Thomists Get This Right?
If we’re heterosexual, God, nature, and evolution have conspired heavy against us in terms of what our essential function is from the age of 13 forward, which is to procreate. But we don’t conform to this aspect of our essential … Continue reading
Could Gay Marriage Drive A Revolution In Thomistic Thought?
At his blog, Thomist philosopher Edward Feser quotes Michael Levin as saying: “What homosexual rights activists really want [from anti-discrimination laws] is not [merely] access to jobs but legitimation of their homosexuality.” This is a distraction. The motive of activists … Continue reading
Sexual Prohibitions Require Justification
At his blog, Thomist philosopher Edward Feser recently wrote the following: “Sexual desire is extremely powerful and the demands of sexual morality an especially irksome imposition on the will. Hence the tendency of liberalism is to try as far as … Continue reading
Gay Marriage and Thomism
At Catholic philosopher Edward Feser’s blog, a poster in the threads wrote the following: “If I start with a conclusion, then perhaps I can manufacture a theory (or modify an existing theory) to arrive at my desired conclusion, but that … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Catholicism, edward feser, gay marriage, God, philosophy, thomism
1 Comment
Two Arguments Against Thomism
I think of metaphysics as akin to poetry. If you can’t ground arguments in empiricism and experience, you can’t really say with certainty whether what you’re claiming is in fact true or merely clever. So my first argument against metaphysical … Continue reading
Technology Bad for Thomists?
Should Thomists shun technology? At his blog, Thomist philosopher Edward Feser wrestles with the question of whether technology–playing with Promethean fire–is a good thing, and I think it’s telling that, by the end of his essay, his question shifts away from the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, edward feser, God, modernism, philosophy, psychology, religion, thomism
4 Comments