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Can Reason Withstand the Death of God?

Freddie has written a post that forces me into the odd position of defending Sam Harris; the crux of which is the claim that once we accept the human mind as being a contingent accident of evolution, we necessarily must abandon any faith in the intellectual edifices constructed by such minds: For . . . . Continue Reading »

Prayer for Jamaica

Lord of the storm, spare Kingston’s unkempt port, spare Spanish Town and even Montego Bay. Open your eye only on empty sea. Let vessels reach their quays unscathed, and lashings never snap. Let shantytowns stay roofed, and coconuts not cannonball through walls. Almighty, if it pleases you to rip . . . . Continue Reading »

The Church's Way of Speaking

When St. Augustine abandoned the teaching of rhetoric in Milan to enroll for baptism, he asked St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, what to read in the Scriptures “to make me readier and fitter to receive so great a grace”? Ambrose told him to read the prophet Isaiah. Augustine took his advice, . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

The Real Story I read with interest and agreement Edward S. Shapiro’s “Blacks and Jews Entangled” (August/September). While there exist shared experiences of oppression, Shapiro notes quite correctly that a black-Jewish relationship should not be based on fanciful notions derived from . . . . Continue Reading »

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