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F.B.

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Credo ut intelligam

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It is difficult to describe the crisis I have been living through these past several weeks. The drawing by my office door Short version : Don’t call out the Devil if you aren’t ready to bout .  Alternative short version : “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” —1 Corinthians 1:20 There has been much bitterness. There have been feelings of betrayal. There have been feelings of being lied to while watching people whom I thought were my supporters fall away. Friends warn me about overreacting. At which I overreact. “Academic freedom means nothing if the faculty do not stand up for it.” I believed that. Someone whom I have trusted my entire academic career told me that. I still believe it—but do my colleagues? “Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.” I heard someone say that recently on his livestream. Someone whom my friends tell me I s...
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The God-Ridden Bigotry of the Globalist Monomyth

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Over 200 people died today in Sri Lanka as victims of bomb blasts at three hotels and three churches. It was Easter Sunday. The President of Ireland posted a statement on the attacks : “At a time of religious significance”? When the people killed were in church?  Perhaps President Higgins had just been searching his iPad on Google and was confused about why the people were in church (sorry, “places of worship”). After all, Google (at least in its mobile mode) didn’t seem to know. Or maybe, like myself, President Higgins was spending the weekend reading Joseph Campbell —that great source of religious wisdom behind so much of our modern myth-making ( see   Star Wars ). I read this passage this morning right before going to church: The recognition of the secondary nature of the personality of whatever deity is worshiped is characteristic of most of the traditions of the world. In Christianity, Mohammedanism, and Judaism, however, the personality of the divini...
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Big Bear and the Trinitarians

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It was just supposed to be an interview... A conversation between brothers who have both been on the front lines of the culture war. But then came the quiz... ...with all the answers tending towards one sacred number. At which point the true purpose of the meeting was made clear. “This isn’t an interview.” “This is an intervention.” Milo invites three Catholic intellectuals into a livestream with the Big Bear to talk about the Trinity. Who walks out first?! For wisdom is more active than all active things; and reacheth everywhere, by reason of her purity.  For she is a vapour of the power of God, and a certain pure emmanation of the glory of the Almighty God: and therefore no defiled thing cometh into her. For she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness. —Wisdom of Solomon 7:24-26 And the moral of the story is...? You decide! Preview on YouTube Full episode on Friday Night’s All Right at Censored.TV Unauthor...
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Not quite an explanation of why I haven't been writing but ought to

I need to write something.  I have so many things that have been jangling around in my head these past couple of weeks that I need to say but have been avoiding saying (or saying only obliquely) by posting quotations instead.  Some I am afraid to write because I am worried that writing will make them go away and they are too precious to me.  Others I am afraid to write because I am angry at certain people in my life and I don't know how to say what I need to say without drawing their anger in return.  There, that's cryptic enough, but does it satisfy?  If only I could just jam my fingers on the keyboard and have all of the resentment and anger and frustration flow out.   Asdfghjkl;--so there!  It's not working.  See, to help myself feel better I need to explain myself to myself, but I can't do that obliquely, so I'm still simmering, angry, feeling got at and unable to protect myself.  I could say something.  Why don't I?  Bec...
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“Satan, be gone!”

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This is the last post I wanted to write, but it has become clear that if I do not write it, I will never write anything else. So here goes. This time last year I was preparing my file to submit to my department in expectation of being promoted to full professor. I probably don’t need to say any more, you can all check my title on the department web page now—go ahead , I’ll wait—although as one benefit, as part of the review process I did have to write statements about my research and teaching which I have posted on my academic home page as introductions to my method and goals. I got the news—I kid you not—on Friday the 13th. In April. Seven months ago. Since when, I have been living a lie. Or a half truth. Or...oh, fuck it, it sucks. Because it is nonsense, of course. I deserve to be promoted to full professor. I have published a second major monograph  with a prestigious academic publisher (our standard in the department, barring an outside offer from another u...
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