Joe Carter

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair recently spoke at Communion and Liberation’s annual meeting in Rimini: Faith enlarges and enriches the idea of community. The recent Papal Encyclical is a remarkable document in many respects. It repays reading and re-reading. But one strand throughout it, . . . . Continue Reading »

Derek Silvers shares a fascinating talk given by Kurt Vonnegut in which the novelist explains why people have such a need for drama in their life . [Vonnegut] said, “People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories. . . . . Continue Reading »

An interesting discussion at LibraryThing on Dune ‘s effect on the science-fiction genre : One of my favourite things about SF is that the sheer amount of stuff that those authors pack into these books is unbelievable. Case in point: Double Star , by Robert A. Heinlein – in less than 200 . . . . Continue Reading »

About 10 percent of infants die in their first year of life in Africa—still shockingly high, but considerably lower than the European average less than 100 years ago, let alone 800 years past. And about two thirds of Africans are literate—a level achieved in Spain only in the 1920s. . . . . Continue Reading »

The New York Post has a story about a group of Torah-toting, pistol-packing, karate-chopping rabbis that is almost too awesome for words. Fortunately, they include a Pulitizer-worthy photo (see right) and a a video which Gothamist describes as “mix of Wes Anderson, Adam Sandler, and the . . . . Continue Reading »

“Who’s the greatest mom of all?” Earth Mama!” Students in public schools are all too often forced to sing similar paeans to the environment. But at a Catholic school, shouldn’t kids be taught that Earth Mama comes in (at least) second to Mary, Mother of God? . . . . Continue Reading »

Jimmy Akin, my favorite Catholic apologist, has a detailed post examining whether Fatima al-Mutayri should be considered in full communion with the Catholic Church and whether she could be a candidate for canonization: Vatican II’s statement regarding Islam could definitely have been better . . . . Continue Reading »

So you know how when you’re coming out of the grocery store and someone says “Want to sign our petition” and you say “What’s it about?” and they say “It’s about getting to the truth about 9/11.” and you think “Well, I like truth but my my ice cream . . . . Continue Reading »

Newser , an online news aggregator started by Michael Wolff ( Vanity Fair , New York magazine), claims to “choose the most important stories from hundreds of US and international sources and reduce them to a headline, picture, and two paragraphs.” That reducing to a picture can be a bit . . . . Continue Reading »

For the last several days I’ve been writing about religious beliefs and how they are tied to theory-making (see here , here , and here ). In essence, my argument has been that (a) everyone has religious beliefs, (b) these beliefs form the basic presuppositions that shape our theory-making, . . . . Continue Reading »