Tag Archives: theologians
Beautiful Souls and Life on the Ground
We are back in Bucks County and home from a conference in San Diego where we each presented our just-published books. The title of mine, as was noted last week, is Confessions of a Young Philosopher and it’s a life … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged "beautiful souls", "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", 1800 years of persecution, 1948 UN vote for partition, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", acknowledging Jewish presence, American Academy of Religion, antisemitism’s shape-changing, antizionism and antisemitism, audience of theologians, author presentations, beautiful souls and the IDF, Bildungsroman, book panel, charter of Hamas, Christianity without its history, Christianity’s supersessionist claims, coming out of the closet, competitive victimhood, concentration camp survivor, conceptual and physical erasure, conceptual and physical erasure of Jews, conceptual erasure of Judaism, confession as a spiritual genre, Descartes’ mask, earthbound, existential erasure of Jewish presence, Gaza's 300 miles of tunnels, Gazans elect Hamas, Goethe, Goethe as novelist poet playwright and natural philosopher, Hamas photographs Oct 7, Hamas promises more Oct 7, Hamas stores arms under civilian sites, Hamas' call for genocide, IDF's efforts to reduce civilian casualties, Israel's War of Independence, Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, Israel's defensible boundaries, Jesus said "Salvation is of the Jews", Jewish history, Jewish history and the Holocaust, Jewish survival, Jews and history, Judaism as foundational Western religion, just-published books, life on the ground, living out one's beliefs, living your philosophic view, masked philosophers, noticing Jewish absence, Oct 7 2023, persons and ultimate reality, physical erasure of Jews, repairing past wrongs, repeating history by ignoring history, search for meaning, self-disclosure, Socratic life strategy, Sorrows of Young Werther, supersessionism, telling a true story, the human situation, the illusion of transcendence, theologians, theological conference, theology and history, theology with a clean slate, Theology Without Walls, too pure for this world, transcending established religions, transcending without first repairing, victimhood as status
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New Year Retrospective
New Year Retrospective I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. If they had any force for me, I might. First, you gotta believe in those things. But I do find living force in going back over the path recently trodden, to … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, books, childhood, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, life and death struggle, love, male power, masculinity, memoir, memory, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, novels, ontology, past and future, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, relationships, religion, roles, secular, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status of women, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 2020, 2021, 5th Commandment, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Confessions of a Young Philosopher", Athenians and Socrates, audio book, Bernard Harrison’s Blaming the Jews: The Persistence of a Delusion, British philosopher, Clifton Fadiman, Columbia class of 1925, competition in suffering, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conscious truth, corrigible life project, course correction, dialectical tests, disloyalty to truth, Dr. Mark Bussell, elephant in the room, evil defined, failure as success, father-daughter relation, filial piety, genius, good clean fun, happiness, happiness in New York, Henry M. Rosenthal, higher code of feeling, history and the Jews, illustrated novels, intellectual memoir, Jewish intellectual, Jews on the Brain, keeping a journal, Life Force, Lionel Trilling, living dialectically, Loma Linda Neuropathic Therapy Center, materials for archiving, mental health in New York, Meyer Schapiro, narrative plotline, neuropathy treatments, New Year resolution, New York intellectuals, non-fiction narrative, novelty of narrative view, pandemic shutdown, personal growth, personal memoir, philosophic colleagues, philosophic narrative, philosophy dramatized, Platonic dialogues, satiric sense, Socrates, spoiling one’s story, talking about Jews, the drama of philosophy, theologians, Thomas Altizer, time for review, unconscious influence, unique talent, universalism in religion, world religions, yearly review, you gotta believe
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“Evil is Really Not Banal”
“Evil is Really Not Banal” This past week we’ve been in California, where I’ve resumed my treatments for neuropathy at the Loma Linda hospital. The other event of the week, salient for me, was a talk at the Claremont School … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, American politics, art of living, atheism, autonomy, Biblical God, books, bureaucracy, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cults, cultural politics, culture, dialectic, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, glitterati, guilt and innocence, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, martyrdom, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, secular, seduction, self-deception, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", audience Q&A, author/publisher relation, “The Rake’s Progress”, banality of evil, behaviorism, Bernard Harrison’s Blaming the Jews: The Persistence of a Delusion, blaming the Jews, book endorsements, book reviewers, book reviews, bureaucratic mindset, Claremont School of Theology, Coincidences, conscious evil, diabolical cunning, Evil, evil personified, excusing the Holocaust, explaining evil, fiction and real life, fighting the good fight, firming resolve, futile counterargument, groupthink, guidance from above, Hannah Arendt, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Holocaust research, illustrations from life, knee fracture, Loma Linda Hospital, meaning what you say, moral coverup, Nazi arguments, Nazi canards, Nazi materials, Nazi talking points, neuropathy treatments, publishing snafus, speaker event, synchronicities, the Holocaust, the seducer, theologians, traps of argument, truth stranger than fiction, white-washing evil, wolf in sheep’s clothing
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“God and Biography”
“God and Biography” When my journal entry doesn’t give me answers to the questions of my day, I sometimes ask myself: What would it have been like for me to live the same events recorded here, if there were no … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, childhood, Christianity, class, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, mortality, ontology, oppression, past and future, philosophy, political, political movements, politics, power, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, violence, war, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Atheism, Bible, biographical subjects, biography, boarding school, British prep school, British public school, bullies, cancer, Christopher Hitchens, classical historians, clerical opinion, corrupted intellect, covenant, covenantal task, crony capitalist, cutting words, Daniel Dennett, deathbed conversion, debating skill, depravity, deserved tributes, evangelical Christians, fame, fashionable dodge, fashionable opinion, friendship, God, God and Israel, God's existence, gossip, grace of spirit, History, homophobe, horizontal explanation, intellectual fashions, intelligent hope, irresponsible gossip, Islamophobe, King James version, Larry Alex Taunton, Larry Taunton's The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, literary celebrities, literary talent, love of words, Loyalty, medicine for the soul, memoir, moral analysis, moral description, moral interpretation, off the record, Ontology, political correctness, psychoanalytic explanation, public atheism, public debate, public opinion, rabbis, racist, received opinion, religious authorities, Richard Dawkins, Roman empire, Sam Harris, secular history, secular humanism, self-understanding, sexist, sinners, social taboos, spiritual implications, spirituality, spritual interpretation, Tacitus, temple newsletter, the Establishment clause, The Four Horsemen of New Atheism, The New Atheism, theism, theologians, tools of a biographer, truth, uncorrupted intellect, unmentionable questions, vertical explanation, women friends, words as weapons
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“Philosophical Gossip”
“Philosophical Gossip” Not long ago, the writer Cynthia Ozick had a front page piece in the New York Times Book Review about gossip. In her usual talent-laden voice, Ozick wrestles with the double sense of gossip. Could it be deplorable … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, Bible, childhood, chivalry, class, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, Jews, journalism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, memoir, mind control, modernism, mortality, nineteenth-century, oppression, past and future, philosophy, political, political movements, power, propaganda, psychology, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, seduction, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged "the evil tongue", "the few and the many", "the noble and the base", 19th century novels, Abigail L. Rosenthal's "Defining Evil Away: Arendt's Forgiveness", banality of evil, behaviorism, Bettina Stangneth's Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer, censorship, charisma, clandestine romance, classical philosophers, colleagues, collegiality, conventional religion, courtship, Cynthia Ozick, Cynthia Ozick's "The Novel's Evil Tongue", de-Nazification, dominance and submission, dramatic lives, eavesdropping, Eichmann trial transcript, emigres, evil as conformism, female vulnerability, Femininity, fiction, flattery, free will, freedom, German-Jewish philosophers, German-Jewish students, gossip, Hannah Arendt, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Hans Jonas Memoirs, Hans Jonas The Gnostic Religion, Henry James, historical characters, Jane Austen, lashon hara, Leo Strauss, Leo Strauss' Persecution and the Art of Writing, Letters 1925-1975: Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, lifelong love affair, lifelong romance, love letter, Male Power, malice, Martin Heidegger, modern sensibility, Modernity, moral choice, narrative, novelists, Orthodox Judaism, persecution, persona, personal magnetism, personal v political, philosophers, philosophic friendships, philosophic lives, philosophic romances, Philosophy v Religion, plot lines, private passion, private persons, professorial power, public intellectuals, public v private, refugees, seduction, slander, Stanley Rosen, Tarzan and Jane, The Nazi Party, The New York Times Book Review, theologians, Tolstoy, University of Chicago, unpretentiousness, whitewashing, World War II
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“Jews and Christmas”
“Jews and Christmas” Lord! What a topic! No, please no. Years ago, I attended an interfaith discussion group peopled mostly by clergy, Jewish and Christian, also theologians and philosophers – all “religionists” as they are sometimes called today. It was … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, action, alienation, anthropology, art, autonomy, Christianity, contradictions, courage, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, faith, fashion, films, freedom, friendship, guilt and innocence, heroes, history, history of ideas, identity, ideology, idolatry, immortality, institutional power, Jews, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, love, martyrdom, master, medieval, Messianic Age, mind control, mortality, mysticism, past and future, peace, philosophy, political, political movements, power, psychology, public intellectual, relationships, religion, roles, seduction, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, violence, war, Zeitgeist
Tagged "Danny Boy", "David and Bathsheba", "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", "Solomon and Sheba", abomination of desolation, Amazon reviews, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, atonement doctrine, Ben Hur, beth midrash, careerism, Charlton Heston, Christian doctrine, Christmas carols, Christmas Eve, Christmas tree, critics, Crucification scene, dialogue, Edward Alexander, Edward Alexander's Jews Against Themselves, Gina Lollobrigida, Gregory Peck, Hanukkah, Hollywood Bible movies, interfaith, Isaiah 53, Jeff Hunter, Jesus, Jewish Anti-Zionists, Jewish apostates, Jewish nation, Jews, Jews and Christians, Jews for Jesus, Jews in Hollywood, longest hatred, Maccabees, medieval Christian persecution, Messiah, Michael Wyschogrod, miracles, most hated nation, new Christians, New Year 2016, original sin, Passion of Christ, people pleasing, persecution of Christians, philosophers, pogroms, Rainbow Group, religionists, salvation, Seleucid dynasty, street beatings, Suffering Servant, Susan Hayward, temple in Jerusalem, temple reconsecration, The Trinity, theologians, truthfulness, writers, Yul Brynner
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