One of my favorite things to do is plan a new course, especially when I’m planning it with a friend and colleague from another discipline with whom I’ll be teaching the course in the near future. I’m currently designing a colloquium called “Faith and Doubt” with a thirty-something friend and colleague from the Political Science department—who also happens to be a Dominican priest. We’re still in the early stages of planning the colloquium, which we will teach for the first... Read more
The continuing theme of this blog for the past nine years has been an exploration of how faith and reason, my faith commitment and my life as a phlosophy professor, interact and work out in real time. So, it’s no surprise that this essay from April 2019–“I am a Liberal Because I am a Christian”–is, by almost a 2-1 margin over its closest competitor, the #1 most read and commented on post in my blog’s history. Enjoy! I am a... Read more
In last few minutes of Franco Zefferelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, Zerah pokes his head into the tomb where he observed the dead Jesus of Nazareth being buried three days earlier. Zerah is a politically astute, power-hungry Pharisee who has been an enemy of Jesus since he first heard about the roving rabbi three years earlier. Zerah is the one who manipulates Judas into betraying Jesus. Zerah is the one who convinces the Romans to put a beefed-up military presence in front... Read more
Our dachshund Winnie died a week ago. She spent a bit over twelve years with us; for the first nine of those years, she was part of a three-dog pack where she often struggled to establish herself in the pecking order. I often said that Winnie was the “middle child” of the group. Our Boston Terrier Bean was Jeanne’s favorite, and our other dachshund, Frieda, was my soul mate (as well as the clear alpha-dog in the pack). But Winnie... Read more
Coming in at #2 of the most-read posts in the nine years of this blog is an essay that explores a phenomenon that everyone is familiar with–the strong support shown to Donald Trump and his various lies by white evangelical Christians. In this post from November 2019, I discuss how this fascination with Trump and conspiarcy theories has contributed greatly to making Christianity something offensive to the next generation. Noah and his Children: Bad News for White Evangelical Christians Read more
I admit it–I am not always kind or politically correct on social media (especially Twitter). I have been known, for instance, to drop an f-bomb on someone who believes that the 2020 election was stolen or that Donald Trump will be reinstated to the Presidency this month. I get into even more trouble when sports are involved. I once said something less than complimentary on Twitter about a fellow sports fanatic, a person who made the mistake of talking trash... Read more
Any caring human being asks the question What is the right thing to do? on a regular basis. As a philosophy professor who teaches ethics regularly, I am aware that in the minds of many, the whole purpose of thinking systematically and rigorously about the moral life is to provide reliable and confident answers to that very question. Moral philosophers from Immanuel Kant to Iris Murdoch, from Aristotle to Alasdair MacIntyre, have provided frameworks within which to answer the question. But... Read more
Sometimes various elements of real life align in unexpected ways. In the Spring semester of 2020 I was team-teaching a colloquium called “Apocalypse” for the third time. Just about exactly half way through the semester, a real-life apocalypse–Covid-19–forced our campus, along with virtually everything else in this country to go into quarantine. All of the remaining classes for the last weeks of the semester were taught remotely. Not surprisingly, the essay that I posted less than a week after classes... Read more
When I was a young professor, the chair of my department frequently would say in department meetings that, in her estimation, one of the primary goals of the philosophy department was to shape and mold our students into moral human beings. I didn’t buy it then and I still don’t. Making moral people is well above my skill level and pay grade–God doesn’t even seem to be very good at it. Every summer one of my projects is to tackle a... Read more
Guess what? I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. Bruce Dickinson Regular readers of this blog know that I very seldom make it through any post without refering to something from the Bible. This is partially because I know the book well; extensive study and memorization of scripture beginning at an early age was a required part of the religious world I was raised in. More often than not, I use the Bible as a tool to... Read more
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