Even during the years right before the Civil War, most white people in the north refused to believe that black people could be their intellectual equals. They might be adamant in their opposition to slavery, but this rarely meant that they were willing to cede to black people full political equality, or entertain the notion … Continue reading James Theodore Holly
Author: KPB Stevens
The Will, The Force of Habit, and Enlightenment
David Brooks started his March 1st New York Times column by saying that In the 19th century, there was a hydraulic model of how to be a good person. There are all these torrents of passion flowing through you. Your job, as captain of your soul, is to erect dams to keep these passions in … Continue reading The Will, The Force of Habit, and Enlightenment
Perpetua and Her Companions
Perpetua was a young mother when she was arrested in 203 A.D. She had become involved with a group of Christians, and was walking with her fellow catechumens through the town of Thuburbo Minus when she was taken into custody. The crime of these early Christians was a refusal to sacrifice to the gods on … Continue reading Perpetua and Her Companions
Some Thoughts about the Cheddar Man, Ray Kurzweil, and Jesus
In 1903, a human skeleton was discovered in Gough's Cave in the Cheddar Gorge of Somerset, England. It was an unusual skeleton, very old and bearing marks that suggested it had belonged to a man who had died from a blow to his head. Scientists determined that this wasn't a recent murder victim at all. … Continue reading Some Thoughts about the Cheddar Man, Ray Kurzweil, and Jesus
John Cassian
John Cassian was only twenty years old when he set off to Bethlehem with his friend Germanus. Germanus was older, although how much older is unknown. I imagine that John was a pious and enthusiastic young man, attracted, like many were, by the stories of monasticism, especially Egyptian monasticism, that circulated in his native Scythia. … Continue reading John Cassian
KPB Stevens 