The Erasing of Memories
Should people be allowed to erase their memories? Amanda Marcotte thinks so. She gives three reasons: 1) memory isn’t as sacrosanct as people think, 2) just because a memory isn’t stored in your brain...
Monthly Archive: February 2012
Zombies Show the Limits of Our Ethics
I’m glad to see Rose Woodhouse giving philosophers a good name by discussing the permissibility of killing zombies. It’s an important question, not because zombies might actually exist, but precisely because they represent what...
Secularism Needs Pluralism
Michael Brendan Dougherty, in response to my cheers for a pluralist, secular state, presses me via Twitter on what happens if secularism isn’t pluralistic. When that happens, society risks suffering from a problem similar...
A Pause to Listen: Katie Melua
Today we begin A Pause to Listen, a reoccurring series this blog will typically feature on Tuesdays. The theme: musical performances, of course! We lead off with the sublime, enchanting Katie Melua, singing...
+1 for Secularism
Must thank Rick Santorum: he gives me so many opportunities to write relevantly about my pet topics. In the news today: secularism gives our wannabe national savior tummy troubles and an acidic burn in...
Introducing the Boy to Video Games
I take it as a given that my children will be corrupted by the world, so I intent to do everything in my power to corrupt them myself. I’ll want to refrain from imbibing...
Echoes on the Road
“Only man as a living being introduces law and order into nature, not from a rational, but from a biological necessity (that is, in order to be able to act) by virtue of the...
Remaking Star Wars
The Star Wars films have their cinematic gems–and lightsabers, which better be well-stocked in heaven–but if the stories were ever to be retold, I’d want someone other than George Lucas in the lead X-wing. ...
Dust to Dust
I find it easier to get into the liturgical spirit of Ash Wednesday than that of Good Friday, perhaps because that latter is only a few days from the celebrations and festivities of Easter...
Bidding Farewell to the Law of Human Nature
The day before his papacy began, Joseph Ratzinger delivered a homily in which he made the oft-quoted observation: “We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose...
