One Science, Many Religions?
I love to greet new challenges to my deepest convictions. I ran across one yesterday which kept circling like a vulture in my mind all night. When it finally swooped
East and West of Canaan
Abraham did not grow like a seedling in the Holy Land – he was called there from the east, from Ur of the Chaldees, in today’s southern Iraq. He inaugurated
On Leonard Cohen (1934-2016)
I was at a so-called “rock mass” in Kansas City back in 1967, with a local group playing Jefferson Airplane songs and everyone dancing in the aisles. It was there
Surprised by the Obvious
We are accustomed to being surprised by the unobvious, that which no one would ever have expected. Good philosophy, however, begins with a wonder that consists, essentially, in being surprised
Is Jesus Nice?
The sanitized, presweetened ‘Jesus’ we see smiling wanly at us from many a pious painting is, in fact, a recent production. It’s as modern as the Marlboro Man, although the
Future Fiction
Ernst Bloch famously said that most of what goes on in our mind is pointed to the future – hopes, dreams, expectations, anticipations, projects and outlooks. Aristotelian teleology, which modern
This Side of Glory
The birth of Christianity is irreducibly, unmistakably and – among religions of the world – uniquely centered around an event. It is, first and foremost, not about a teaching to be learned,
About Travel – I
I was impressed to learn that the author of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – which I read as a boy and which inspired me to run away
Smart and wicked
You can be very smart and very wicked, but you cannot be wise without being good. Being smart means you have a mercurial mind – possibly a very high IQ
Another List of Loves
C.S. Lewis penned an insightful book entitled The Four Loves, offering a clear taxonomy of love according to its varieties as family affection, erotic love, friendship, and charity (love of and for
Edith and Elizabeth
Among the common slurs one often hears against the Catholic Church are that 1) it represses women, and 2) the Church’s favorite philosopher/theologian, Thomas Aquinas, is hopelessly out of fashion.