So, I got an e-mail from John telling me that the site wouldn’t let him post a comment yesterday.  If any of you are having the same trouble, you should e-mail me so that I can have it looked into.  I’ll admit it was rather strange with no comments at all yesterday, but I just…

First, let me start with the book I mentioned.  It’s Forbidden Fruit, by Paul Kurtz, with a new edition published this year by Prometheus Press.  The original edition, if I remember correctly was put out by Transaction, which is the university press of Rutgers, in New Jersey.  I may have the publishing history wrong, here–I…

Okay, I’m a little bemused–first John says it’s not possible to derive a moral code from our knowledge of human nature, and then he proceeds to derive a moral precept from our knowledge of human nature. There are two problems going on here. The first is the assumption, on the part of both Robert and…

Well, first, let me say that if I said Augustine, and not  Aquinas, I’m sorry–Aquinas is the great saint of rational proofs of both the existence of God and the discovery of the natural law. That said, I wasn’t quoting him as an authority–or saying that one should assume that these things are possible on…

Robert points out that the FF of the US were not establishing the observation of individual rights in the Constitution because they wanted to enable the study of atoms or chemistry, but because they valued things like freedom of speech, conscience and the press in themselves. He’s perfectly right, but beside the point.  There are a…

First, before I start this, I want to point out that I added a short second post last night, to clarify a point, and that if some of this post seems a bit convoluted, that one may help. But let’s get on, then, to John’s assertion–that either human rights are based on God because God…

Okay, usually I won’t post twice on the same day, but I’m losing it here. You’re misconstruing the phrase “by reason alone.’ It doesn’t mean that God is “entirely out of the equation,’ or that Christianity isn’t part of Western Civ. Which is a good thing, because the phrase “by reason alone’ comes from Roman…

It occurred to me, reading through the comments from last night, that part of the problem here may be a matter of definition.   Robert says that once a society rejects the core principles of Western civilization, it should no longer be considered part of Western civilization. I agree, I think I just don’t agree on…

Every once in a while, I get up in the morning and wonder just how much trouble I’m willing to get myself into, and end up deciding that it’s a lot.  So, let’s take a look at Rousseau, and Hegel, and Nietzsche and all the rest of the philosophers Robert seems to think–I  may be…

Okay, I’m going o try to get to a bunch of stuff in turn. Robert asks why, just because the  Founding  Fathers knew Greek, Roman and even English history, that should mean that philosophy and literature should be in the core curriculum. But the Founding  Fathers didn’t just know the history.  They knew the philosophy as…