Free Inquiry is a magazine in whose title the word “free” seems to mean freedom from having to include God in their inquiries, but not the freedom to include Him. The magazine is published by the Council for Secular Humanism, and as their homepage says, “The Council promotes . . . . Continue Reading »
There must still be a few geniuses at The Onion Americas finest news source, yesand perhaps a few disaffected intellectuals as well. Mustering as much cynicismbut with humoras the academic himself, a r ecent Onion musing on Noam Chomsky read: Describing himself as . . . . Continue Reading »
Sometimes its hard to not to despair for the lack of intellectual sophistication in our culture. Rather than making progress, it seems that we too often slide back into acceptance of scholarly fads that had previously been discarded for being inane. Consider, for example, the return of of scientism . . . . Continue Reading »
Pro assisted suiciders often claim that the only reasons to oppose euthanasia/self mercy killing are religious. They will claim that opponents see suffering as “redemptive” and thus desirable—intentionally misstating that doctrine— and oppose mercy killing on the basis . . . . Continue Reading »
1. So I took a few days off and now come back to this distinction, with a lot of fine comments in the thread. 2. Our Founders built better than they said. Is that because no theory can comprehend great practice? Or because there’s no theory adequate to the truth about who we are? In both . . . . Continue Reading »
Very long-term notice: A conference honoring Ralph McInerny, the late philosopher (novelist, poet, essayist, activist, journalist, etc.) and friend to this magazine and many of its editors and writers, and in fact a man who seems to have been a real friend of almost everyone he met. . . . . Continue Reading »
I have been leading a study of John’s Gospel at church. Something interesting occurred to me yesterday as we went through the fourth chapter.Nicodemus, who is described as a Jewish ruler, comes to see Jesus. The gentile official, who hopes for his son to be healed, comes to see Jesus.The woman . . . . Continue Reading »
Several years ago Bruce Bawer (While Europe Slept) published in The Wilson Quarterly a fascinating article, The Other Sixties, about that brief era wedged between the ostensibly mindless conformity of the 1950s and the turbulent “Sixties,” with its drug culture, angry anti-war protests, . . . . Continue Reading »
In Christianity Today , Mollie Ziegler Hemingway discusses the fact that many of those who want marriage equality do not want fidelity : Same-sex marriage advocates frequently ask, “How would gay marriage affect your marriage?” The question is posed rhetorically, as if marriage is a . . . . Continue Reading »
No personage stands closer to the center of the American foreign policy establishment than the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and it is something of a milestone when the current holder of this office, Richard Haas, writes in the May 12 Financial Times, “Goodbye to Europe as a . . . . Continue Reading »