A Thinking Reed

  • For what it’s worth

    Consider this a kind of postscript to the last two posts. My personal view is that consciousness and mind are perfectly “natural” in the sense that no supernatural intervention was necessary to “insert” them into the process by which life developed. I take it that they emerged once living organisms became sufficiently complex, even though…

  • Nature’s “transparent rational beauty”

    The kinds of considerations I was discussing in the last post are very similar to those that physicist-priest John Polkinghorne offered as part of a “modest” natural theology in his book Belief in God in an Age of Science. I posted on this several years back, but here’s the relevant portion of the post reproduced:…

  • Mazzy Star, “Fade into You”

  • The reasons for reason

    Gene Callahan is going back and forth with economist Brad DeLong about philosopher Thomas Nagel’s recent book in which Nagel argues (or so I gather–I haven’t read it) that a strictly materialist understanding of evolution is insufficient to account for the human mind’s ability to understand reality. While I haven’t read Nagel’s most recent book,…

  • God made Himself small for us

    The Christ had to suffer and die, because whenever the Divine appears in all its depth, It cannot be endured by men. It must be pushed away by the political powers, the religious authorities, and the bearers of cultural tradition. In the picture of the Crucified, we look at the rejection of the Divine by…

  • The incoherence of conservative economics

    First Things‘ R.R. Reno and The American Conservative‘s Scott Galupo both have recent posts that grapple intelligently with the problems of the G.O.P’s economic message. They’re responding in part to Mitt Romney’s post-election diagnosis that President Obama won because he offered “gifts” to voters. Here’s Reno: What today’s Republican Party can’t seem to get its…

  • The Staple Singers, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”

  • The Bible as a laboratory notebook

    To use an analogy that comes naturally to me as a scientist, the Bible is not the ultimate textbook in which one can look up ready-made answers to all the big questions, but is more like a laboratory notebook, in which are recorded critical historical experiences through which aspects of the divine will and nature…

  • The Sword, “Apocryphon”

  • Election 2012: A victory for Christian values

    Some religious conservatives have been near-apocalyptic in their predictions of a second Obama term, insisting that he’s leading the country away from Christian principles and down the road to perdition. But from my perspective, last night’s election was a triumph (albeit a partial one) for Christian values. –In rejecting the Romney-Ryan plan to dismantle the…