A Thinking Reed

  • Jesus as sacrament

    It’s not uncommon for theologians to try and explain, or at least illuminate, the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of Communion by making an analogy with the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in the Person of Jesus. Whether or not this is a case of trying to explain the obscure…

  • From animal rights to cosmic democracy

    The second part of Clark’s essay on “Animals, Ecosystems, and the Liberal Ethic” wades into deeper and more interesting waters. Clark contends that it’s “better to abandon abstract argument, in favour of historical.” Ownership, he maintains, is a social concept and thus the idea that we can do whatever we want with what we “own”…

  • Friday metal – leather fetishism edition

    When it comes to classic British heavy metal, I’m more partial to your Black Sabbaths or Iron Maidens than Judas Priest. But this is a terrific song (and pretty awesome video): Judas Priest – “Painkiller” And, yes, that first solo is over a minute long!

  • Debating the bomb

    Apparently some people never get tired of arguing about whether the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified. Happily, though, there is a link there to G.E.M. Anscombe’s “Mr Truman’s Degree” in its entriety, which I don’t think I’ve been able to find on the web before now. I mean, look: in terms of…

  • The political is the personal

    Two recent articles talking about the difficulty of being in relationships with people where sharp political differences are involved: a gay conservative writer for the New Republic writes about being dumped by his liberal boyfriend, and a guy writes to Salon‘s Cary Tennis about how he can’t stand to be around his Republican parents. I…

  • Libertarians and animal rights

    Jim Henley asked for a libertarian justification for animal cruelty laws here. Other libs have chimed in here and here. As it happens, I was recently reading an article by Stephen R. L. Clark called “Animals, Ecosystems, and the Liberal Ethic” (The Monist, Vol. 70:1, Jan. 1987) where he tries to articulate a rationale for…

  • Faith on the farm

    The New York Times looks at a variety of religiously-motivated farmers concened with good stewardship, humane treatment of animals, and fair treatment of farm workers. It’s always tough to know how widespread the phenomena discussed in these kinds of “trend” stories actually are, but it’s heartening to think that “environmentalism” is no longer a dirty…

  • Liberation, human and animal

    (This post actually started out short. Honest!) Christopher (at his new blog) directs our attention to this article by Andrew Linzey on the connection between violence against animals and violence against humans. Clearly it’s not a matter of cruelty to animals causing violence against human beings in a straightforward way. Rather, as Linzey says, “cruelty…

  • CO2 emissions for me, not for thee

    Ross Clark points out that certain high-profile policies in the developed world ostensibly aimed at reducing global warming actually function as a protectionist racket against the developing world. The two most significant that he mentions are the attempt to enforce caps on emissions on countries like China and India without taking per capita emissions into…

  • KsE “Holy Diver”

    Eric mentioned that the Killswitch Engage cover of Dio’s “Holy Diver” that I posted last week no longer appears to be available at YouTube. For those interested, you can see the video in a variety of formats at the band’s webpage at Roadrunner Records: here.