Joe Carter

If you had asked me as a young Baptist boy to explain the difference between Protestants and Catholics, I would have said that Catholics were the Christians who “have to do what the Pope tells them to do.” Now I’m an old Baptist and realize how naive I was. (I’m more likely . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s not that the media is ignoring the story , Jody, its just that there are so many more important subjects to report on. For example, according to Google the number of news stories posted between yesterday and today on Pope Benedict almost reaches two hundred (see chart below) while . . . . Continue Reading »

The website of Fathers for Good—an initiative for men by the Knights of Columbus—has posted a video of Princeton professor Robert George discussing fatherhood, marriage, and family life. Professor George also has a new article, “What Marriage Is—And What It Isn’t”, . . . . Continue Reading »

While working on a recording together, Johnny Cash asked Bob Dylan if he knew “Ring of Fire.” Dylan said he did and began to play it on the piano, croaking it out in typical Dylanesque fashion. When he was done he turned to his friend and said, “It goes something like that, . . . . Continue Reading »

What could be the setup for a lame joke turns out to be the setup for a lame reality show in Turkey . Penitents Compete , scheduled to launch in September, includes select religious leaders seeking to convert a group of ten atheists to their respective faiths. The winning religious leaders get to . . . . Continue Reading »

In an amusing post that pokes fun at both Twitter and applied moral philosophy, James Anderson offers eighteen arguments ” Against All Tweets .” As an Aristotelian-Augustianian-Plantingan advocate of natural law, I was persuaded by a number of his conditional proofs. But being . . . . Continue Reading »

In his post on Local Color , Jody includes the epiphanic observation that American literature has entailed a “substitution of geography for heroes in our moral vocabulary.” In other words, we don’t have many heroic types in American literature. What we have instead is heroic . . . . Continue Reading »

Since the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Republicans have been wondering how to challenge her without it backfiring on them. Hadley Arkes proposes a novel solution : Let Sotomayor talk—and get on the record what the Democrats don’t want explained about the law: . . . . Continue Reading »

As I mentioned yesterday , when it comes to issues of bioethics the “degradation of language only leads to linguistic confusion and muddy thinking.” A prime example can be found in the BBC article that Ryan cites . The term design means to intend for a definite purpose—and the gene . . . . Continue Reading »

Stanford neuroscientist Lera Boroditsky has an interesting article on how the languages we speak shape the way we think . She notes that the consensus in her field is that “people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how . . . . Continue Reading »