We were told by Jesus of Nazareth that we must become like children to enter Heaven. We must become `child-like’ and not `childish’. As creatures of mind and heart and hands, how can we become child-like? Wouldn’t that mean we would think as a child, feel as a child, and act as a child? That … [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…]
Progressives have often founded and supported eugenics movements. This article,
We modern human beings have separated our minds and hearts from reality, our hands not nearly so much. We’re strange creatures who believe the Christian Creeds long enough to recite them at a Catholic or Orthodox Mass or to keep some of the creedal teachings in mind at other sorts of Christian worship services and … [Read more…]
I repeat myself to a lesser or greater extent in many of my essays. I don’t do so to annoy or bore readers but rather in an effort to gain a new perspective which might bring new insights, if only a whisper, and might reach new ears and maybe inspire new thinkers. After all, I … [Read more…]
In Cosmology: A First Course, Marc Lachieze-Rey writes: The best definition of the cosmos is possibly the ensemble of relations between the constituent parts of the cosmos. First of all, I’ll point out that the larger context, the entirety of the introductory chapter, makes it clear that the cosmos is the parts as well as … [Read more…]
Years ago, I proposed that the immaterial feel of our minds might be the result of fields playing a major role in our thinking. An article, Neurons Talk Without Synapses, discusses recent work that shows neurons `talk’ to each other by way of changes in electromagnetic fields and not just by direct electrochemical contact. I … [Read more…]
I’ve written of the desirability of using tensor-type thinking in qualitative fields where there is, even in principle, no way of particularizing the tensor equations to equations which could actually be used to calculate numbers. A reminder: by intelligent use of tensors (call it reasoning in more abstract spaces by way of differential geometry if … [Read more…]
I’ve nearly finished reading The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin. I didn’t have any particular plans to comment on the insights and delicately ironic prose of Professor Boorstin until I read these words: For while Eliot, reformer though he was, still thought and talked about “subjects” of study, Hall, Dewey, and their … [Read more…]
[This is an essay which I though had been posted on 2012/06/02, but I left it in draft status. I don’t think this glitch in publishing date matters much.] In an essay I published in April of 2012, Intelligence vs. Intellect, I quoted Jacques Barzun from The House of Intellect: We [in the United States] … [Read more…]