Let’s consider one historically important central power: the Papacy. The history of the Papacy was actually quite complicated but we can pass over those complications for my current purposes. I choose the Papacy for several reasons. Firstly, I entered the Catholic Church as an adult and am currently an (excessively?) active Catholic parishioner. I hold … [Read more…]
In the essay, When Does Human Life Begin?, Brook Stanton makes a clear and forceful statement, with highly summarized arguments which are really—and he admits so—references to well-established facts and theories of modern biology: human life begins at conception. He doesn’t show awareness that there is some, if not total, truth in the claim that … [Read more…]
[This essay is a lightly edited chapter from my upcoming book, The Shape of Reality, a book which should be posted on my weblog by the end of March and maybe the middle of March.] What is truth? Not so ridiculous a question as some would have it, certainly those who don’t understand how difficult … [Read more…]
Let me go to the ever reliable 1913 edition of Webster’s once-fine dictionary, listing just two definitions of `covenant’ which seem most relevant to my discussion: A mutual agreement of two or more persons or parties, or one of the stipulations in such an agreement. [Appropriate example:] Then Jonathan and David made a covenant. –1 … [Read more…]
Let me start by discussing war, a situation in which leaders of states often try to impose their will by wreaking havoc and unleashing forces of disorder, all the while thinking they can keep matters under control. Anthropologists, working with archaeologists and other pre-historians, now have strong evidence that the average level of violent killing … [Read more…]
For background, I’ll make these three claims without trying to justify them: Human beings don’t come together just to be together or for any other sentimental reason; human beings come together to do things and because they are dependent upon each other, perhaps as a result of doing things together. Most moral behavior is learned … [Read more…]
What is truth? Where is truth to be found? There are a few starting points for a Christian willing to consider the opinions of Thomas Aquinas and all the great thinkers before him as well as opinions derived directly from the works of the modern scientists including sometimes just their empirical or mathematical findings and … [Read more…]
The title tells it all, but—of course—I have a bit more to write. We are somewhat realistic about the inner-city results of disorder in modern human communities. Gangsters come to local power. Thuggish young men begin to form gangs which fight for control of the distribution of heroin and other drugs in a few blocks … [Read more…]
Realism, as the term is used in foreign policy, builds upon the same foundations as Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand analysis of economics. It is an empirical analysis at the level of human actors without necessarily making any explicit attempt to understand why it is that those actors behave as they do. Hence, the invisibility. And … [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…]