Every so often, I’ll review my own long-range goals for developing a more complete worldview. The term ‘worldview’ as I use it is first an empirical understanding of this physical universe and then a more complete understanding in light of God’s purposes as best I can understand them given Christian teachings, my own readings of [...]
See Exploring The Mechanics Of Judgment, Beliefs: Technique Images Brain Activity When We Think Of Others for news on another major effort to understand the physical human being in ‘scientific’ terms. I don’t put scientific in apostrophes because of any intent of misguided irony but only because we should realize that ‘science’ is disciplined intellectual [...]
An astronomer at the Vatican Observatory has said, in a very confused way so far as I can tell, that the question of extraterrestrial life is an empirical question. (See Could ET be Our Brother?). This is old news. In 1277, in what seems to have been a confused encyclopedia of condemnations, Etienne Tempier — [...]
There’s a serious and insightful commentary on the debate between ‘Darwinists’ and ‘design-theorists’ on America Jones’ blog — Debating Popular Intelligent Design. The discussion is addressed to the difference between ‘hypothesis’ and ‘theory’.
In Thomistic thought, the human mind begins to shape itself in response to the immediate environment of that human being. Various perceptual, mental, emotional, and social skills are built to work with that immediate environment. That human being may enter other environments to which he can respond, enriching his mind and even other components of [...]
Before commenting, I’ll quote an entire news item from the “WEDNESDAY, 14 MAY 2008″ newsletter of the Vatican Information Service (EIGHTEENTH YEAR – N. 91): =============================================================== PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE: MEDIATION AND DIALOGUE VATICAN CITY, 14 MAY 2008 (VIS) – In today’s general audience, held in St. Peter’s Square, the Holy Father resumed his series of [...]
A few days back, I uploaded an entry with the above title to my other blog: To See a World in a Grain of Sand. That was a mistake. It was written for this blog. I may eventually move it over, but interested readers can read it there for now: What We Can All Learn [...]
The usual mantra amongst Christian thinkers is faith and reason, implying that faith should be united to and disciplined by products of the human mind. The problem is that Christians are bound to believe that God was not only free to create or not, but also that — once He chose to create — He [...]
“Larvae, the immature forms of many animals, are distinct from adult forms by definition. In many life histories–caterpillars and the trochophore larvae of clams and sea snails are examples–larvae and adults bear no resemblance to each other. Biologist Donald I. Williamson has proposed that larvae are juvenile forms acquired through hybridization–the fusing of two genomes, [...]