Post Secularism
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The Myth of Objective Consciousness III
In the two previous posts with this title, I was leaning on Theodore Roszak to make a fundamental point about the arbitrariness and the severe limitations of modern consciousness we take for granted as "objective" when it is in touch with the truth. That’s only true in the world of things and bodies, and while
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The Myth of Objective Consciousness II
I have nothing against science per se. My problem is rather with scientism, which takes a limited tool for learning about the mechanics of the material world as the ground for developing a comprehensive worldview. Scientism is not science. It is, rather, "a scientific worldview that encompasses natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural and
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The Myth of Objective Consciousness i
Are we using the word "mythology" illegitimately in applying it to objectivity as a state of consciousness? I think not. For the myth at its deepest level is that collectively created thing which crystallizes the great, central values of a culture. It is, so to speak, the intercommunications system of culture. If the culture of
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Inside the Box
The need to “think outside of the box” has become a business cliché in the last decade signifying the need to think creatively. The phrase resonates, as all cliches do at first, because it points to a truth, which is that what we find within the box, although familiar and comfortable, is stale and lifeless.
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Part 1: On Being a Postmodern Catholic
This post is more or less connected to the debate between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan, and a followup to my two posts about it in the last week here and here. If this subject interests you, I encourage you to read the Harris/Sullivan blogaloue and my two previous posts and the comments after them.
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The Power of Myth
As anyone who's been reading ATF for awhile knows, I'm a big proponent of the the power of mythic narratives. To live without a narrative is to live without meaning, and even nihilists have narratives. Who was a greater mythmaker with his Eternal Return and Zarathustra stories than nihilist-in-chief, Friedrich Nietzsche. The choice is not
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The Confessing Church
Both modern liberal theology and secular totalitarianism hold pretty much in common that the message of the Bible has to be adapted more or less, to the requirements of a secular world. No wonder, therefore, that the process of debasing Christianity as by liberal theology led, in the long run, to a complete perversion and
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DaVinci Decoding
I expect the movie will be better than the book. I read it when it first came out intrigued to see what the fuss was all about, and I could understand its appeal on the level of curiosity to know what the big secret was. But the delivery of the secret was so hamfisted and
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My What Big Teeth You Have.
Con artists understand that most people operate in a symbolically patterned world, and that reality, whatever is really there, is hidden behind the symbols. We tend to accept the world as it appears at face value. We can't live without a certain minimum level of trust that things are in fact as they appear. Con