Fascinating essay: Conan is somewhat more deep and complex than the cartoon image of a brute in a bearskin loincloth found the popular imagination, with a dancing girl clutching his brawny thigh and a devil-beast dying under his bloody ax. The theme and philosophy he represents is not the product of adolescent neurosis (as certain… Read More John C. Wright on the Genius of Robert E. Howard
Today, with The Devil Left Him out and available, I’d like to talk a little about the connection between Jesus and Barrabbas, and the latter’s role in the Biblical story. 1st Century Judea had a number of divisive sects vying for control of what Judaism meant. The Sadducees, the priests, were the most Hellenized, the most… Read More Barabbas was a Terrorist?
One of the most interesting things about the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is the all-to-human snapshots it gives of life and politics of the Bronze Age. While the Gospels spreads a moral vision of a perfected humanity, the OT spares us none of the warts and horrors we have come to expect of ourselves.… Read More The Biblical Game of Thrones
A bit ago, I happened to rent Last Days in the Desert, an indie film with Ewan McGregor portraying both Jesus and Satan during Jesus’ forty days in the desert (Matthew 4). It was an interesting take on the idea, but the script wasn’t quite up to snuff, being primarily concerned with a family Jesus encounters… Read More New Fiction – The Devil Left Him: A Retelling of the Temptation of Christ
Bad Catholic for the win, as the kids don’t say anymore: Unless we have an assurance that the people we love will never suffer and die, to accept an invitation to love is to accept an invitation to fear. Love does not comfort, then, but “ups the ante” of human existence, making higher the highs… Read More On the Fear of Hell
So Sayeth Thomas Williams over at Breitbart. Rather, the Pope is a critic of the spiritual malaise involved of the worship of Mammon. As he should be. But he never has said, or even suggested, that the free market be replaced with another economic system. Francis’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, famously distinguished between capitalism… Read More The Pope is Not a Communist
Over at Ace of Spades. To summarize: The Pope is not infallible on matters of science. Anyone, even Catholics, are free to disagree with his assessment of scientific knowledge. The Holy Spirit does not assist with that. The Pope’s theology in this encyclical is solid. Ultimately, we cannot damage the earth without damaging ourselves, and… Read More A Sane, Sensible Discussion of Laudato Si, the Pope’s Environmental Encycical.
A Continuing series in which I post my notes of reading this engaging book. In The Rebel, Camus frames Metaphysical Rebellion in the words of Dostoyevsky’s Ivan Karamazov (among other ways). God is to be not denied, but refuted and condemned. The Problem of Evil on steroids, as it were. From pgs. 56-57: Ivan rejects the basic… Read More Camus and Karamazov, “The Rejection of Salvation.”
It appears that the man who gunned down three Muslim students at UNC-Chapel Hill was a Proggy Atheist.The police are now saying that the murder was over a parking dispute. Look, that may have been the trigger, but that was not the powder, if you receive my meaning. You settle parking disputes with passive-aggressive notes… Read More Atheist Violence
Back in 2011, Charlie Hedbo’s offices got firebombed by Islamists. I remember because I posted the offending cover to my old blog. I was “Je Suis Charlie” before it was hashtagged. This attack was worse in terms of body count, but I haven’t been as attached to the issue. All the usual suspects have said… Read More Blood, Madness, and Charlie Hedbo
Content Blues 