Brain and self. What's the relation? Can a neuroscientist rightly say that the self can be reduced to brain processes? Here we look at 5 models of the self to consider. Read more
Brain and self. What's the relation? Can a neuroscientist rightly say that the self can be reduced to brain processes? Here we look at 5 models of the self to consider. Read more
Consciousness and Neuroscience in a Physical World Did I lose my self to determinism? Not if we adopt a 3-Part Determinism ! Did I lose my self to determinism?[1] No. Not if we adopt 3-Part Determinism. Not if we affirm that the self itself is a determiner. In a previous post, “Did I lose my self to my brain?“, we listed five current models of the self: the self as (1) ego continuity; (2) confused higher self; (3) delusion; (4)... Read more
Our inborn sensus divinitatis touted by John Calvin and Friedrich Schleiermacher seems to be threatened by neuroscience or, more precisely, by materialistic determinism. Atheists like this. Yet, the reality is that it takes a herculean effort to to expunge our hard-core common sense openness to divine transcendence. Read more
Alice Rose, age 6, drew a picture of God smiling. Why? Because God loves the world. Read more
Anthea Butler, known for her work in racial justice, reminds public theologians to get with social media. Read more
Food theologian Norman Wirzba raises our consciousness: we live with animals! Brian Brosovic raises our thanksgiving. Read more
Jack London's short story of 1916, "The Red One," looks uncannily like Ancient Astronaut TV programs today. Are space aliens coming to jump start human evolution so that we can evolve from wolves into saints? Read more
Novelist Jack London only hints that civilization needs wolf and lamb ethics. We would aim much too low to adopt evolutionary ethics in either the form of the Lone Wolf or the Wolf Pack. But to aim at a future that contradicts evolution's law of the survival-of-the-fittest would ask for more than what naturalism alone can deliver. Read more
Jack London's ethical naturalism cultivates an evolution-based morality. But, such an ethical naturalist must choose between Lone Wolf Ethics, where nature is blood red in tooth and claw, and Wolf Pack Ethics, exhibiting reciprocal altruism that sharply distinguishes between the in-group and the out-group. Once the choice is made, it ceases to be naturalism. Read more
In this sub-series within the larger Jack London series we are asking: given that we human beings are natural, should we ground our moral striving solely on what is natural? If so, does the lone wolf blood “red in tooth and claw” provide the model for human moral behavior? Do we want a repeat of Social Darwinism, Eugenics, and Nazism? Read more
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