I am so weary of this worn-out old canard that Christian religion is responsible for violence and wars, and therefore the sooner we abandon it, the better. This is put forward relentlessly and Joseph-Goebbels-like: “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” All the wars and violence of history that are attributed to religion […]
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Religion’s Persistence
An unusually lucid discussion of public accommodation of religion is made by Micahel Ignatieff, in Making Room for God, an article in The New York Review of Books (June 28, 2018). Ignatieff is actually reviewing three books together, in his article, but in the course of doing so he provides a smart way of thinking […]
Read more...Conscience
I wrote on postmodernism in Epidemic Irrationality and since then wrote (in Illiberalism) on one feature of the rise of postmodernism, a descent into battles that do not preserve or protect individual freedom, but instead squabble over just how much individual power to disgorge in favor of the collective. Foundationalism and Coherency Theory A key […]
Read more...Illiberalism
Two weeks ago, in Epidemic Irrationality, I reviewed Stephen Hicks’ book Explaining Postmodernism. I’d like to build on one feature of his analysis because it goes a long way to explaining some of the political upheaval in recent years. The three-way battle I highlighted in that earlier post used phrases like “classical liberalism,” “leftist illiberalism,” […]
Read more...Epidemic Irrationality
A review of Explaining Postmodernism, Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, by Stephen R.C. Hicks “Explaining” What is postmodernism? We hear the word all the time, but unless we really make a study of it, it’s just a word to describe a way of thinking that somehow follows modernism. Of course, “modernism” is itself […]
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This is a review of A Confession, by Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy lived through the latter half of the 19th century. He came to the end of his life before the Russian Revolution of 1917. You know of him as the author of War and Peace and Anna Karennina, among many other works, including the one […]
Read more...Total Reality
A review of The Story of Reality, by Gregory Koukl The Big Picture Koukl’s book is subtitled “How the world began, how it ends, and everything important that happens in between.” I have to admit that this kind of over-the-top title is off-putting, to me. It makes me think there’s nothing of substance inside. I […]
Read more...Chimerical Neutrality
Tabula Rosa A popular Enlightenment-era conception of the human mind was that it was a tabula rosa, a blank slate devoid of content until an idea is impressed upon it by the child’s environment. It is often linked to the philosopher John Locke. It is not universally accepted, however, and many philosophers believe there is […]
Read more...Prayer and Dissonance
Consider with me the implications of our intuitions about prayer, and what our actual practice of prayer (or absence thereof) says about what we think of God. I suggest two ways of thinking about prayer, and resulting views of God. I admit in advance that this is a simplification, but I submit that it’s not […]
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Suicide and Hope Is it possible that a person who commits suicide was actually a Christian? I think so. The event of taking one’s own life is usually fast and always irrevocable. Yes it’s something they do to themselves, but does that single volitional act always negate the beliefs of a lifetime that went before? It’s […]
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