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December 03, 2005
Catching up with New Orleans and nihilistic materialists
Those who think New Orleans has "come back to life" should read Gus Van Horn's account of his recent visit there. Excerpt: It is hard to characterize the general impression of New Orleans succinctly other than to say that it is overwhelming. The eeriest part of being in this ghost city is being there at night, as I was briefly after we'd finished work one day and were packing some things into a moving van. The night sky is as brilliant as it is in any remote location, and yet you are surrounded by perfectly dark buildings and deathly quiet.There's much more, plus pictures, and it's a good read, as is the blog in general. Gus is not only a good analyst, he obviously enjoys writing in order to make things clear. That, to me, what makes good blogging. (Having a fact checker always helps, though.) (My biggest frustration is that sometimes the more I struggle to make things clear, the less clear things become!) In a serious essay about reason and faith, Gus links to this thought-provoking claim about materialists: Consider three statements: 1. Torturing a child for one's own sexual gratification is evil. 2. Shakespeare is a better writer than George Lucas. 3. Human beings have free will. An intellectually honest materialist must reject all these claims.I know plenty of materialists who would consider the torturing of a child to be utterly evil, whether for sexual gratification or not. I'll be sure to tell them how dishonest -- and of course "nihilistic" -- they are. . . ("Nihilistic materialism" has a nice ring, doesn't it?) There's plenty more where that came from. Check out Gus's blog. posted by Eric on 12.03.05 at 12:53 PM |
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Eric,
Thank you for that very nice writeup!
Gus