You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. [Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell.] As Western Civilization is decaying, we still don’t know what we had and there’s a good reason for that. As I’ve stated repeatedly, a civilization is mostly inside of its members: our understanding of ourselves and others, of Creation and Creator. … [Read more…]
Let me expand upon the title: Self-government isn’t government structure, it’s a claim for (positive) rights successfully made by a morally well-ordered population; that is, a claim for rights not magically granted to us but earned by real-world efforts and made possible by a bit of luck. We, the American people and our government, can’t … [Read more…]
Introduction On 2017/04/20, Judge Andrew Napolitano published: What if We Don’t Really Govern Ourselves?, a simple and coherent article questioning whether democracy exists in the United States and whether democracy is, in any case, an absolute good or an answer to our various political problems. Napolitano’s essay is in the form of questions which move … [Read more…]
My hope is to hook up with some human beings or foundations who would like to help me to continue constructing an intellectually and empirically respectable worldview for sacramental Christians. The established Christian intellectual and artistic institutions aren’t nearly doing the job. I addressed this issue in a post back in 2014: We Need All … [Read more…]
We Are the Image of God, Except When that Requires Effort on Our Part At an Easter Vigil Mass (RC), I was a lector—5th reading. That reading is from the book of the prophet Isaiah and includes these lines: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. … [Read more…]
Far too often, Christians—including some who should know better—claim that: Christianity is simple; just follow Christ’s teaching of loving your neighbor and doing good for him. Baloney. For reference, this is the link to the creed, Profession of Faith, used in the Catholic Mass on Sundays and other Holy Days: Profession of Faith used in … [Read more…]
I’ve uploaded the second edition of the novel, Gathering the Silence. This is what I wrote about this novel in the announcement of the availability of the first edition: In a sense this is both my latest and my first novel. It’s about the fifth version of what started out as a straightforward fictional telling … [Read more…]
The American Mathematical Society has printed a nice, non-technical discussion of some basics of modern topology, necessarily intermingled with a discussion of modern geometry. It’s in the form of a tribute to a highly regarded mathematician who was one of the pioneers of modern topology, William Thurston. The article is found at: Remembering Bill Thurston … [Read more…]
The title of this essay refers to a book I recently published, The Shape of Reality. That book is an effort to move forward in our understanding of created being, perhaps even move forward a little in our understanding of the Triune God of Jesus Christ. That book builds upon my understanding of created being, … [Read more…]
[This short essay is a lightly edited chapter from my recently released book, The Shape of Reality, a newly released and freely downloadable book. This is the concluding chapter of the last part of the book, titled What Have We Done and Where Should We Head?. The other two chapters in that last part were … [Read more…]