In her preface to Critical Essays on Joyce Carol Oates published 24 years ago the author wrote Once a literary work is published it passes forever out of the private and protective world of the writer rsquo s imagination and out of his or her possession It cannot be reclaimed These passive-voi

If we want to know whether a person is good we should ask neither what his or her beliefs are nor what he or she hopes for Rather we should ask what the person loves So taught St Augustine He was in good company of course since Jesus summarized morality as ldquo love God and love your neigh

A recent poll of the 1 800 members of the National Academy of Sciences found that over 90 percent profess to being atheists or agnostics To these learned people the idea of God and the corresponding sense that we live in a meaningful universe is contrary to scientific understanding The combinatio

The take-home message from this review is similar to the line I wrote on my book reports in elementary school I would recommend this book to all my friends It is a rare experience for me to find a book that sets me on fire stirs me up and makes me think critically about my life and commitments as

A professor I knew used to say Hamlet seems befuddled at times because he is a Renaissance man in a medieval world Over the years I saw that the reverse was equally true Hamlet knows the new philosophy but is troubled by new customs and friends who betray old loyalties he fails at playing the Ma

Preaching to huge crowds in the 18th century the highly popular theologian Jonathan Edwards did not soften his rhetoric when it came time to describe the fate of humanity and its need for divine grace Natural men are held in the hand of God over the pit of hell They have deserved the fiery pit a