Is there a difference between the Ten Commandments symbolically displayed within the Supreme Court from an imposing monument outside its building? The answer is actually no, except that the founding fathers did not include such a monument in the architectural plans for the District of Columbia. Given that the early Americans, fresh from colonist existence, were wary of papal and puritanic laws filtering down into politics and favored a low profile of religion in politics is nonetheless no...
Intuition, Descartes claims, is certitude that does not require deduction; however, deduction or the reasoning process always requires intuition as first principle. Primary intuition is a given by the presence of consciousness. No one not in a coma can deny consciousness or the intuitive sense of self. That Descartes said, “I think therefore I am” is not entirely correct; what he should have said was that he intuits his existence in virtue of his sense of identity and does not entail thinking...
Judging from the current “discovery” of a gigantic black hole 2.6 billion light years away, a layman has to wonder if the “truth” of science is on a path of counter productivity and adding fuel to the incomprehensible, thus engendering blind faith in a mysterious God. Black holes seem to be deadly contradictions to a universe bent on creativity. Just as most of us fail to comprehend the counter productivity of nature’s wrath here on earth that seems bent on destruction preventing utopian ends...
Ever since nomadic primitives, tired of roaming, decided to take residence in caves, territorial rights throughout history has been violated. This was not necessarily a bad thing except for marauding means by which the site was brutally obtained. Ancient people tended to seek out desirable land in order to settle and develop a social contract. Greek and Roman violations brought complex social and physical infrastructures to give birth to relatively enlightened culture and civilization. ...
This is the season — even Newsweek got into the act — to believe or not in the Christian celebration. Surely, it is the time to take in the symbolic beauty of it, even the commercialism, which on occasion can be quite charming. Although there are tree huggers who whine about the destruction of fir trees, the end result undeniably spirits symbolic joy to many. Those who do not believe or are of other faiths are caught up in the material culture of Christmas and suspend belief to take th...
Oft times the religious coalition assails “rogue” jurists for preëmpting state laws by substituting their own legislation. To some degree the religionists are correct, however much they themselves foist their minority opinion on legislation. Given that the Massachusetts’ supreme court went too far in recognizing marriage of same sex couples, it is clear that it should have ordered the state to consistently acknowledge civil union protection under the equal rights clause by rendering legi...
There is universal yearning among the hierarchy of power To take on Spinoza's ultimate understanding viewed from the top. How gratifying must be the perspective eye-balled from the "aspect of eternity" the awesome red overpowering the blue. Ah, the magnanimity to stand next to the gods on Olympus, to look down on sweaty Prometheus! How Gulliver-like the breath-taking sight, like the fleeting passion on Christmas Eve when the father steps back to admire the final touche...
Death is paradoxically a part of life. One cannot possibly evaluate the richness of existence if uncoupled from the mystifying potential of non-existence hovering living reality. The cyclic threat of death and its unknowable negation, incites one to reap every breathing moment the harvest of life’s yield. Poets seem possessed by the theme of death, perhaps owing to their command or unique observation of life. There seems a necessity to seek in the nether world some consolation, or a jus...
Separation of church and state is somewhat like separating the mind from the brain. The mind might very well be the inspired corner of the brain, giving it fresh insight into normal observations managing the mundane, or even leading to an entirely new concept and direction. Some would be tempted to call this inspiration the spiritual quality of thought and thus attribute this to divinity or a single God. However, they would be wrong; for it would debase divinity as just another element of the...
The greatest danger facing the nation today is not terrorism but the wave of followers of messianic leadership. True, as in Osama bin Laden, this leads to terrorism, or in the case of the likes of Saddam to brutal totalitarianism, but in more ostensibly sophisticated nations or groups of people, brutality is clothed in the subtlety of misshapen values. In this country the early settlers were apostates of European religion and had suffered persecution; so naturally they founded their col...
With the exception of enthusiasts for reality shows, or odd balls like Picasso, rappers and heavy metal “artists,” Americans have always believed with Keats’ “beauty is truth, truth beauty,” even though we like to add the conditional clause, of course, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder to allow for different tastes. Still, to be honest a fat man is beautiful only if he dons a Santa Claus suit, or fat woman sings the blues. A pot-bellied defensive lineman is unbecoming no matter how go...
It is tempting to admit that there is such a thing as political philosophy untainted by ideology. Ideology is a pattern of particulars driven by precepts that have little to do with philosophy which presupposes universals. Neither totalitarianism nor democracy is relevant to philosophy because they evolve out the morass of preferential human behavior and beliefs from which precepts evolve. A totalitarian state develops ad-hoc organization of opportune power by the precept of distrust in the m...
How can modern man rediscover his inborn instincts to stay with things — not chase them — to rediscover paradoxically the Tao, by swimming up the stream of Bergson’s élan vital into the rapids of "the endless risks of thought." Yet to Bergson life is more a matter of change than of position. Why then the concern for space, place, and position? Time, change, without a backdrop, without a perspective, without a medium, is for the confinement of an all embracing One that is not of this sensory...
According to Dewey educational theory is scarred by Either-Or opposition that is a development from within and formation from without and that education is a process of overcoming natural inclinations and substituting in its place habits required under external pressures. The latter view is what students object to most. It is degrading to their “material endowments.” What many teachers do not seem to realize is that students do have endowment and that it is the function of the teacher to ste...
Once Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer headlines — wishful thinking perhaps — the US should end the state of “war” on terrorism so that it is not relegated to the meaningless equation of wars on drugs, poverty, and AIDS. The undeniable fact is that terrorism is an unspeakable crime against humanity by unscrupulous ideologists and murderous followers who operate under the pretense of cause célèbre even though it has nothing whatever to do with the subversion of a government. For instance, i...