Rod Dreher posted an interesting essay on March 23, 2016: Millennial Landslide. I’ll start with a snippet of a quote he provided from another source: The percentage of Americans who prayed or believed in God reached an all-time low in 2014, according to new research led by San Diego State University psychology professor Jean M. … [Read more…]
I’ll start with a link to another insightful and honest analysis by Paul Robinson, a seemingly true expert on Russia who is a professor at the University of Ottawa: Patriotism is enough. Western analysts often mistakenly describe the people now governing Russia as nostalgic for the Soviet Union, an idea which Putin’s recent statements about … [Read more…]
Bertrand de Jouvenel was a French political philosopher active in the middle two-thirds of the 20th century. He was considered to be an expert on the American political system, which at least means he didn’t just naively take American leaders and academicians on their word that the United States is a liberal democracy. The United … [Read more…]
I’d like to return to an essay I wrote in 2009, Darwin, Einstein, and the Totemic Mind: In the totemic mind of ancient hunters of elk, we see the possibility of modern hunters of the secrets of God’s Creation, hunters who carry out their quest in the acts of shaping their minds to embody the … [Read more…]
[I am reposting this essay because it shows how I’ve been dealing for more than five years with the problems of self-righteous blindness in Americans, beginning at least with the Puritan Fathers of New England. Puritanism—Calvinism in general—was one of the most important of the early ideologies infected with radical individualism. And, true to form, … [Read more…]
Most modern Americans don’t truly believe in biological evolution because it conflicts with a once plausible idea which remained strong in ghetto-Christianity after the separation of Christian understandings of Creation from mainstream science and philosophy; the idea is “human beings came into being once and for all and nothing can undo that”. Most Westerners, including … [Read more…]
Paul Robinson is a professor at the University of Ottawa. At his website, he states: “I write about Russian and Soviet history, military history, and military ethics.” His general view of the politics seems to be describable in non-standard terms as “liberal realism”. For example, while making it clear he is far more liberal than … [Read more…]
I’ve been reading a fair amount of works of narrative history lately, most dealing with the history of the Celtic peoples—especially those of the British Isles; lately, I’ve been reading more general histories of the British peoples for greater context. For decades, some prominent historians have been integrating archaeological and linguistic knowledge into their analyses … [Read more…]
Sacramental Christians need to have an understanding of this world which is compatible with sacramental Christian beliefs. You can’t believe the Creator is present, let alone Present on the altar, when you have an understanding of the physical world which is inconsistent with such a Presence. A particularly important part of the physical world is … [Read more…]
I had exquisite timing this summer, was well prepared to think in a rational, fact-based way about Europe’s crisis with immigrants as well as with the slower moving crisis in the United States. For the umpteenth time, I was also reminded of one of my high school history teachers: a somewhat eccentric man who was … [Read more…]