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Index for this page...(Be aware some links below may have expired.)
All The Following Items Were Posted On January 1, 2005 1. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), American Theologian and Philosopher
From Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notion of Freedom of Will. More information about Jonathan Edwards in the Academy. 2. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American Patriot and Philosopher
From A dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. More information about Benjamin Franklin in the Academy. 3. Thomas Paine (1737-1809), British-born American Journalist, Essayist, and Philosopher
From The Rights of Man. More information about Thomas Paine in the Academy. Story of the Year for 2004 - Antony Flew Discovers God? This may be the biggest news story for philosophy in 2004, making headlines around the world and putting not a few philosophers and scientists in a state of intellectual shock. British philosopher Antony Flew, one of the world's most prominent atheists and a promoter of atheism for over 50 years, has decided that the existence of God is possible and may even be necessary. Flew, now 81 and a professor emeritus of philosophy at the Unviersity of Reading, said that scientific evidence supports the theory that some sort of intelligence created the universe and this was the only explanation for the origin of life. The announcement regarding Flew's change of mind was even commented on in Jay Leno's monologue on NBC's "The Tonight Show." Regarding the "conversion," Leno pointed out that after all the man was 81 and probably wasn't taking any chances. For more on this story see:
Postmodernism - Philosophical Fad? The Radical Academy has made it its mission to critique any philosophy or belief-system that is UN-Realistic or ANTI-Realistic. This particularly applies to the various "philosophical fads" which crop up now and then, are influential for a few decades or so, and then disappear when they are seen for what they really are. These fads have special appeal for the young generation because they are frequently interpreted as anti-establishment or the "latest thing" in philosophical thought. The most recent philosophical fad is "Deconstructionism," which also goes under other names such as "Critical Theory." According to Edward Younkins, "Many of today's leading intellectuals are postmodernists who accede to the ideas of anti-realism, skepticism, subjectivism, relativism, pragmatism, collectivism, egalitarianism, altruism, anti-individualism, the world as conflictual and contradictory, and emotions, instincts, and feelings as better and deeper guides to action than reason. The roots of the above ideas and to postmodernism can be traced to a number of thinkers including, but not limited to: Rousseau, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Marx, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Fichte, Dewey, Freud, Quine, Popper, Kuhn, Foucault, and Derrida." To read the entire article go to: The Plague of Postmodernism, by Edward W.Younkins First-Time Marijuana Seller Gets 55-Year Sentence On November 16, Utah Judge Paul G. Cassell gave a 22-year sentence to a murderer who beat an elderly woman to death with a log. Two hours later, he sentenced nonviolent, first-time-offender Weldon Angelos, age 24, to 55 years and a day in essence, a life sentence. Weldon's crime? Selling a small amount of marijuana to a Utah undercover policeman. How was this possible? It was yet another horror story created by America's savage mandatory minimum sentencing laws, imposed by Congress during the "get tough on drugs" mania that seized Congress in the 1980s. Angelos wore a small pistol in an ankle holster when he sold the marijuana. Although he didn't use, threaten to use, or brandish the weapon, that triggered the federal mandatory minimum laws, and sent his sentence skyrocketing. Angelos' mandatory 55 years is based on three firearms-related charges: for carrying a gun during two drug sales and for keeping additional firearms at his apartment. Federal law require a five-year mandatory-minimum sentence for the first charge and a 25-year term for each count thereafter. Under federal law, Judge Cassell had no choice but to impose the 55 years. Cassell is no softie on crime. He's a Bush appointee, former prosecutor, and death penalty advocate. But he was horrified by what the law forced him to do to Weldon Angelos. So horrified, in fact, that he wrote a 67-page memorandum denouncing the mandatory sentencing and asking Bush to commute the sentence to a more reasonable (in his mind) 18 years. Under federal law, Judge Cassell noted, an airplane hijacker would get 24 years. A bomb-detonating terrorist would get a 19-year sentence. A three-time child rapist would get 15 years. "Is there a rational basis for giving Mr. Angelos more time than the hijacker, the murderer, the rapist?" Judge Cassell wrote. "To sentence Mr. Angelos to prison for the rest of his life is unjust, cruel, and even irrational." A respected and growing body of individuals and organizations, from across the political spectrum, oppose mandatory sentencing laws. A few:
The Angelos case is bringing some well-deserved attention to the horrors and injustice of these barbaric laws. But a libertarian analysis of the case goes much further than that. Two simple questions: Why should it be a crime to sell marijuana in the first place? And why should it be illegal to exercise your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms while engaged in peaceful, consensual commercial activities? Source: FAMM -- Families Against Mandatory Minimums at http://www.famm.org/index2.htm (Thanks to James W. Harris of the Advocates for Self-Government and The Liberator Online for the above information. If you would like a free subscription to the Liberator Online, visit: http://www.self-gov.org/liberator/maintain.html.) Kidnapped Baby Wasn't a 'Fetus' The pro-abortion media establishment had a hard time accurately reporting one of the Christmas season's saddest stories, the infant who was kidnapped from her mother's butchered womb. As we expected, initial news stories referred to the abducted "fetus." Yet four days later, even when tiny Victoria Jo Stinnett was in good physical health after her ordeal, one wire story again called her a "fetus." Does that mean the "journalist" thought it was still OK to kill Victoria? No wonder Big Media refuses to understand why most American voters oppose the horrors of partial-birth abortion, and why newspapers keep losing circulation. Of course, many newspapers and other media have editorialized that they consider disabled 41-year-old Terri Schiavo deserving of death. Source: Insider Report from NewsMax.com (If you are not an e-mail subscriber, get Insider Report and other breaking news alerts by Clicking Here.) China Still Killing Girls Speaking of infant girls, China's communist dictatorship indicates that it might be nice and stop slaughtering them by the millions. Maybe. If it's in a good mood. After decades of genocide, Beijing has finally realized that, golly, it isn't good for a society to have a shortage of women, which exacerbates a shortage of children. "Some Chinese scholars now say the costs of coping with a rapidly ageing [sic] population will outweigh the benefits of maintaining draconian population controls," The Economist reports. "In urban China, what is referred to as the '4-2-1 phenomenon' looms on the horizon: four grandparents and two only-child parents being supported by one only child." Whew. And you thought the U.S. had problems with Social Security. Last week, the usually wishy-washy State Department reported that forced abortions and infanticide are still rampant and have "perilously imbalanced boy-girl ratios." Question: How come America's self-styled feminists don't squawk about the communists' war against females? Source: Insider Report from NewsMax.com (If you are not an e-mail subscriber, get Insider Report and other breaking news alerts by Clicking Here.) An Obligation to Commit Suicide? Anti-euthanasia activists have frequently warned that one danger of legalizing the practice would be to create a social atmosphere in which the elderly and ill would feel obliged to commit suicide. Advocates on the other side have usually dismissed such warnings as a scare tactic. Now, however, a leading proponent of euthanasia and other anti-life policies in the United Kingdom, has come right out and said it. UK's "Philosopher Queen" says elderly and ill have an obligation to commit suicide: "I am not ashamed to say some lives are more worth living than others." Source: LifeSite.net at http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/dec/04121406.html Big Mouth Margaret Cho's Slap at the Pope Remember how on "Saturday Night Live" Sinead O'Connor tore up a picture of the pope? Comedian-activist Margaret Cho has one-upped the smooth-headed singer. After comparing the presidential race to male anatomy, Cho unleashed an attack on Christians. In an article she wrote for In These Times, Cho cites the "busy-body 'Christian' people," who according to the comic, "when they're not preparing for the Rapture - are trying to make gay people miserable." She then started to pummel John Paul II. "The Pope recently castigated the media for making gays look normal. Yeah, he's a real good judge of normal. With the gold dress, and the matching gold hat, living up in the Vatican with 500 men, surrounded by the finest antiques in the world. You go, girl!" The Left Coast Report thinks maybe Cho is confused and thinks there's an opening for papal jester. (Thanks to The Left Coast Report by James L. Hirsen and the staff of NewsMax for the above information. If you would like a free subscription, please visit http://NewsMax.com/email.shtml) Quotes of the Month - Reflections on Voting "If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side." -- Orson Scott Card "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -- Josef Stalin A Little of This and a Little of That A Little Wisdom: There are no short cuts to any place worth going. A Little Advice: Don't go through life, grow through life. -- Eric Butterworth. A Little Question: How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges? A Little Put-Down: For those who understand, no explanation is needed; For those who don't, none will do. -- Jerry Lewis. A Little Proverb: Take the road not taken - the leaves crunch that much louder! A Little Reflection: Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you. A Little Observation: What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well. A Little Humor: My parents keep asking how school was. It's like saying, "How was that drive-by shooting?" You don't care how it was, you're lucky to get out alive! A Little Quote: "Next to having stout and friendly comrades, a man is chiefly emboldened by finding himself well armed in case of need." -- Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), The Fortunes of Nigel (1822). A Little Definition: Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. -- Oscar Wilde. A Little One-Liner: Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view. A Little Quip: You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. Some interesting & provocative articles on other websites The Logic of Economic Law, by Marcus Verhaegh: Ludwig von Mises puts forth an account of economic laws based in logic, not experience. Due in part to this emphasis on the a priori -- that which is not dependent on experience for its justification -- Mises has long been viewed as relying upon the 'transcendental' approach of Immanuel Kant. The most influential philosopher alive, by Marvin Olasky: PRINCETON, N.J. -- Republicans are winning elections, but the long-term problem of the left dominance within academia remains. Consider, for example, the influence of Princeton professor Peter Singer. Many readers may be saying, "Peter who?" -- but The New York Times, explaining how his views trickle down through media and academia to the general populace, noted that "No other living philosopher has had this kind of influence." The New England Journal of Medicine said he has had "more success in effecting changes in acceptable behavior" than any philosopher since Bertrand Russell. The New Yorker called him the "most influential" philosopher alive. 'Mired in a religious war', By Sam Harris: Perhaps it is time we thought the unthinkable about Iraq. Perhaps it is time we considered the possibility that we will break everything we touch in that country -- or everything we touch will break itself. However mixed or misguided our intentions were in launching this war, we are attempting, at considerable cost to ourselves, to improve life for the Iraqi people. Is the Bush Administration Certifiable?, by Paul Craig Roberts: Has President Bush lost his grip on reality? In his December 1 speech in Halifax, Nova Scotia, President Bush again declared his intention to pre-emptively attack "enemies who plot in secret and set out to murder the innocent and the unsuspecting." Freedom from terrorism, Bush declared, will come only through pre-emptive war against enemies of democracy. Rumsfeld vs. the American Soldier - What Rummy's survival says about Bush's plans for his second term, By Fred Kaplan: Donald Rumsfeld gave every grunt in the Army a good reason to hate him today. Afraid to look in the moral abyss, By James Carroll: WHY DON'T we Americans look directly at the war? We avert our gaze, knowing that the situation in Iraq grows more desperate by the day. Vaunted "coalition" efforts to "break the back" of the "insurgency" have only strengthened it. The violence among Iraqis would surely qualify as civil war -- except that only one side is fighting. Bush's closed door, by Robert Novak: Rocco Buttiglione, the internationally esteemed Italian philosopher and statesman, visited Washington last week. Doors were opened to this Italian cabinet member and devout Catholic as a courageous exemplar of conservative Western ideals against the European Union's leftist ruling establishment. But one door was closed to Buttiglione. It was George W. Bush's door. Morality's new champion?, by Brian Tiemann: After watching Comedy Central and being hammered by liberal messages, there's nothing Brian Tiemann loves more than watching a good socially conservative cartoon like South Park. Nearly 8 years in prison without a trial, by Phyllis Schlafly: "I want to go to trial on Monday; I've been locked up for nearly eight years," declared Charles Thomas Sell. "The federal court has no evidence, they have no witnesses. I want my trial one week from today. I am not incompetent in any way, shape or form." His statements rang true to bystanders attending his hearing on Nov. 22 in the federal courthouse in St. Louis. Whatever happened to the right of an accused to have a speedy trial? What Has Bush Learned?, by Joseph Sobran: Freud once described neurotic behavior as persisting in doing the very thing that caused the problem in the first place -- keeping on digging when you're already in a hole. By that standard, government may be the most neurotic behavior of all. Some years ago The Atlantic Monthly ran a long article showing that government programs to redistribute wealth don't reduce inequality at all; they leave it about what it was in the first place. Everyone would be just as rich or poor if they didn't exist. (Everyone would also be freer.) Now the Bush administration has announced that 12,000 more U.S. troops will be sent to Iraq, swelling the total to 150,000. This comes after all those boasts about how well the war was going; but that was before the election. Odd. The face of evolutionary design / evolution as a religion, by Robert Meyer: Recently I saw some news segments that featured debate on whether the teaching of Intelligent Design, should be curriculum taught along side of evolution in public school science classes. The individual taking the side of evolution was cornered at one point, regarding the origin of matter itself. He repeated the often heard mantra that the universe and corresponding matter composing it simply have always existed. What a classic example of "blind religious faith," I thought, particularly for someone who persists in characterizing the issue as science versus faith. Applying Free Market Logic to an Unfree Market, By James H. Joyner, Jr.: The nation's capital has been distracted this week by an issue more compelling than terrorism, the war in Iraq, Social Security reform, or Bernard Kerik's love life: the fate of Major League Baseball in D.C. At the 11th hour last Tuesday evening, the city council approved a bait-and-switch bill proposed by Chairman Linda W. Cropp that approved funding for a stadium for the Washington Nationals, the relocated Montreal Expos, on the condition that private financing be secured for half of the cost. Given that the deal Mayor Anthony Williams signed with MLB was for one hundred percent public financing, this created a frenzy. Israel's Culture of Martyrdom, by Baruch Kimmerling: Nations like to imagine themselves as unique, but one belief they have in common is that it is noble to die in their name. Death and redemption are the themes of almost every form of patriotism. In the case of Israel, however, the connection between nationalism and death is especially visceral. For the Jewish state is a nation that emerged from the ashes of a project of extermination, and that sees itself as the best defense against the renewal of violent persecution. Zionism, the state's ruling ideology, is a triumphal creed shadowed by death. Science, faith need not be opponents, by WALTER WITSCHEY: Faith matters fill the air every December. For those who seamlessly weld their faith and their science into a coherent and holistic world outlook, life proceeds as usual. For others, faith and modern science are in direct and painful conflict. During the past few centuries, science and faith have been at odds, each claiming the other was wrong in its views, or irrelevant. Lately however, serious scholars have explored ways to engage in dialogue. They say, along with John Polkinghorne a former president of Queens College Cambridge, that science and religion have insights for each other. Ten myths about assisted suicide - The flaws in the arguments for ending lives, by Kevin Yuill: The campaign for assisted suicide seems to be picking up a head of steam in the UK, with the Mental Capacity Bill's stormy passage through the House of Commons on Tuesday 14 December. It is certainly a step in the direction of the legalisation of assisted suicide, despite the protestations of its defenders. According to some readings of this bill, a patient may request that he or she is deprived of food and water in certain circumstances, and a doctor must obey this request or face a possible five years in prison. In addition to this, Lord Joel Joffe's Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill is currently under review in the House of Lords. Global warming bombshell - hockey-stick plot used modified data, by Professor Richard Muller: In the scientific and political debate over global warming, the latest wrong piece may be the "hockey-stick", the famous plot, published by University of Massachusetts geoscientist Michael Mann and colleagues. This plot purports to show that we are now experiencing the warmest climate in a millennium, and that the earth, after remaining cool for centuries during the medieval era, suddenly began to heat up about 100 years ago - just at the time that the burning of coal and oil led to an increase in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. No peace on Earth during unjust war, BY ANDREW GREELEY: One reads in the papers that the Pentagon expects the war in Iraq to continue till 2010. Donald Rumsfeld will not guarantee that it will be over by 2009. How many dead and maimed Americans by then? How many sad obituaries? How many full pages in the papers with pictures of all the casualties? The extinction of deism - Historical riddle solved & lessons for today, by Fred Hutchison: Deism had a rapid rise to popularity and an even more rapid fall into oblivion. The rapid extinction of the once popular and politically influential Deism in the early nineteenth century is an old riddle of history -- which has now been solved by Avery Cardinal Dulles with important lessons for today. The face of Evolutionary Design - Evolution as a Religion, by Robert Meyer: Recently I saw some news segments that featured debate on whether the teaching of Intelligent Design, should be curriculum taught along side of evolution in public school science classes. The individual taking the side of evolution was cornered at one point, regarding the origin of matter itself. He repeated the often heard mantra that the universe and corresponding matter composing it simply have always existed. What a classic example of "blind religious faith," I thought, particularly for someone who persists in characterizing the issue as science versus faith. The System - Capitalism and its Role in American Society's Plunge into the Abyss. Parts I, II and III, by Manuel Valenzuela: For one brief moment of life, when light enters our eyes for the very first time, we can claim to be the embodiment of innocence and human goodness, the essence of human perfection. It is also the only moment in our lives we can claim to be free. In birth awakens the wonderment of humanity, the hope of civilization and the positive energy of our future. In birth are we all born unclothed, unmarked and uncorrupted, and, for at least a second, engendered with the same promises of ability and opportunity theoretically endowed to us all. The promise of a new tomorrow lives in the curious smile and ever-innocent eyes of tiny humans born in the today.
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