Nessie has triumphed over her last ball at the cost of her favorite game. To fetch the ball is the highpoint of the day for Nessie the Wonder Dog. She has no balls now, because over the last three days, she has used her balls as chew toys. She has numerous bones, chew toys, soft toys, but every so often Nessie decides to send the ball to the place where balls go when they are reduced to rubble: our trash can,... Read more
Sometimes like Nessie, I just listen in wonder. May I never only listen to ideas I know, things I understand fully, or worst of all have to be the center of the conversation! When our sage friend Professor Robert Thomas Llizo comes, Nessie (The Wonder Dog), often sits on the floor listening to adventures in academia. Translator, teacher, Llizo is the sort you call in summer only to discover he is in Tunisia, at a Russian Imperial Ball, or translating exorcism... Read more
Racism is evil. Objectifying women is wrong, a sin that is a particular application of the evils of misogyny. Human trafficking is a great wrong, as is blaming the victims of that terrible trade. The ancient and abominable lie of Adam that the woman caused the man to sin has not gained any virtue over the millennia. These are ancient evils and present problems. Solidarity is a necessity with my friends in the Asian American community against hate and racism.... Read more
Hope came with a trumpet. Music filled the campus and an amazing thing happened. The instrumentalists began to appear from all over campus: from junior high through our college students they began to play. The nursery began to dance, the sun was shining, and a campus that had been under siege from a pandemic and an ice storm looked up. The old oak trees were strong and while battered building four remained closed, repairs were underway. We need not deny all the... Read more
A good life is more than pragmatic, but does take into account what works. If we are just pragmatic, we may lose the truth. Sometimes ideas seem to work, but the “seeming” is deceptive or based on too limited a sample! God’s opinion surely counts as does His judgment for eternity. We all agree we should be wise, but being wise is hard. Wisdom is an excellent Beloved, even if none of us will see her clearly until Paradise. We follow in her... Read more
A cosmos of physical objects alone would lack justice. Ideas, say justice, seem a different sort of thing than building blocks of matter. One could have all the Legos one wished, of any shape or color, but one could never build a “justice.” Material or physical stuff (right down to the sub-atomic level) does not seem like numbers or ideas. Ideas seem to exist apart from stuff. If there had been no humans, then 1 would still be the loneliest number... Read more
I think the truth is out there, is knowable (more or less). Reason, spiritedness, and passion all count, as do our bodies, in a flourishing human life. Reason should referee, because there is an objective truth, goodness, and beauty out there to find. Call these the assumptions of global Christianity: Aksum to Rome. If you reject those, or even my description of global Christendom, then I will not persuade you from the start. Fair enough. When reading, consider the unstated... Read more
The snark generally consumes us. Avoid too much snark. In a grad school lounge, at least in my ancient era, there was little lounging and a good bit of grading with maximum snark. The snark cup overflowed. A favorite tale was the professor, and this is true, who taught his seminar to an empty room, since all his students were sick. We had snark. This is the mode of the graduate student, our one power. This is seemly in that... Read more
I never have a pass on making a bad argument. No scholar should claim more certainty than is warranted by the evidence. Explanations are easy, but sufficient explanations are hard. We can show why something might have caused something else, but showing that it did? Not so easy. Even a scientist must take care. WVO Quine suggested, and I think he was correct, that many ideas in science are underdetermined by the evidence presented. The amount of certainty claimed is... Read more
The just will live by faith. Faith means we must be reasonable even when uncertain, we need substantial hope not just fantasy. We reject cockiness: we do not yet see. If I too cock-sure, then I have missed the Divine Word. This shadowland is full of mysteries. Whenever I read something that is hard, I look first for what is good, true, and beautiful. Sometimes I may think that something is wrong, badly argued, but the best response is to... Read more
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