Jeff 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
I am not a healer. I have seen three healers work: as they began, the engine in each of them went into high rpm, their energies whirring with activation; they used spiritual power, and the changes produced were immediate and palpable. Although I believe that we each have some degree of capacity for healing and … Read more
Christianity uses the word “incarnation” mainly to refer to Jesus of Nazareth understood as the Word of God, come down from heaven and made flesh, a person in whom divine and human natures were mysteriously and gloriously united. Hinduism and Buddhism regard us all as having had previous incarnations. And Hinduism speaks of “avatars,” deities … Read more
A tangent is something that touches. Stephen’s comment on the previous blogpost touched the theme integrating body, mind, and soul with spirit. Stephen referred to shamanism, a topic worth pursuing. For all its errors, shamanism sometimes has intuitions that are worth re-theorizing, in other words, worth transplanting into a more philosophically and religiously satisfying garden. … Read more
The conclusion of Descartes’ Error by Antonio Damascio reveals the mind of a humanist neuroscientist who nobly struggles to affirm soul and spirit while holding to the view that these higher realities are products of the mind, which is a product of the brain. “Mind comes from the brain.” (251) “The mind as a function … Read more
Antonio Damascio is one of the top neuroscientists whose work directly touches on philosophical questions, and his clear and elegant writing is seasoned with relevant references to the arts. His blockbuster 1994 book, Descartes’ Error, explains that if the parts of our brain that support reason were not neurologically connected to the parts of … Read more
Palomar Observatory Religion teaches hope for everlasting life, but current scientific cosmology seems to deprive that hope of material support. In The Last Three Minutes, Paul Davies first observes how speculative it is for astrophysics to extrapolate from present trends to a handful of possible scenarios about the “end of the universe,” but then he … Read more
In a cartoon strip by Scott Adams, the boss says, “We can make this a great place to work by following the golden rule. Treat others as you would want them to treat you.” Dilbert replies, “That’s dumb.” Boss: “It’s not dumb.” Dilbert: “Let’s test your rule. Would you like it if someone gave you … Read more