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Blog 3 Columns

  • Theologian: God Doesn’t Need Christians

    Theologian: God Doesn’t Need Christians0

    Last week I raised the question of whether or not the “feel good” approach to religion was leading to the steady decline of America’s churches. Such an approach attempts to bring hoards of people to church, making them comfortable in order to swell the ranks of those who follow God. Not surprisingly, a few readers

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  • Millennial Prof Diagnoses the Problem with His Generation

    Millennial Prof Diagnoses the Problem with His Generation0

    Five years ago I was dragged kicking and screaming into registering for a Facebook account for work purposes. Unlike many of my fellow millennials, I had successfully avoided social media, and I was happy with that status, thank-you-very-much. As it turns out, I was not the only millennial who bucked the trend. Dr. Cal Newport,

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  • Is Diversity the New Noblesse Oblige?

    Is Diversity the New Noblesse Oblige?0

    Noblesse Oblige [noh-bles oh-bleezh]: the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged. I heard this term for the first time nearly 20 years ago during an undergraduate course I took on the French Revolution taught by Dr. Peter Dimeglio, one of the best (and toughest) instructors I ever

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  • Don’t Blame Lying on the Brain

    Don’t Blame Lying on the Brain0

    The recent finding that telling lies induces changes in the brain has stimulated a number of misrepresentations that may wreak more harm on our understanding than the lies on which they report. CNN’s headline runs, “Lying May Be Your Brain’s Fault, Honestly,” and PBS reports, “Telling a Lie Makes Way for the Brain to Keep

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  • Why Sasquatch and Other Crypto-Beasts Haunt our Minds

    Why Sasquatch and Other Crypto-Beasts Haunt our Minds0

    Since the 15th century, and possibly earlier, there have been accounts of hairy, nude and tremendously strong people living in the more obscure corners of the Caucasus. Called ‘Almas’, the creatures are occasionally shot, sometimes domesticated (and, in one case, wed). Across the sunbaked Eurasian steppe and high in the Himalayas, there is the white-furred

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  • Why Our Culture is So Fascinated by Monsters

    Why Our Culture is So Fascinated by Monsters0

    I have always wondered why our culture our culture is so fascinated by evil and darkness. When Dante appears on high school reading lists it is always in the form of his Inferno, but never his Purgatorio or Paradiso. One of the biggest educational publishers, Scholastic Books, is known primarily for Harry Potter and The

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  • The First Known Depiction of a Witch on a Broomstick

    The First Known Depiction of a Witch on a Broomstick0

    Via Hyperallergic.com: The visual of the witch on a broomstick is so ubiquitous as to be benign. Before the Wicked Witch of the West or Harry Potter took flight on the spindly cleaning tool, the image first appeared in the 15th century. Two women in marginal illustrations of the 1451 edition of French poet Martin Le Franc’s Le Champion des Dames (The Defender of

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  • Stephen King’s 6 Favorite Stephen King Movies

    Stephen King’s 6 Favorite Stephen King Movies0

    I rarely, if ever, watch horror movies – unless it’s October. Perhaps it has something to do with the season or Halloween lurking around the corner. Whatever the case, during October I enjoy nothing more than devouring spooky movies of all kinds—psychological thrillers, slasher films, campy B movies, etc. This year I rewatched four movies

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  • Prof: Most Students Don’t Know Thomas Jefferson was President

    Prof: Most Students Don’t Know Thomas Jefferson was President0

    As Intellectual Takeout recently noted, Americans are embracing bad government because they don’t know history. If you don’t believe it, just ask Professor Duke Pesta. According to The College Fix, Professor Pesta has long been concerned about the decline of general knowledge in America’s student body, and the informal surveys he conducts suggest there is

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