A Thinking Reed

  • Stop blaming St. Anselm for the Crusades!

    Rev. Thomas Williams, an Episcopal priest and distinguished philosopher, ably dismantles some of the cruder anti-Anselm polemics that blame his theory of the Atonement for, well, pretty much everything bad in Christian history.

  • The curious case of the shrill veg(etari)an

    Great post from Jim Henley commenting on this post at the Atlantic. Fisher, I think, overstates the case of how hard it is to be vegan. Not that I am one, but it certainly doesn’t require the heroic level of asceticism he suggests. I mean, I’m a mere lacto-ovo veggie, but, at this point, it’s…

  • Friday metal – Metallica, “Creeping Death” (live in Moscow, 1991)

    Off to Philadelphia for the weekend, so light blogging will continue for a few days.

  • Catechesis FAIL

    Thoreau at Unqualified Offerings brought these depressing opinion poll results to my attention. Essentially, the more of a Bible-believing regular churchgoer you are, the more likely you are to approve of torture: 53% of white mainline protestants said that torture can rarely or never be justified, while 46% said that it could sometimes or often(!)…

  • Hymn for the day

    Not the one we actually sang today, but I like this one better: Jesus Christ Is Risen Today Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia! our triumphant holy day, Alleluia! who did once upon the cross, Alleluia! suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia! Hymns of praise then let us sing, Alleluia! unto Christ, our heavenly King,…

  • The psychology of torture

    Marvin made the point in comments here that it’s depressing to even be arguing about the morality of torture. After all, the wrongness of torture is something we should all simply take for granted, and the fact that it’s become a contested topic says something really bad about where we are as a country. Personally,…

  • Friday metal – Cleveland rocks edition

    Chimaira is a metal/hardcore sextet from Cleveland; their new album, “The Infection” just came out and is really good. Here’s a clip from their 2003 album “The Impossibility of Reason” (a very postmodern title, don’t you think?):

  • Jacques Ellul vs. the Kindle

    Well, sort of. John H. at “Confessing Evangelical” has a very interesting post using 76 questions Ellul suggested we ask about any new technology.

  • Global warming, food shortages, and … civilizational collapse?

    I got to hear a talk the other day by Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute. He talked, among other things, about the relationship between global warming, food scarcity, and the geo-political instability that could result. Scary stuff. This article provides a summary of his ideas.

  • Souter’s out, according to the Times

    I wondered why their were all those reporters hanging around the Supreme Court when I was out running this morning. Now I know.