Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 303

Religious liberty for atheists, too

Enlisting or re-enlisting in a military service requires taking an oath, ending in the words “so help me God.”  An atheist airman trying to re-enlist in the Air Force has crossed out those words in the paperwork he is supposed to sign.  So the Air Force is not letting him re-enlist. Lawsuits are in the [Read More...]

Bonhoeffer on abortion

Matthew Schmitz quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, emphasizing how the theologian is forcefully pro-life, while also speaking pastorally about those who commit this sin. Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are [Read More...]

A free-market solution to religious bigotry

After telling about some universities that are “derecognizing” Christian organizations, Joe Carter proposes a “free market solution”:  He suggests that Christian students, alumni, and donors  should not “hand over our cash to schools that consider our beliefs so repugnant as to not even be worthy of recognition.” From Joe Carter, Let’s ‘Derecognize’ Colleges That Discriminate [Read More...]

Luther on changing a baby’s diaper (rerun)

[Mollie Hemingway's quotation from Luther's "The Estate of Marriage" (1522) reminded me that I blogged on that sermon in 2007, several platforms ago.  So I thought I would rerun it.] In working on an article about vocation, I was looking for the source of Luther’s famous saying about the holiness of changing diapers. I found [Read More...]

Are we already in World War III?

Pope Francis says that all of conflicts throughout the world constitute a Third World War.  Indeed, there was a time when two individual nations would fight it out over a dispute.  Now, even regional conflicts quickly become globalized.  So maybe the Pope is right, that World War III is upon us. From Pope says world’s [Read More...]

The sound an atom makes

The ancients believed that the planets and stars were on crystalline spheres, whose turning created harmonics equivalent to our musical notes.  Hence, “the music of the spheres,” signifying the aesthetic order of the cosmos.   We don’t have that cosmology anymore, but we do have quantum physics.  Scientists have isolated the vibration and thus sound of [Read More...]

Cooking for your family as “tyranny” or as “vocation”

Slate has published a column by Amanda Marcotte on “the tyranny of the home-cooked family dinner.”  She cites surveys that show how hard and stressful it is for women to live up to the ideal of the whole family sitting down together for a home-cooked meal and concludes that cooking –a task that falls disproportionally [Read More...]

Scotland might secede next Thursday

The people of Scotland will vote on Thursday, September 18, on whether or not to secede from Great Britain.  When we blogged about it before in 2012, the chances for a “yes” majority seemed remote, but one poll last weekend showed the secessionists winning.  Though other polls suggest that the United Kingdom will remain united, [Read More...]

What a comet looks like, up close

The European Space Agency spacecraft Rosetta has rendezvoused with Comet 67P, with plans to send a smaller craft to land on it November 11.  The project was launched back in 2004.  The comet is about 3×5 kilometers across (1.86×3 miles).  Go here for more information.  After the jump, photographs from the probe, showing what a [Read More...]

What Christians know about each other

Justin Taylor posts a startling quotation from Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Life Together, about what a Christian “who lives beneath the cross of Jesus” knows about sin, himself, and other sinners.   And how this knowledge of the human heart, as revealed by the Cross, goes deeper than that of any psychologist. From Justin Taylor, Bonhoeffer on [Read More...]