On Fairy Stories, Tom Bombadil and Magic

I have such amazing students.  Go read their posts for our first discussion.  Really.  Right now.  You'll thank me!

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How to Be God-Right

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I have had a fair amount of fall-out thanks to the video that I did with my friends about Vox Day’s book on Jordan Peterson . If you have watched the video, you know that I agree with Milo and Vox in their critique of the Good Professor. Like Milo and Vox, I do not see Jordan as on “our” side . Quite the reverse. I became wary of Professor Peterson about this time last year, after spending over a month trying to make sense of what happened in his interview with Cathy Newman. I became increasingly suspicious as I watched his interactions with Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin on their shows , and I lost all faith in him as an ally when he threw Milo under the bus rather than argue with Bari Weiss about whether Milo was “possibly [a racist].” By the time Professor Peterson made his Kavanaugh tweet, the camel was already on the ground, crippled and unable to rise. I do not think Professor Peterson  believes in God by any definition that I would recognize . ( Hint : If you care more a...
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Nation, American Style

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Vox Day talked last night on his livestream about how American conservatism was doomed as a political movement from the beginning because, even as defined by Russell Kirk, it was only ever an attitude, never a coherent political philosophy. Kirk himself said so. He called conservatism a “persuasion,” without “ideology,” “Holy Writ,” or “dogmata,” and he suggested that “conservative” as a word be used only as an adjective—a modifier, not a substantive noun. And indeed, as Vox pointed out, as defined by Kirk, conservatism has no substance. It is a stance against , not an argument for . In Kirk’s own words : The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles...
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And then the demons attacked...

One said: "You're wasting your time. It is going to take too long to work through this text. It is foolhardy to embark on a translation when somebody else might be doing it." Another said: "Whatever you do with this text, it will not be relevant enough. It is certainly not worth spending so much time on. You are not asking a big question, just doing a study of a single text that nobody read(s). Studying this work is not like an analysis of Chaucer. The text is not a part of our larger culture, just an oddity or example." Another said: "Somebody else could do it better. Saiani already has, it’s just in Italian. You probably can't even do it, your Latin isn't good enough to deal with John's technical vocabulary, never mind his poetry." The first one said: "You will never finish. There's no way you are going to make any headway on this project working only two hours a day every other day. Somebody else is certain to fi...
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Angels, Demons, Heaven, and Hell: On Christian “Mythology” and the Spiritual Life

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My comments for a conversation with Fr. Peter Funk, OSB, Prior of the Monastery of the Holy Cross, sponsored by the  Lumen Christi Institute Abstract : Many traditional Christian beliefs and teachings about spiritual realities have become unpalatable to modern sensibilities. Accounts of angelic visitations, demonic possessions, the stain of original sin, and the threat of eternal torment are today considered untrue or irrelevant by non-believers and even many Christians. Why were such “myths” so central to Christian belief and practice for so many centuries? Is there any value in understanding why ancient, medieval, and contemporary Christians believe in such things? Or does Christianity need to be demythologized in order to survive in a post-enlightenment age? In this conversation, Rachel Fulton Brown and Fr. Peter Funk, OSB, will consider the history of these “myths” and their relevance for contemporary spiritual practices. ***** How many of you believe in angels...
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Draco Layer Four: The Anagogic or Mystical Sense

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