Tag Archives: Christianity

Georges Lemaître and the Big Bang: The Limits of Piety

Georges Lemaître was a Catholic priest and military veteran who in the 1920s and 1930s made astonishing theoretical discoveries that overturned the steady-state universe, the eternal unchanging universe that astronomers had believed in for millennia. Father Lemaître argued that the … Continue reading

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Love and the Old Testament

Thousands of years ago Abraham, a herder traveling from Mesopotamia, came to a land he called Canaan where the “god of the high mountain,” a jealous god who demanded exclusivity, announced Himself. Abraham and his descendants experienced a singular relationship … Continue reading

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Eros and Agape: The Greek Origins of Christian Love

In his first encyclical, Pope Benedict XVI looked over the course of his life beginning before World War II, in which he witnessed firsthand the propensity of human beings to hate, interspersed with episodes of what the world called love. … Continue reading

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Plato’s Ideal Society: When will it Come about?

In Plato’s Dialogues, he argued that there is a Truth, and that this Truth is comprised of the Ideal Forms, metaphysical truths from which all concrete existence is derived (Good, Justice, Beauty). In Republic, Plato argued that only philosophers can … Continue reading

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Do not Fear Death, because Perfect Love Casts out Fear

Death is the last act of life that occurs in an instant in time, yet it opens to eternity. Hence the moment and the eternal are combined at once in death. Death is a time when our perceptions of life … Continue reading

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The Writings of Francesco Petrarca, “Petrarch”

           Reading the Roman historian Livy’s account of Philip V of Macedon’s ascent of a peak in the Hebrus Mountains inspired in the Italian Francesco Petrarca, Petrarch, the desire to attempt the ascent of a similar summit. Petrarch recorded the adventures … Continue reading

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Of Love and Empathy

What is love, and is it related to empathy? Can a person feel empathy if they do not feel love? Can I love a person if I do not empathize with them? Great philosophers have written great books about such … Continue reading

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Reflections on Erich Fromm, “The Art of Loving”

For Erich Fromm (1900-1980), the German-American psychologist, love is active power, where one preserves one’s own integrity. Love helps overcome separation and anxiety, stimulates union. Love is part of a need to know, to know someone else or self. It … Continue reading

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Son of Man

Today we celebrate the birth of  the unknown, Who came to earth as all men of a  mother born, He proclaimed himself unique coming to atone, For the sins of all mankind so forlorn. Such pain he took upon himself, … Continue reading

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Richard Hooker’s Laws of the Ecclesiastical Polity and the Postmodern Episcopal Church

My wife comes from a family of New England Episcopalians. She is a cradle Episcopalian. We were married in the Episcopal Church. I converted to Episcopalianism and its parent belief, Anglicanism. However, with all of this tradition and important life … Continue reading

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