Nov
29
To Everything There is a Season
November 29, 2005 | Leave a Comment
In my line of work one tends to make a lot of use of a certain device known in the trade as a “thought experiment”. I suspect that the popularity of this device among some philosophers is due to a kind of science envy, but I suppose there’s no use in speculating about motives. In [...]
Nov
29
Dante and Darwin
November 29, 2005 | Leave a Comment
There’s a very good post at Darwin Catholic about Charles Krauthammer’s recent remarks regarding the use of torture in extreme cases. Darwin makes some very interesting comparisons to the theology of Purgatory as found in Dante, and he draws a rock-solid conclusion about the morality of torture under any circumstances. Anything that is morally wrong [...]
Nov
29
Indulge Me
November 29, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Pope Benedict XVI has announced a plenary indulgence “under the usual conditions” for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception next Thursday. This item may not get much news coverage, since we live in debauched times that regard such things as indulgences as relics from the middle ages better to be forgotten than practiced. That’s too [...]
Nov
28
Why is it so Dark in Here?
November 28, 2005 | Leave a Comment
A. N. Wilson (”Ann” to “his” friends), a writer of no mean talent, managed to write the meanest–and most inept–biography of C. S. Lewis to date. That should come as no surprise to readers of the absolutely awful Jesus, the insipid Iris Murdoch As I Knew Her, or the unintentionally hilarious Hilaire Belloc. He tries [...]
Nov
28
I’m Positive
November 28, 2005 | Leave a Comment
I have a wonderful little book–not so very little actually: it weighs in at 1387 pages–that is remarkable not so much because of what is written in it but because of the witness it gives to a moribund worldview of a bygone era: the historical positivism of the 1950s and 1960s. The book is Volume [...]
Nov
11
Simon Says
November 11, 2005 | Leave a Comment
When I was in graduate school I was fortunate to be able to study under Simon Blackburn while he was still the Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has since returned to Cambridge, where he continues to hold forth in his witty and sagacious way [...]
Nov
11
Kids These Days
November 11, 2005 | Leave a Comment
I actually was not particularly surprised to read this report at CNS of religiosity among Catholic teens. In particular, I found this remark hauntingly clowse to home:
Forty percent of Catholic teens said they had never attended any parish-based religious education, compared to 19 percent of mainline Protestants, 13 percent of conservative Protestants and 12 percent [...]
Nov
10
BOYCOTT WALMART!
November 10, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Easy for me to say–being asked to boycott Walmart is, for me, a little like being asked to boycott fried liver. But some people love fried liver, so it may not be equally easy for everyone.
Here is the announcement of the boycott from Bill Donohue, which I endorse:
Bill Donohue commented today on the latest [...]
Nov
8
Election Day
November 8, 2005 | Leave a Comment
My wife and I always argue about elections. I’m ashamed to admit that I often take a very utilitarian approach to them. No election in my lifetime has been decided by a single vote, so my own particular vote has no value, so it doesn’t matter if I vote or not. So when it’s convenient [...]
Nov
6
See You on the Other Side
November 6, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Today is my father’s birthday. If he were alive he would be 88 years old. I think of him often in the autumn of the year, not only because that’s when his birthday was, but also because that was when he was taken away from me. Sometimes I find it depressing, but not always. I [...]