This book provides, through the semi-fictional character Benjamin Buchanan, strong but simply presented evidence for the existence of God. Benjamin's 'ten good reasons' are argued from the perspective of a scientist and Christian. They are based on a combination of a) logical reasoning, and b) his observations on the awesome (literally!) combination of factors which have combined to make life possible on planet Earth including God's human family. The book should inspire readers to see Earth, its rich resources and lifeforms, from a more reverential perspective - essential in an environmentally and socially stressed planet!
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.
American Empire is at its apex. We are the sole superpower with no potential challenger for a generation. We can reach any point on the globe with our cruise missiles and smart bombs and our culture penetrates every nook and cranny of the global village. Yet we are now the most hated country on earth, buried beneath a mountain of debt and morally bankrupt. Where the Right Went Wrong chronicles how the Bush administration and Beltway conservatives have abandoned their principles, and how a tiny cabal hijacked U. S. foreign policy, and may have ignited a "war of civilizations" with the Islamic world that will leave America's military mired down in Middle East wars for years to come. At the same time, these Republicans have sacrificed the American worker on the altar of free trade and discarded the beliefs of Taft, Goldwater and Reagan to become a party of Big Government that sells its soul to the highest bidder. A damning portrait of the present masters of the GOP, Where the Right Went Wrong calls to task the Bush administration for its abandonment of true conservatism including: - The neo-conservative cabal-liberal wolves in conservative suits. - Why the Iraq War has widened and imperiled the War on Terror. - How current trade policy outsources American sovereignty, independence and industrial power.
