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British Court Rules on Jewish Identity

Britain’s Supreme Court chose the fifth day of the Jewish Feast of Chanukkah to rule that Jewish religious law is “racist,” and that the British Courts rather than Jewish religious authorities have the right to determine who is a Jew. The epigonoi of Alexander’s empire . . . . Continue Reading »

Oral Roberts: An American Life

Oral Roberts lived and believed in the American dream. He was also a devoted Christian. The tension between the two is a good predictor of the successes and failures of an important American and Christian life. Roberts was a complex man who lived a long time and it would be unfortunate if he only . . . . Continue Reading »

Stephen Toulmin, 1922-2009

Stephen Toulmin died earlier this month . He was a leader of the generation that come of age after World War II and made its way out of the wilderness of logical positivism. An enemy of arid rationalism and the foolish belief in the omni-competence of science, his work did a great deal to revive in . . . . Continue Reading »

Shame on Britain!

The Times of London reports:The Jewish Free School has lost the hard-fought case on the criteria for admissions to this sought-after school. The next step might be to challenge equality legislation itself, as the admissions criteria, found to be racially discriminating, was based on the . . . . Continue Reading »

Dignity and Our Biotechnological Future

So I just finished writing an essay defending the Bush/Kass “dignified moral conflict” approach to bioethics from the coming Obama “expert consensus” approach. Here’s an excerpt: Scientific experts are surely right that if our moods are merely random collections of . . . . Continue Reading »

The Delusional Future of Free Association

Kyle draws my attention to these lines from Robin Hanson, who calls “our era the most consistently and consequentially deluded and unadaptive of any era ever:” When they remember us, our distant descendants will be shake their heads at the demographic transition, where we each took far . . . . Continue Reading »

The Genius of Fr. Schall

Always illuminating, Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.  is a philosopher/priest who like Justin the Martyr might find wisdom in Eric Voegelin’s comment that “ . . . Christianity is not an alternative to philosophy, it is philosophy itself in its state of perfection; the history of the . . . . Continue Reading »

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