Another month, another issue of First Things . Just a typical production of the magazine¯this and that, jammed together randomly in the vain hope that some lucky synergy will make it all work. I’m fairly sure none of it is worth your time.Well, except maybe for R.R. Reno’s essay, . . . . Continue Reading »
Should doctors or others be permitted to euthanize babies born with disabilities or assist the suicides of suffering people who want to die? During the first forty years of the twentieth century, fueled by the eugenics movement, the question was very much on the table. Then the Holocaust, in which . . . . Continue Reading »
The spectacle of Don Imus prostrating himself before the Rev. Al Sharpton, as if he were the Holy Roman Emperor on bent knee to the pope, should have pleased me. A few years back, Imus hazed me on his program for weeks after I objected during an interview to a segment he’d just aired . . . . Continue Reading »
Wow. We didn’t know. The “Hallelujah Chorus” is a paean celebrating Titus’ sack of Jerusalem and the Christian’s God’s bloody vengeance upon the Jews. That was the New York Times’ Easter Sunday gift to its readers , courtesy of Swarthmore professor Michael . . . . Continue Reading »
John Rose wrote here yesterday concerning Einstein’s attempted reconciliation of complete physical determinism and human free will, and he noted the argument, mentioned by Stephen Barr and others , that the indeterminacy of quantum theory may make a place for free will in the physical . . . . Continue Reading »
One rarely needs to argue in favor of free will. "Sir, we know our will is free, and there’s an end on it," as Samuel Johnson once snarled. The notion that human beings might not possess at least some ability to choose their actions is treated, among philosophers, primarily as a toy . . . . Continue Reading »
Walter Isaacson’s biography Einstein: His Life and Universe hit bookstands yesterday and promises to be a bestseller. Time magazine has made an excerpt available online called "Einstein & Faith" that is very much worth reading.Although Einstein abandoned his faith in a personal . . . . Continue Reading »
In the context of his Urbi et Orbi address on Easter Sunday, Pope Benedict observed that "nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees." An Italian-speaking friend tells me a better translation would be, "There is no good news from . . . . Continue Reading »
What was perhaps the most pro-Christian show on television did not have a single Christian character in it¯and there was no way it could have. Rome , the hit series that has just completed its second (and for now final) season on the cable channel HBO, turned out to be a surprising affirmation . . . . Continue Reading »
“Through Mary he received his humanity, and in receiving his humanity received humanity itself. Which is to say, through Mary he received us. In response to the angel’s strange announcement, Mary said yes. But only God knew that it would end up here at Golgotha, that it had to end up here. For . . . . Continue Reading »
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