Here’s a quiz to see how well you know the Blacksheep Dog, John Corapi, and how well you know the sci-fi author, Philip K. Dick. This is a simple quiz. Read a quote, and figure out who said it. Was it Corapi? Or was it Dick? (more…) Read more
Here’s a quiz to see how well you know the Blacksheep Dog, John Corapi, and how well you know the sci-fi author, Philip K. Dick. This is a simple quiz. Read a quote, and figure out who said it. Was it Corapi? Or was it Dick? (more…) Read more
The Trinity Zizek Collective, a philosophy reading group dedicated to the works of Slavoj Zizek, has started up again. This has got me thinking about his work, and so this is the first of what I suspect will be several posts related to Zizek’s ideas. Let me begin with a disclaimer: though I have been reading Zizek for several years, I do not claim to be an expert: his writing is dense, convoluted and occasionally contradictory. Corrections to my reading... Read more
The high unemployment rate in the United States is a problem which cannot be easily solved. There are many factors involved, many which people do not want to accept, such as the fact that businesses are finding they can do with less labor to continue to make profits, and so they see no reason to have an excess number of workers whose labor will not improve the money being made. However, some people have tried to come up with solutions.... Read more
Not too many homilies make it into doctoral dissertations. I suspect this one will. Brilliant theology and great communication skills all wrapped into one. I love this guy. Here’s a wonderful section on the social implications of the Eucharist to whet your appetite: Saint Augustine helps us to understand the dynamics of Holy Communion when referring to a kind of vision he had, in which Jesus said to him: “I am the food of the mature: grow, then, and you... Read more
Time does not heal all wounds. In fact, time often masks wounds or dismisses them (once they get too old). I am not speaking in the abstract: time can be a real obstacle to healing. This is painfully obvious in everyday life. On other occasions, time is credited for healing when it is at best a secondary cause. When the body needs healing, we often say: “It will just take some time.” This is partially true in a certain way... Read more
I discovered recently that one of the so-called pro-life groups is seeking to line up Republican politicians behind a so-called pro-life pledge. Let me reproduce it in full: FIRST, to nominate to the U.S. federal bench judges who are committed to restraint and applying the original meaning of the Constitution, not legislating from the bench; SECOND, to select only pro-life appointees for relevant Cabinet and Executive Branch positions, in particular the head of National Institutes of Health, the Department of... Read more
Generally, I like philosophy that states the obvious in an obvious way. It is easy, I believe, to ignore how obvious things that are obvious are. In my personal experience, children are excellent at doing this. In fact, I suspect that, since they are not philosophizing when they do it, they are often better at stating the obvious in plain and clear terms than most professional philosophers—myself included—are. Here is one example that just occurred over dinner between me and... Read more
One of the things which confuses many Christians is the apparent difference in the character of God in the Tanakh compared to the character of God in the Gospels. Early Christians were confronted with this problem, leading many would-be believers to dismiss the Tanakh. The problem is, of course, one of hermeneutics. How exactly are we to understand the Tanakh? What value are we to give to the texts themselves? Many Fathers produced a hierarchy of value for the books... Read more
Oscar Romero — Words From The Last Homily.* With Zombies. I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. (more…) Read more
In “Silly God, Voting is for Kids”, I did something that I generally dislike: I was gave a litany of things that God is not. (It is one of my pet peeves, actually.) As surprising—albeit not uncommon—as this contradiction was, I was even more surprised when I began to type this sentence: God is not Catholic. This caused me some discomfort, but I couldn’t really figure out why. So I went ahead and re-worked the original statement into a softer,... Read more
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