Category Archives: Philosophy

Daniel Kaufman, RIP

Wow. Timothy Sandefur (who I met at the Magna Carta symposium in June) lost his brother in the San Bernardino massacre:

For centuries, people have pondered the meaning of evil. But the solution to the riddle is that evil has no meaning. Evil is the absence of meaning; it is meaninglessness. To build, to create, to act in the world—these all have meaning. Evil cannot. It is only a black hole that can tear apart meaningful things, and return them to the hollow silence of the universe. This is what we mean when we say that evil is “banal.” It lacks the infinite grandeur of even a grain of sand, let alone of laughter, or of a kiss. In that sense, evil does not matter. It is incapable of mattering. It cannot live or mean things. The best it can do is look on in ire, envy, and despair. And the envious are always walled off from the world that we, the living, inhabit, by an invisible and impervious barrier that they erect themselves; they always have the deadly touch of King Midas. We defy evil and envy when we live. Living in this world sheds light into darkness. It is all we can do, and all that needs to be done, and it is more than enough. Therefore, we shall live. We shall be joyful, hard-working, silly, creative, and smart and sexy and brave and fun. Be a brief candle that helps spread another light.

Read the whole thing.

When God Goes Away

…superstition takes his place. Including things like the climate-change religion.

I think it was Chesterton who said that when people cease believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe anything. This is why, despite my own lack of belief, I think that attacks on organized religion by the Left (as engaged in by people like Dawkins and Dennett) can be disastrous. Like death, God serves a useful societal purpose, if not for every individual, whether He exists or not.