You are going to a film with characters named “Wonder Woman,” “Superman, “Batman,” and other names that would make even George Lucas blush. You are watching a movie that promises to blow things up and have fight sequences. You can expect some fan service for oldsters (like I am!) who know Barry Allen. Justice League does all of this competently with the luminous screen presence of Gail Gadot, the star of the much better Wonder Woman. The film isn’t Avengers, it... Read more

Some people don’t see well, others of us have biologically based “sad.” Our “feels” are not in line with reality. Telling us to cheer up is distinctly unhelpful. Some people get help with medication, but for others of us that doesn’t help very much. What to do? I am sure there is nothing that helps everyone who faces this problem, but here is some of what has helped me. You could marry someone named Hope, but that is not an... Read more

To embrace all of reality, metaphysical and physical, is to find beauty, but as any sage knew from Plato to CS Lewis, beauty is piercing and brings pain as well as pleasure. Christianity is great and good (whatever is true of other views), because it is unafraid of reality. There are some Christians I am told who retreat from reality and plaster the supernatural where it does not belong so they can no longer see the glory of the natural that God made. We... Read more

When I tell someone I am a Platonist, they often assume I hate the material world, because “Plato.” There were certainly neo-Platonists after Plato who hated the material world, but the accusation is hard to make against Plato himself. Often it is based on little more than Socrates talking about the body as a “prison” in Phaedo before his execution by the Athenian state. Plato did not think matter was “evil” and finding this idea in Phaedo is a misreading of... Read more

Greek philosophy is worth our time, but it is not all sufficient. We should follow the truth, because it is true and have mercy when we can. The gap between what is and what ought to be cannot be cured by simply adopting the “right” perspective. Thinking might help us find a moral choice, but thinking is not enough. Picking our philosophy to cure sin is like picking a doctor to avoid ever dying. There are doctors that can help us... Read more

The day came when our children realized that their mother and I might not have married and they might not have existed as they are. This counter-factual, a soul in a very different body, reminds us of how contingent certain things about us can be. Heredity accounts for much of how were are now, but the irreducible self remains even after death. I recall this thought as a boy and science fiction geek that I am considered many possibilities! Yet now... Read more

I long to have a mind awake, a good heart, and do justice with mercy. Thankfully good teachers had patience with me and helped me learn. I have not always lived up to the values they taught, but they were there, guiding me, sending me back to the start, helping improve what I was through what I am to what I might be.  This is the life of the dialectic, beginning with what “is,” seeing what “ought to be” through discussion... Read more

All passion is from God, but what we make of it can range from the diabolical to the sublime. Humans, all of us, can receive a good gift and misuse it, God forgive us, and in other cases take the same gift and serve other people, thank God. Passion can empower our reason to do good or if ruling can destroy all the good around us. How could both be true? God is love and ground of being. Nothing is... Read more

He needed certainty or he was lost and this made him miserable and everyone around him miserable. Cartesian disease, the belief that one cannot know without being sure, had infected him like so many moderns and left him with nothing. This lost man felt justified, because he was reacting to people who did not care about facts, science, or data. They believed what they wished and if they had known the term would have called any problem that disturbed them... Read more

As reading any news thread shows, passion can provoke problems, God help us. The better news is put to proper use, passion can also speed us toward knowledge. Like most of us, when passion controls me, I make dumb (or worse than dumb) decisions, but when my reason uses passion to get things done, lots of good things I might not complete, become possible. One reason we train for high stress situations is so our passions can drive us correctly... Read more