In a recent essay, Cafeteria Catholics and Ghetto Catholics, I claimed: From an intellectual viewpoint also simple, the problem with many traditionalist Catholics is that they don’t think in terms of a world in which new facts and knowledge emerge over time, forcing our understandings to develop over time in a “communal process” as the … [Read more…]
The essay, Disorder on the March, by Joseph Wood ends with the paragraphs: The confusion of the moment is so comprehensive, as demonstrated in just the recent examples above from popular culture, law, science and politics, that any kind of coherent political or public square response is difficult to envision. As a friend recently reminded … [Read more…]
From a simple intellectual viewpoint, the problem with “cafeteria Catholics” is that they don’t think in terms of a God of reason, in terms of a Creation which is a well-ordered multitude and unity of manifestations of divine reason. Of course, if they were to place their thoughts and feelings and behaviors in better order, … [Read more…]
Scientists have succeeded in creating false memories in lab mice, though it’s not at all true they created memories from scratch. Rather did they expose the mice to a bad experience in one location and then manipulated activity levels of brain-cells so that the mice associated that bad experience with another location where they’d not … [Read more…]
I’ve just finished reading Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly and considered it a perversely entertaining read about a disedifying aspect of much of human history—the sheer stubborn stupidity of many political leaders. After quick discussions of Jeroboam, son and successor of King Solomon, and the legend of the Trojan Horse—which likely had some historical … [Read more…]
This essay is written in response to an article which is highly rational and not `conspiracy-minded’ according to the current mind-set: Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever. This article deals with the price-fixing activities of money-center banks and allied financial institutions, activities which are proving to be wider ranging and larger in scale … [Read more…]
I’ve argued repeatedly that we need to accept that we live in a world of evolutionary and developmental processes. This isn’t just a matter of intellectual correction. Much of the suffering in recent centuries was caused by our prideful attempts to control dynamic entities, even our own children, as they go through maturing processes of … [Read more…]
The Library of Law and Liberty website has another interesting article, this time dealing with some of the thoughts of the American Jesuit, John Courtney Murray. In this article, ‘The True Sage of Woodstock’, Richard Reinsch writes: How can reasonable men and women reclaim equality over and above egalitarianism? The first principled step is to … [Read more…]
Kenneth B. McIntyre’s review of the book, Oakeshott on Rome and America by Gene Callahan, was published at the website of the magazine The American Conservative. I’ve not read that book but my comments deal with basic lines of thought found in Oakeshott’s major writings. In McIntyre’s review, Oakeshott vs. America, we can read: So … [Read more…]
I don’t think we ever had our religion in the United States, at least not a true Biblical religion. From an early period, immigrants to this country considered themselves largely freed of the traditions of their home countries, including their Christian traditions. They thought to retain the title of `Christian’ without letting anyone tell them … [Read more…]