The Curious Incident at the American Spectator
If you’ve ever wondered what a lobotomy in print form looks like, search no further than this tedious, rambling piece in The American Spectator by Daniel Oliver. The author strokes his chin, at great...
View ArticleCould An Omnipotent Being Prove It?
Ned Resnikoff ponders the question. It seems to me that the answer is clearly “no,” but for a reason Ned doesn’t actually offer: It would require a good deal less than omnipotence to make a human...
View ArticleWar is Peace, Equality is Discrimination
One of the more noxious and predictable genres of social conservative screed takes the form of whining that the only discrimination we really need to worry about is the failure to make special...
View ArticleReligion, Morality, and Character
This is a bazillion years ago in Internet time, but a quick note on a line from Sarah Palin’s recent book that occasioned some controversy a few weeks back, to the effect that “morality itself cannot...
View ArticleHe’s My Favorite Fictional Character!
As a young boy, I was an avid reader of a series of biographical picture books called ValueTales, which illustrated such virtues as confidence, kindness, and imagination through lightly fictionalized...
View ArticleStraussian Social Conservatism and the “Dangers of Contraception”
The philosopher Leo Strauss was perhaps best known for the view that great philosophical works—especially those produced in times when persecution for heretical views was commonplace—often concealed an...
View ArticleUndercover Atheists?
Writing at The American Prospect a few weeks back, Patrick Caldwell expressed puzzlement at the view, seemingly widespread on the right, that the hegemonic forces of secularism are somehow forcing...
View ArticleAll Ethics Are Secular Ethics
In an exchange at Slate with Will Saletan, Ross Douthat writes: [T]he more purely secular liberalism has become, the more it has spent down its Christian inheritance—the more its ideals seem to hang...
View ArticleBlasphemy and Public Reason
I’ve noticed something interesting about Western press reports on the protests over the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube trailer. Typically, but perhaps surprisingly when you think about it, the...
View ArticleJudging “Authentic” Islam
Graeme Wood’s Atlantic cover story “What ISIS Really Wants” has attracted plenty of attention and controversy, spurring several interesting responses as well as quite a few less illuminating ones....
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