Category: Religion
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Pious Language
Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being, p. 227: "I doubtless hate pious language worse than you because I believe the realities it hides."
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Serious Faith
A serious faith, a vital faith, is one that battles with doubt. Otherwise the believer sinks into complacency and his faith becomes a convenience. Doubt is a good thing. For doubt is the engine of inquiry, the motor of Athens. Jerusalem needs Athens to keep her honest, to chasten her excesses, to round her out, to…
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Religion Without Metaphysics?
Whether or not theistic or any spiritualistic metaphysics is true, we can aspire, seek the truth, pursue the good, love our neighbors, be kind, do no harm, respect, revere, cherish, be grateful . . . honor our commitments, follow our consciences . . . guard our thoughts, weaken the ego, live by a code, deny…
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A Fine Essay on George Orwell
By Robert Gray, in The Spectator, here. Excerpts: Orwell, then, presented Catholics as either stupid or blinkered, dishonest or self-deceived. Yet he was very far from denying the need for religion. In his opinion socialists were quite wrong to assume that when basic material needs had been supplied, spiritual concerns would wither away. ‘The truth,’…
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More God, Less Crime
James Q. Wilson discusses Byron R. Johnson, More God, Less Crime. The good news is that religion leads to less crime. The bad news is that investigating the question can lead to a denial of tenure.
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No Eternal Punishment? Then Why Eternal Reward?
Suppose God exists and there is an afterlife the quality of which depends on how one behaves here below. Suppose that the justice which is largely absent here will be meted out there. And suppose we take as a moral axiom that the punishment must fit the crime. The question then arises: what crime or…
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Was Moses High on Mount Sinai? If Yes, What Follows?
Benny Shanon is quoted by The Guardian as saying: As far as Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either. Or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel…
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Are Atheists Theologians?
This from a reader: I’m e-mailing you with this question because it’s bothered me for a while and I think you are more than capable of giving me a better understand of it. “Can atheists rationally ignore theology? Further, if they do need to study it, quite how much should they study, and which aspect(s)…
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Still More on the Morality of Celebrating the Death of Evildoers
It is not just some Christians who feel the moral dubiousness of joy and celebration at the death of evildoers. Here is Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld. "So our tradition is clear: Public rejoicing about the death of an enemy is entirely inappropriate." Here is a delightfully equivocal statement by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman. Interestingly, Dennis Prager is still…
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More Mail on Prager, Osama, Judaism, and Pacifism
Hi Bill, I was a bit surprised to read that in response to your post about tempering one's joy at Osama's demise, "Prager pointed out that the Jews rejoiced when the Red Sea closed around the Egyptians, and that this rejoicing was pleasing to God." First, I was surprised because a quick look at Exodus…
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From the Mail: Christianity and Judaism
Dear Mr. Vallicella, I want to begin by thanking you yet again for your fantastic blog. Your recent posts on Osama Bin Laden, the correct response to his death, and on evidentialism have been absolutely superb. I have linked to a great many of your posts in recent days on my facebook and I…
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On Joy at Osama’s Demise: Dennis Prager Responds to Me on the Air
It's been an interesting morning. At 10:30 AM I noticed that my traffic was way up for the day. And then at 11:12 AM I heard Dennis Prager reading on the air the first paragraph of a post of mine from yesterday in which I express my disappointment at Prager for rejoicing over Osama bin Laden's death…
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Is Osama bin Laden in Hell?
Jeremy Lott, Osama bin Laden in Hell: To keep Osama's purported martyrdom from inspiring others, the point needs to be made, loudly and repeatedly, that killing innocent people is not the path to heaven. This will put the US government, and Barack Obama in particular, in an an awkward spot. It is undoubtedly a theological…
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Why I am a Quasi-Atheist*
A guest post by Peter Lupu with some comments in blue by Bill Vallicella. [This essay is dedicated to the memory of Ann Freitag, my significant other, who passed away on April 17, 2010, 11:30am. She gave me two priceless gifts: Herself and a deep understanding that the love of life is not a mere…