thoughts in and out of season
Talking about what people should and shouldn’t do is a sticky business. Pascal was obviously right when he said that it’s difficult to speak humbly of humility or chastely of chastity, and it’s conventional to accuse obtrusively pious and moral people of hypocrisy. During my unfortunate stay in the Episcopal Church I noticed that people … More ...
In an email discussion with Larry Auster (reproduced toward the end of this entry at his weblog) I suggested that our rulers would always give way to the group that combines maximum ability to disrupt with a colorable claim to leftish legitimacy, simply because things are easier that way. That’s the basis of European pre-emptive … More ...
Wilhelm Roepke’s book A Humane Economy is intended to lay out the conditions for the existence and well-being of a free economy and indeed a free society. Those conditions are rather demanding. Here are some quotations:
… More ...The market economy, and with it social and political freedom, can thrive only as a part and under the
I read The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels some years ago and couldn’t see that there was much there. It’s always been notorious that in the second century and later various speculative writers composed riffs on Christian themes that aroused some interest for a while (although apparently never mass interest). They were debunked and denounced … More ...
Here are a couple more instances of what happens when Christianity is eviscerated by abolishing its transcendent aspects: “Embracing Change”, as discussed by the inimitable Diogenes, and “Carnal Love”.
The former, of course, is a therapeutic expression meaning “do what you’re told and like it.” Its currency among touchy-feely ecclesiastical functionaries is a … More ...
As mentioned in my last entry on the Tridentine Mass, the French bishops have been lobbying intensively against it. Rumor has it that some of them have pointed out that it’s wiser not to order changes those on the spot will refuse to carry out. Apparently the Pope’s been doing some jawboning (click on the … More ...
Here’s another way of putting a point I made in my last entry: we understand things by seeing them in a setting. We also need to have some sort of general understanding of the world at large to orient our lives and thought as a whole. That understanding can’t involve an infinite series of ever … More ...
Charles Murray has an interview at the Gene Expression weblog in which he mentions that he has been an agnostic since his teens but is growing more and more inclined to thoughts of God as he grows older. His case is common enough to be worth comment. Why is it that once men pass adolescence … More ...
On the face of it, these pro-homosexualists who don’t like “prejudice” have a point: Mixed message, and Two speeches, two days apart. If it’s true, as the Pope supposedly said, that we should all strive to “overcome preconceived ideas and prejudices, tear down barriers and eliminate contrasts that divide … so as to … More ...
Does anyone know what “reconciliation” means in church-speak? Dr. Schori, the Episcopal Presiding Bishop, uses it quite a lot, and calls it the mission of her church, but you never see a clear definition.
So far as I can tell, the word refers to a state of affairs in which everybody remains as much … More ...