It’s time for another book review. I am reading several books but just finished one by Larry Siedentop, entitled Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (Penguin, 2014, 434 pages). The author has a fascinating and somewhat counterintuitive thesis that what we call “Liberalism” ( I will capitalize the word) was really “created” by […]
Archives
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The Mosque and the President
04 Feb 2016
OK, President Obama spoke at an Islamic mosque yesterday. I say “so what.” But hear me out. I have no issue with him speaking to any religious group in his capacity as president of the United States. Even what he said, at least as reported, was not particularly problematic. He said for example, that Islam […]
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It’s easy in an image-filled world of instant news for conservative Christians to see Christmas as under attack. And indeed it is…anything that points to a sovereign, saving God is something that humanist religion seeks to destroy. But….this is nothing new in Christian history, nor is it indicative that God is losing control, as He […]
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To set up today’s discussion about Mr. Trump and the latest terrorist violence, we need to review the concept of profiling. In my mind, the history of racial profiling is rightly condemned in the U.S. Like most, my own opinions on this are colored by what I’ve seen. My first experience with racial […]
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I just finished reading another interesting book, at least to me it was interesting. And I think I can convince you that you should consider reading it too. The book, authored by Thomas Albert Howard, is entitled God and the Atlantic: America, Europe and the Religious Divide (Oxford, 2011). It runs to 256 pages, including […]
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Refugees, Religion and Revolution
26 Nov 2015
First, I want to wish a blessed Thanksgiving to all. My Berean colleague Mark Smith wrote a very good blog addressing the response of the West and Christians to refugees in light of the Paris attacks of last week. I would like to extend the discussion to address how the West, including the United States […]
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Evolutionary dreams in New Orleans
26 Nov 2015
I just got back from the Southern Economic Association, where I attended many of the sessions of the Austrian economists.* In one session, the subject was comparing Kant’s view of the process how the mind comes to know things vs. Hayek’s view. One discussant said several times that he could “tell an evolutionary story” of […]
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Some recent comments by Ben Carson and a blog I wrote with associated comments from various people, have caused me to write this post as a general response as well as an elaborated examination of the underlying philosophical/theological foundations and the purpose of the United States Constitution—in short, the “theory” of our fundamental law. That […]
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Ben Carson’s Sharia “Slip”
22 Sep 2015
I have just a short comment on Ben Carson’s recent flap over his statement that in essence a Muslim should not occupy the White House. To begin, his comment was ripped out of context. He had argued that a Muslim who supported Sharia Law would not be fir for president. But in addition, he attempted […]
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Dr. Ben Carson is not your typical presidential candidate. The fact that Donald Trump and Carson are well ahead of the pack in the Republican primary battle suggests that American are pining for a non-traditional candidate to support. Carson is a retired pediatric neurosurgeon who, in 1987, became the first doctor to successfully separate Siamese […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
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