Kierkegaard, Chrysostom and Christmas Boredom

December 26, 2012 By Ryan Adams

In the technological age, we have a horrendous tendency towards boredom. This is unfortunately true even of Christmas. You see the same people, sing the same songs, hear the same homilies, and eat the same food, year after year. For some, this boredom even stretches beyond the social and religious artifacts of Christmas, into the commercial aspects. They stare blankly at shiny new gadgets that cost more than many developing countries GDPs. They were ecstatic about it just one day previous,... Read more

What Friedrich Nietzsche Can Tell Us About Heaven

December 22, 2012 By Ryan Adams

Nineteenth Century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is renowned by atheists everywhere for his (usually taken out of context) axiom of the era, “God is dead.” This misuse of this quote can perhaps in some way shed light on what I mean when I say that we have anything to learn about Heaven, the place where we live with God for eternity, from the man who said that “God is dead.” When Nietzsche proclaims that “God is dead,” he does not... Read more

A Case for Camus

December 18, 2012 By Ryan Adams

In times of great tragedy there are so many questions. The greatest of these questions is “why?” Man is a rational animal, and as such, he refuses to live in a world in which things don’t make sense. He refuses to believe that he resides in a universe which is indiscernible and not logical. And yet, he is faced with events so horrendous that he can find no understanding in them. He sees a tragedy, a true tragedy, and knows that... Read more

Can Anyone Really Be an Empiricist?

December 15, 2012 By Ryan Adams

To be an atheist, one must deny the existence of God, any God. When pressed as to why they don’t believe in God, any god, not even the ones that allow them to throw crazy parties, ie Bacchus, many atheists reply that they don’t believe in God because there is no scientific evidence to prove that there is such a thing as God. And thus, whether he knows it or not, the atheist has killed science. Perhaps I should back... Read more

Ecce Homo

December 11, 2012 By Ryan Adams

Pontius Pilate is perhaps the least talked about figure in the New Testament. It’s strange that so little is said about the man who in effect condemned Christ to death, the death which would become for Christians, the source of salvation for all mankind. However, despite all of this, his role in Christian thought is reduced to a brief mention during Holy Week, and an even more brief mention in the creed. In light of his importance to the Paschal... Read more

Why We Have Secular Humanism

October 21, 2012 By Ryan Adams

Among the ruins of the old, theocratic, feudal order lives a most peculiar creature, modern man. Here stands this bizarre specimen amid a gaggle of other men of similar peculiarity, and all of them live, work, and play, all in the continual presence of what Nietzsche once referred to as the “tombs of a dead God.” And modern man, with his sincere sense of liberation looks at these tombs with an interesting view. He looks with justified disdain upon those... Read more

Being and Nothingness: and Their Relation to Christianity

October 16, 2012 By Ryan Adams

There are many differences between the Hebrew God and the gods of other ancient Near Eastern civilizations. However, perhaps the most important distinction between the God of Abraham and the gods of the Hittites, Egyptians, Sumerians etc., is the fact that the God of the Israelites is said to have created ex Nihilo, that is out of, or from, Nothing. Unlike the typical mythology of a multiplicity of gods fighting and the death of one of the gods meaning the birth... Read more

Can Christianity Answer the Modern Question?

September 18, 2012 By Ryan Adams

Christianity is often criticized for not understanding the struggle of the modern man. Many of the thinkers of the early Atheistic community bring up valid points on this subject, and even more modern Christians have failed to address, or even acknowledge, these concerns. If these thinkers are to be taken seriously in their concerns and questions, even if we reject their conclusions and outlines for living, then we must, without so much as a second thought attest to the fact... Read more

I’m Confused…

July 1, 2012 By Ryan Adams

As a Catholic Christian I am, as most of us are, faced with the bizarre phenomenon of those who are so adamantly supportive of contraception. I say “bizarre phenomenon” because the entire, supposed, purpose of these individuals is to promote health and well-being, yet I’m not sure they understand what they’re saying in their promotion of contraceptives or how it effects the rest of their thought. Take for instance a very common phrase; namely that not using contraception makes you a... Read more

Angels, Jews and the Fear of the Lord.

June 19, 2012 By Ryan Adams

Any one who has been properly Catechized (and even those who haven’t) should be able to tell you that Christ is truly present in the Mass. Now, to some of us that means that a friendly, cheerful, “buddy-Jesus” comes down during the consecration and dwells mystically among us. While this is true, it’s also lacking the fullness of what is truly going on. For others, more informed others, it means Christ suffering on the Cross for us. This is true,... Read more