The utopian dream of the Catholic town

Would you live in Ave Maria, the first town in America to be run according to strict Catholic principles? Tom Monaghan, the founder of the Domino's Pizza chain, is creating the town 90 miles northwest of Miami.

Crisis of faith

Spengler remarks:

It is a striking difference between Islam on one hand, and Judaism and Christianity on the other, that Islam offers the promise of success as the reward for submission to God, while the older religions offer no greater consolation than God's own presence. It is God's presence itself before Job that provides the answer to Job's question... By the same token, Muslim unhappiness is not "about" the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or even the intrusion of Western secular values. It is about the Muslim perception that Islam's promise of success against its enemies has eluded them. It is a crisis of faith.

The fullness of Islam

New attacks against Egyptian Copts. The Vatican is losing its patience. On the relationship between Christianity and Islam, a 2005 column by Fr. Samir Khalil Samir.

It is as if priests and bishops did not understand that Christianity is the fullness of every religion's path. But it is only respect for a person and love for his struggle to live his faith in the modern world that urges me to announce the Gospel to him.

Totalitarian legalism

Intelligent atheist Theodore Dalrymple observes:

the correspondent’s premise that the legality of an act was the sole criterion by which one could or should judge it chilled me. It is a sinister premise. It makes the legislature the complete arbiter of manners and morals, and thus accords to the state quasi-totalitarian powers without the state’s ever having claimed them. The state alone decides what we have or lack permission to do: we have to make no moral decisions for ourselves, for what we have legal permission to do is also, by definition, morally acceptable.

Swedish bin Ladens

It is always impressive to what crazy extremes bad ideas can develop by the sheer force of logic separated from elementary experience.

Baby market

The striking thing about this interview is how the "expert" consciously avoids any attempt at assessing "good and bad," which would detract from her "scientific" expertise. Thus dies rationality, in the name of "science."

A test for new justices

The stage is ready at the Supreme Court for "its most significant ruling on abortion rights in almost 15 years."

Minus habens

Leon Wieseltier skewers scientism, "one of the dominant superstitions of our day." As a symbol, he chooses our friend, Daniel Dennett.

Not so simple

Famous economist Amartya Sen defends secular universalism against the encroaching waves of religious/ethnic tribalism. It may worth remembering, however, that historically the ideal of a universal human community goes back to the religious experience of one particular middle eastern tribe. And when that universal ideal became detached from that religious experience, it also degenerated in violence.

The final days

The NYTimes reviews the new movie on Sophie Scholl

The worst of the worst

Another great scourge of our time are the fanatic 1968-produced ideologues that run the bureaucracy of the European Union.

The islanders' revolt

The Aland archipelago is an autonomous region of Finland.
Aland's 26,000 people are essentially sovereign co-rulers of their home nation of Finland. As such, they can veto any international treaty that Finland wants to enter, including EU treaties. Now the Alanders could stop attempts to revive the moribund EU constitution. The reason? They want to chew their Swedish tobacco...
Don't miss this intrigue on the Baltic Sea

The unknown, healthy U.S. economy

You think the U.S. economy is in trouble, right? Well, think again. Businesses are investing about $1 trillion a year more than the official numbers show. Savings rate is actually positive. The deficit with the rest of the world is much smaller than advertised, and GDP is probably growing faster than what they are telling you.

Pampered to death

Fareed Zakaria explains that the economic decline of Europe is due primarily to a culture that entrusts everything to the state and does not prize personal initiative.

Subsidiarity

This column makes the case that the most important resource in Africa's development are its people.

A real dialogue

Fr. Cervellera's editorial on the murder in Trebizon. What prevents dialogue is nihilism, because when we dot care about our happiness, all we care for is power.

Rent-a-mob

A convincing analysis of the Danish cartoons story.On the situation in the middle east you can also read the latest column by Fouad Ajami.

The idealist

It is easy to underestimate the power of being a speech writer.

The only one

Nat Hentoff is an interesting character.

What am I doing here?

This testimony about the priest killed in Turkey is quite moving.

Semen Christianorum

Asia News is covering the murder of an Italian priest in Turkey.

PhD's in Jacobinism

As usual, Departments of Education is where you find the most intolerant ideologues in contemporary culture.

The shadow campaign

There is a major international election campaign underway. There are guys running to become one of the most important figures in the world. And you didn't know a thing about it. Till now.

Nothing to fear

An op-ed by Monsignor Albacete in the NYTimes on the latest encyclical.

In this connection, do not miss the presentation of Benedict XVI's and Marcello Pera's new book, this coming monday at Columbia University in New York.

An evolutionary deadend

You should be aware that Daniel Dennet is a product of natural selection. In particular his ideas can be explained as a natural phenomenon in terms of Darwinian evolution, although their evolutionary purpose has not yet been fully elucidated. At any rate, his thoughts are certainly a genetic byproduct of socio-biological factors that made his brain especially amenable to feelings of smug intellectual superiority. Hence, you should feel free not to take him too seriously.

Reason has many methods

Godspy has a good interview with Michael Behe about Intelligent Design. It shows very well what the core issues under discussion are. Affirming that Mt. Rushmore was designed is a perfectly reasonable statement but not a scientific statement because it derives from a different method. The real danger here is that rationality is identified with science. This is explained very well in a new essay by Card. Schonborn.