Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

That Thomas [Aquinas] proved so successful in applying this method, using revelation to point out errors in the reasoning of past philosophers while keeping what was true in them, can be seen in the judgment of non-Thomist experts in ancient philosophy. The famous Aristotle scholar A.E. Taylor, for example, says that “the so-called Aristotelianism of Thomas is much more thoroughly thought out and coherent than what I may call the Aristotelianism of Aristotle. . . . By comparison with the Thomist synthesis of Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine, how comparatively incoherent and loose is Kant’s synthesis of Hume and Leibniz.” - Oakes of "First Things"

Yesterday I read an essay ("Girls Gone Mild") about girls returning to modesty in dress and chastity in conduct. The author, Wendy Shalit, was taken by surprise at the tongue lashings she received...I had decades of first-hand contact with people committed to trying to achieve happiness and freedom through such “open” or “free” sex. In fact, so committed were these people that those who held contrary views—even those who did not criticize promiscuity or preach chastity, but simply wanted to quietly live chaster lives—were not simply considered wrong. They were routinely mocked, ridiculed, savagely attacked. And among one another, they not only praised freedom, in the form of exhibitionism and promiscuity, but they also were touchy and judgemental of one another; always on the lookout for signs of insufficient “freedom”... I stood there listening to them, and suddenly it came to me with a shock that their attitude towards sex was, in fact, a sort of puritanical prudery. They were just as judgemental, frightened, scornful, indignant; just as quick to take offence and be shocked, at people who professed or practiced different sexual mores from their own as the most obvious stereotypical blue-law 17th Century Puritans. - blogger at "Forest and Mote"

I used to think that hanging out after a game waiting for player autographs was like stalking, but not anymore, because I was sitting in a hotel waiting for the Reds to come down and go to the ballpark, and that felt more like stalking. -- Reds fan blogger "Daedalus"

As bad as the partisanship is - and as infuriating as the bald denials of partisanship are - that’s not what’s most notable about the content of the NY Times and, I suppose, other papers like it. It’s that the content is so, well, feminine...Their model reader is an affluent, educated, secular, 30-something stay-at-home mom who used to live in the city and work, and still likes to think of herself as being worldly and cultured. (The content, which these days consists mostly of semi-literary features, is perfect for this segment. Plus, just look at the ads.) These readers are generally not Deaniacs, and are not going to be turned into Deaniacs by reading a few Krugman or Frank Rich columns - they are classic Clinton soccer moms, just with a bit more money and a bigger status-hunger. The Times, in other words, is just a business looking to refine its market segment, and I think the people who are not part of this segment (he-man news junkies) are simply misunderstanding the shift. - commenter on "buzzmachine"

I was at that time in my “Lutheran” phase, immersed in the writings of Martin Luther, Martin Chemnitz, Robert Jenson, Gerhard Forde, and Carl Braaten. Justification by grace through faith was a burning evangelical concern for me. The sola gratia, sola fide spoke to my heart, as it speaks to the heart of anyone who suffers from depression and self-hatred. In Zahl I met a kindred evangelical spirit. I had the privilege to talk to him at a SEAD meeting in Alexandria and was much impressed by his lively faith. It does not surprise me that he has become the Dean of the Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. I have occasionally wondered if Paul does not sometimes fall into antinomianism, but … what the heck … that’s an occupational hazard for anyone who pushes the sola gratia envelope. Prozac and twenty years later … The message of sola gratia still speaks as powerfully to me today as it did in the 80’s, but I have lost my Lutheran accent. I began to lose it in the mid-90’s. I ultimately found it impossible to reconcile the monergism of Luther with the synergism of the Church Fathers. If I have to choose between Luther and the Church Fathers—and ultimately, everyone who wrestles with these questions does have to make a choice—the Church Fathers win, every time. - Al of "Pontifications"

As a younger man, I once wrote, “The redneck substitutes blanket skepticism for wisdom.” Now that I’m getting older, I’m beginning to think the redneck ain’t so dumb after all. In fact, the real wise man understands that he knows very little when contrasted with everything there is to know. I suspect the Internet and its suffocating avalanche of information makes every person a bit wiser in this respect. - Eric of "The Daily Eudemon"

This is probably related to (though as a cause or effect I do not know) the decline in dynastic thinking in modern society. Only a very small percentage of people in our current society have family estates or businesses which have existed for many generations, and require people to think in terms of bearing, raising, educating and training the next generation in order to carry things on. Not that people don't think about "the next generation"; but it the general attitude I hear around the corridors at work (which I take to be a more standard milieu than our friends from church or among homeschoolers) seems to be that "the next generation" is simply something that happens. One may or may not produce a few members of it, but generally it's a strange and separate entity which tends to spring up, demand video games and college tuition, and then go off to do its own thing. If people think about "carrying on the family" it generally seems to be as a somewhat backward desire usually expressed by aging parents who want grandchildren to spoil before they are too old to enjoy it. - from Darwin Catholic, pondering why affluence=less kids

Praying in a sacral language is something almost connatural to man; anthropologists and sociologists of religion find the phenomenon in every culture. Even when the vernacular is employed (as in the Anglican Communion), the language of worship is always somewhat different, more elevated, more conducive to lifting the mind and the heart to God. As I was trying to understand "praying in tongues" many years ago, a Catholic charismatic said to me: "Father, it is important to me that I pray in a language in which I have never cursed another human being." That is a tremendous insight, which gave me an even greater appreciation for the Church's "preferential option" for the use of Latin. -- Fr. Peter Stravinskas via "Ten Reasons"

Atheism isn’t what it was in the eighteenth century. Now, the focus of the attack is not the Church, which is no longer dominant, but religion itself. The disdain one used to hear for ‘organized religion’ extends now to the individual believer’s faith. . . . To reduce the influence of religion, it is [now] politically necessary to attack it in the private sphere as well as in the public square. -- Harvard University's Harvey Mansfield from "First Things"

Any man who strives to be someone worthy of respect must accept that he will at some time be a hypocrite. - via "Heart Speaks to Heart"

In a way the health care establishment occupies the place in society the Church occupied in the Middle Ages. If you study a medieval city, you bump into a Church-related person or institution at every turn—not merely the clergy or houses of religious orders, but courts, tithe collectors, and a host of miscellanous employees. Consider the Canterbury Tales: not only is there a parson and a prioress, but a clerk of Oxenford, a summoner, and a pardoner, all of them part of the Church’s establishment. Likewise the Church provided a set of values and moral standards, which, while not always followed, were more or less universally recognized. In modern America, you can live your life without running into the Church, but you can’t avoid the health care establishment. There are doctors and nurses and hospitals; there are also the related bureaucracies, insurance companies, and firms that supply the health care system in ways great and small. As the Church collected tithes on all sorts of property, so health care takes its toll from every company’s revenue and every worker’s paycheck. And the religion of health provides the set of moral standards that are unanswerable. - Henry of "A Plumbline in the Wind"

Every manifestation of hip — from Walt Whitman to the Harlem Renaissance to the Beatniks to Kurt Cobain — has this in common: it lives for now. That’s what makes it so cool, whether it’s a heroin junkie playing a saxophone (see Charlie Parker) or a speed junkie who dies walking outside on a cold, wet night wearing nothing but a t-shirt (see Neal Cassady). Compare that to the American marketplace. What does it want? It wants people to live in the present, preferably with no thoughts about the past and definitely no worries about the future, including second mortgages and 18% APR credit cards. - Eric Scheske