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…]
A few weeks ago, Ed Yong posted an analysis of the current state of research in the study of the human brain: Neuroscience Cannae Do It Cap’n, It Doesn’t Have the Power. It is statistical power that is missing. For reasons discussed clearly by Mr. Yong, results in neuroscience are often false or exaggerated. A … [Read more…]
Despite my—so to speak—metaphysical biases toward empirical knowledge, I carry with me a human respect for `ideals’, loosely defined, so that I don’t like the idea that liberty is gained and held by a balance of weaponry between the citizenry and their government. I do accept the arguments in the end, partly because the number … [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…]
God’s Creation can be described in terms of `mystery’ when we speak in certain modes, poetic or spiritual, but that’s not the truest way for a Christian to speak. It’s not the truest way because Christians, of all human beings, should be faithful to the Creator and open to what He’s telling us through this … [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’ve claimed that we can see the world, at least after Jesus Christ’s ascension to His Father, as being the story of the growth and development of the Body of Christ, including the evolution and development of the organs of that Body. We can read the main purposes of God as Creator out of this … [Read more…]
Progressives have often founded and supported eugenics movements. This article, Progressivism, and the ‘German Idea of the State’, by Tiffany Jones Miller, begins with this disturbing sentence: In 1923, Fritz Lenz, a German physician and geneticist advocate of forced sterilization–a man who became one of the leading advocates of the Nazi’s “racial hygiene” program–criticized his … [Read more…]