Let me recount some of the ways in which we modern Christians are confused: We are still trying to apply categorical reasoning to creatures and relationships in a world of evolutionary and developmental processes. We have no way, even in principle, of saying which of our ancestors was the first creature to fall into the … [Read more…]
Most human beings alive in this year of our Lord 2013 freely and fully accept the evidence that the human race wasn’t a special creation by God. Our ancestors were knuckle-draggers who rose from that position to one we consider, with some prejudice perhaps, to be more noble. Remarkably, many who have accepted our biological … [Read more…]
This is the second part of an essay in three parts. The first part dealt with an essay by Donald Kagan, Ave atque vale, which provides a highly summarized history of liberal arts education in the West along with a few hints toward a profound understanding of human knowledge and education and, finally, an assessment … [Read more…]
The anthropologist John Hawks has published a short discussion, Crazy evolution movies, which is really about wrongful understandings of evolutionary processes. He states: To be fair, this scenario [of the evolution of intelligent apes in Planet of the Apes within 2 or 3 millenia] is quite consistent with some people’s models of human evolution, in … [Read more…]
I’ve just finished reading Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly and considered it a perversely entertaining read about a disedifying aspect of much of human history—the sheer stubborn stupidity of many political leaders. After quick discussions of Jeroboam, son and successor of King Solomon, and the legend of the Trojan Horse—which likely had some historical … [Read more…]
Most scientists, many supporters of science, don’t seem to believe that past works, outmoded works—even some with serious and avoidable errors, are worth the effort of study. This is probably at least partly due to the fact that science has been so important a part of the modern cultural mainstream that scientists have naturally come … [Read more…]
I have uploaded A Modern Understanding of Human Being, a book about human being from a viewpoint of a Christian accepting and making some sense of modern empirical knowledge. In this book, I lay a foundation by advocating respect for empirical reality, the reality into which we are born and in which we develop. Moreover, … [Read more…]
I’m going to take a quotation from Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals somewhat out of context: The bad conscience is an illness, there is no doubt about that, but an illness as pregnancy is an illness. [second essay, section 19 from the translation by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale, Vintage Books, 1989] What is … [Read more…]
I’ve argued repeatedly that we need to accept that we live in a world of evolutionary and developmental processes. This isn’t just a matter of intellectual correction. Much of the suffering in recent centuries was caused by our prideful attempts to control dynamic entities, even our own children, as they go through maturing processes of … [Read more…]
What happens when someone loses a body part or use of and feeling in that body part? How completely can a human being adapt to a prosthetic device? In a recent article, Human Brain Treats Prosthetic Devices as Part of the Body, we can read: People with spinal cord injuries show strong association of wheelchairs … [Read more…]