In his "Beliefs" column in today’s NYT, Peter Steinfels addresses the question of secularization.  A good part of the piece is taken up with a synopsis of a book by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular:… Continue reading

    Yesterday, before London distracted my attention, I noticed that the Catholic church’s notion of intelligent design had found its way onto the New York Times op-ed page.  Then, this morning, NPR had a piece on how scientists avoid… Continue reading

Chuang Tzu, a brilliant fourth century BC thinker and writer, uses the image of the "useless tree" several times in the opening chapters (referred to by those in the know as the Inner Chapters) of his book, which is named… Continue reading