Category: Philosophy

As we all know, Plato argued that the objects we see in the world are just instantiations and specializations of abstract template classes. Any given chair is just an instance of the abstract class Chair. The existence of the abstract class is what permits us to identify the chair as a Chair. The very fact…

Nathan made a long series of comments on my earlier post on terrorism and Just War theory. I’m going to try to reset a bit. In that post I argued, I think correctly, that terrorism is not justified under Just War theory. But: is Just War theory applicable today? Do we believe that everybody should…

Various people have argued that religion is hardwired into the human psyche, that most of us can’t help but believe in something larger than ourselves. Sometimes people go a bit farther and argue that some sort of religion is actually necessary for a healthy society. (Sorry I don’t have useful references here, I’ve forgotten them.)…

One of the things I try to teach my daughter is how to live in historical time. By this I mean something in between deep time and the present. I try to regularly explain what is new in our environment and what is old. “When your mother and I were young, nobody had cell phones.”…

This is an unkind thought, but I sometimes wonder what percentage of the people who declare themselves to be followers of Jesus really take to heart what the Bible says that he said. I know the percentage is way above zero, but I suspect that it’s also way below one hundred. Look at quotes like…