A few times during my childhood I had a dream of having fallen over a cliff and hanging by my right hand to a small shrub to keep myself from plunging into the abyss below. Another man who had also fallen over the precipice was holding on for dear life to my left hand. Finally, … Read more
Jesus warned against lust, adulterous emotion, as the inner equivalent of adultery, which violates the truth and high reality of marriage and family as understood on high. He warned against anger as he deepened the commandment forbidding murder, which violates the truth of the brotherhood of man, each person created in the image of God, … Read more
One of the aims of this weblog is to help people become aware of philosophy and its benefits, especially the benefits of having a philosophy of living, especially a religious philosophy, especially one centered on truth, beauty, and goodness. But there are dangers of philosophy, too. Here are some of them. Bad philosophy can lead … Read more
My passion for philosophy germinated during high school, when I was on the debate team and began to think about political issues. Then in college I took courses in ethics and logic, and learned how to analyze arguments and how to reduce professors to silence with a few questions asking what they meant by key … Read more
A friend of mine went to the tenth reunion of his high school class, and in response to the standard question, “What have you been doing since high school?” the good-looking gymnast answered, “I’ve created a philosophy of living.” People were impressed. When you think of the effort many organizations go through to form their … Read more
The harmony of contrasts is a leading theme in the aesthetics of nature and of the arts. Watch the harmonies unfold in this 1877 poem by English poet and Roman Catholic priest Gerard Manley Hopkins. Pied Beauty Glory be to God for dappled things— For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all … Read more
As these blogposts circle through a variety of topics, they explore limits. This philosophy of living does not allow its religious core to be upstaged by getting entangled in social, economic, and political controversies; the comments on such topics are therefore few and quite general. In commenting on world politics, this paper from 2004 represents … Read more