Boethius's consolation came mainly from stoic philosophy, not Christianity, but he lets God off the hook (in anticipation of Aquinas) by flattening time and letting Him "see everything in one go in a timeless sort of way."
Anselm's Greatest Conceivable God possesses Being irrefragably and necessarily, if you believe in the power of words to compel reality.
Peter Abelard may have been "the first serious moral philosopher of medieval times" but his lust for Heloise came at a painful and irreparable cost. Perplexing. What would he have liked to synthesize?
Ockham's "razor" was a simple tool. Too simple, for a complex world? Giordano Bruno could have used it, though.
In Fantasyland today we're reminded - wouldn't you rather forget? - that the occupant of the formerly-most-respected office in the world once slapped and body-slammed the head of the WWF on stage. He's been slapping the rest of us since.
Burning Man is another fantasy stage for adults of all ages, who go to the desert and dress up as unicorns, birds, mermaids, geishas etc., and "step through the looking glass - that is, through the LED screen - to inhabit Azeroth or Tatooine" or wherever. Kids 'R' Us for sure, innocently and harmlessly enough for most perhaps, but Michael Jackson was another story.
The Jehovah's Witnesses had no use for secular govenment, earning a reputation even lower than atheists' by the mid-'30s - mostly by proselytizing passionately and refraining from patriotic public pledges.
The last well-known secularist crusader in the tradition of Paine and Ingersoll was Clarence Darrow, who died in 1938. "The Atheist Mother" Vashti McCollum was no crusader, just a humanist whose wish to raise her children free of doctrinal duress was "somehow" perceived as hostile and threatening by the conformist majority.
Lady Chatterley dealt a decisive blow to the Comstock law in 1959, inflaming the enemies of secularism and leading Billy Graham to write in 1954 that communists worship the Devil. That was a bit abrasive. Would it have been worse, if he were a woman?
Anselm's Greatest Conceivable God possesses Being irrefragably and necessarily, if you believe in the power of words to compel reality.
Peter Abelard may have been "the first serious moral philosopher of medieval times" but his lust for Heloise came at a painful and irreparable cost. Perplexing. What would he have liked to synthesize?
Ockham's "razor" was a simple tool. Too simple, for a complex world? Giordano Bruno could have used it, though.
In Fantasyland today we're reminded - wouldn't you rather forget? - that the occupant of the formerly-most-respected office in the world once slapped and body-slammed the head of the WWF on stage. He's been slapping the rest of us since.
Burning Man is another fantasy stage for adults of all ages, who go to the desert and dress up as unicorns, birds, mermaids, geishas etc., and "step through the looking glass - that is, through the LED screen - to inhabit Azeroth or Tatooine" or wherever. Kids 'R' Us for sure, innocently and harmlessly enough for most perhaps, but Michael Jackson was another story.
In A&P today we note the ascent of Catholicism in America in the '30s, impacting pop culture via calls for censorship in the film industry and a pledge not to "throw ridicule on any religious faith." Life Magazine's Birth of a Baby also offended the vigilant censors, despite the Supreme Court's ruling against prior restraint of free expression.
A pair of priests, Coughlin and Sheen, blazed the trail for Billy Graham and other Protestant evangelicals - not to mention Rush Limbaugh and other hate-preachers. And Bishop Sheen also paved the way for those who wanted to treat "liberal" as a dirty word. Imagine wanting a government to "do good in society" - how vile!
The Jehovah's Witnesses had no use for secular govenment, earning a reputation even lower than atheists' by the mid-'30s - mostly by proselytizing passionately and refraining from patriotic public pledges.
The last well-known secularist crusader in the tradition of Paine and Ingersoll was Clarence Darrow, who died in 1938. "The Atheist Mother" Vashti McCollum was no crusader, just a humanist whose wish to raise her children free of doctrinal duress was "somehow" perceived as hostile and threatening by the conformist majority.
Lady Chatterley dealt a decisive blow to the Comstock law in 1959, inflaming the enemies of secularism and leading Billy Graham to write in 1954 that communists worship the Devil. That was a bit abrasive. Would it have been worse, if he were a woman?
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