Recently, James Merritt, the young Christian largely responsible for the so-called Southern Baptist Environment & Climate Initiative, declared, “God is green.” I would like to say simply and emphatically, “God is not green.” We do ourselves and the gospel no good when we adopt the categories of postmodern man and conform God to them. ... Continue Reading →
Scientists Monkey with DNA
Here is a great place to restart the blog. Princeton ethics professor Peter Singer and others have been working feverishly to convince us that we are nothing more than animals. As Jiminy Cricket used to sing, “You are a human animal.” Only, Singer and the others won't go as far as Jiminy. They won’t agree that... Continue Reading →
Zoei’s Song
I wish I had more information to share with you about this very special little girl, but I only know this video from an e-mail forwarded to me. Trust me, you don't want to miss viewing this one. Oh, my goodness, you've got to see this little girl!
Transgendered
A subtle switch of language has us bamboozled into believing that sex is morphous. It used to be that applications and personal information forms asked us to report our sex, leaving us with only the obvious choices of male (if we wore pants) and female (if we wore dresses). Now, however, the times have changed and that which used to be obvious... Continue Reading →
Faith and Politics
The Pew Forum recently sponsored a conference concerning faith and politics. Specifically, they sought to understand how Catholics and evangelicals might impact the '08 elections. There is a link here to the story, which comes with transcripts, interviews, audio, and Q& A. It is all quite informative if you have the time and the interest... Continue Reading →
Happy Memorial Day
Get to know Frank Buckles. He is perhaps the last living American veteran from World War I. He got in the army by not telling the whole truth about his age. The marines and navy didn't buy his story, but he convinced an army recruiter that Missouri didn't keep birth certificates; so, he got in. ... Continue Reading →
I Told You So
I wrote some time ago about this Texas child custody case involving the Mormon sexual abuse allegations. Now, the case has been thrown out because the state acted too hastily in condemning all the parents because of the possible misdeeds of a few. Perhaps there was warrant for an investigation into the Mormon cult concerning... Continue Reading →
L.A. Church Shooting
I am not sure if this report hit the mainstream media airwaves, but I am positive it would have been considered a much bigger story if a mosque had been involved. As it is, a gunman attacked a church festival, opening fire on the crowd, injuring three, including his own wife (on purpose). One of the innocent... Continue Reading →
More Than a Feeling
Against Kant and all rationalist accounts of morality, sentimentalism insists that humans are ruled by their passions. Specifically, Simon Blackburn, in an article titled “Must We Weep for Sentimentalism,” argues against rationality on the grounds that there are no rational moral imperatives under which all humans are obligated to action, and, even if one were... Continue Reading →
Kant Still Can
Samuel Kerstein, in an article titled “Reason, Sentiment, and Categorical Imperatives,” argues that Kant’s categorical imperative can still provide the grounding we need for ethics. As a reminder, the categorical imperative is a reasonable principle that is both absolutely necessary and universally applicable. Thus, all rational agents are morally obligated to do their duty, that... Continue Reading →
Test Your Ethics
Since 1954, the IRS has had a strict code in place concerning preachers and preaching. To maintain a tax exempt status, preachers must abide by rules related to politics. Some (rightly) want the IRS to change. They believe these sanctions are a violation of free speech. The IRS ain’t about to change. But the Alliance... Continue Reading →
Brief Action Summary
Already, we have covered a big chunk of ethical ground. It will be helpful to summarize briefly... We learned that if we seek to determine our ethics on the basis of consequences we drown in a sea of necessity. We must always maximize the good in every little decision. Because the good is hard... Continue Reading →
No Virtue in Virtue
Julia Driver does not think virtue ethics is plausible as a primary means of establishing ethical norms. Specifically, she contends that virtue ethics is no more advantageous than consequentialist ethics. The reason she makes this assertion is that she views virtue ethics—particularly the variety proffered by Hursthouse—as borrowing from consequentialism. Virtue ethics seeks to... Continue Reading →
Emergency Prayer for Myanmar
As cynics scoff and agnostics yawn, Christians, once again, are getting to work both praying for and providing relief to Myanmar. I have linked a story here about the tragedy in Myanmar and about the work that one Christian organization is doing to provide relief for the tens of thousands who have lost everything. This... Continue Reading →
Give Virtue a Try
Rosalind Hursthouse argues for a different type of normative ethics: Virtue. There are many today arguing for an ethics of virtue in the tradition of Aristotle. In the Christian world of ethics, the most prominent voices for virtue are people like Stan Hauerwas and Gilbert Meilander. More popularly, you might notice a public school approach to... Continue Reading →
Gregory C. Cochran 