Analogies can be taken too far and too literally, yet I wonder if we can apply to the human social organism, ultimately the Body of Christ, the example of a long-ago and primitive immune system ‘spinning off’ a neurological system. As I understand this particular line of speculation in evolutionary biology, and it was years … [Read more…]
I’ve come to the position that created being exists across a spectrum going from abstract to concrete or particular. A thing, a particularized form of being, still has its abstract being in it the way that a vase has still the raw materials of its clay and glazing. In fact, as you penetrate the stuff … [Read more…]
Why do we resist changes in our beliefs about our selves, the world around us, and our relationship to God? Americans in particular, for all our claims to honesty about facts and our claims to have a hardheaded respect for reality, find it difficult to accept empirical evidence that we’re not quite the creatures we … [Read more…]
The lead paragraph of this article, Genomic Changes Found In Brains Of People Who Commit Suicide, asks questions which I’ve been handling in my first book and my blogs for the past two years: Are genes destiny? Alternatively, are we simply the products of our environment? There is a growing sense that neither of these … [Read more…]
This is a summary of my thoughts on dealing with natural law from my viewpoint of updated Thomistic existentialism. There may be some new thoughts in this entry but mostly I’m aiming at two goals: Improving my presentation of my views of a truer natural law, that is, one that corresponds to modern improvements in … [Read more…]
Readers of this blog might be interested in a few articles I’ve posted on To See a World in a Grain of Sand. I’ve tried to reserve this blog, Acts of Being, for more technical writings and my other blog for writings that would be more accessible or which cover topics outside of the development … [Read more…]
I’ll be starting an occasional series of entries where I’ll be commenting upon the Bible’s treatment of some important issues, but I’ll be commenting from my own perspective which I’ve been developing in this blog, Acts of Being, and my other blog for less technical writings, To See a World in a Grain of Sand, … [Read more…]
[This entry has also been posted to my other blog, To See a World in a Grain of Sand.] Those who belong to that school of thought labeled Intelligent Design typically describe themselves as Christian, sometimes Jewish, and sometimes there is only an impression of a vague Theism. In any case, most of these thinkers … [Read more…]
A while ago I’d read that some wildlife biologists had speculated that there’s a regulatory gene for size in grizzly bears and that the mother could change the setting on that gene, setting it to BIG when there was plenty of food and grizzlies were dominant and to a lesser setting when the conditions were … [Read more…]
Today, August 21, is the feast-day of St. Pius X who was Pope from 1903-1914. A saintly man for sure, he was born into poverty and lived an ascetic and morally disciplined life, being greatly concerned about pastoral issues. He was greatly concerned with the needs of ordinary Catholics and also the needs of the … [Read more…]