Deep dive into the crossroads of theology, philosophy, and cosmology. Cosmology is where Science and Philosophy converge in their search for a Theory of Everything (TOE). The Eternal Present “The Present is…a series of concentric circles, with its axis perpendicular to linear spacetime…” Read More Life on Mars “Based on what we think we know about biogenesis, there should be life on Mars. If it turns out that there isn’t, somebody’s “got some ‘xplainin’ to do, Lucy.'" Read More The Probability of Nothing “Divinity is a language unto itself, or as a five-year-old grandchild once explained to me, ‘God is outside the numbers’.” Read More Is the Universe Real “The most important thing we’ve learned is that we know so much less than we thought we knew.” Read More Playing with Blocks “Everything I needed to know about cosmology, I learned watching my grandchildren play with blocks.” Read More The Frost Diamond “God is ‘special’ only to that extent that in God, A and Ω are the same event.” Read More Determinism…or Entanglement? “Take Vegas! The casino’s ‘edge’ is as little as 1% on some bets. At those odds, I should be able to play forever…but probability is not actuality.” Read More Returning to Andromeda “What sort of God would throw candy wrappers on a pristine beach? I mean, burning someone at the stake, well maybe, but littering, no way!” Read More Past, Present, Future "So, it turns out that the universe did not have a lot of options when it came to structuring time." Read More A Universe From Nothing I’ll take the wisdom of Yogi Berra over that of Bill Clinton any day: Whatever is, is! Read More Cosmic Crossroads You say, "Big Bang;" we say, "Genesis." You say, "Constantine;" we say, "Ascension." Read More A Theory of Everything (TOE) Thirty years after the death of Jesus…St. Paul quoted an already ancient Christology…a TOE. Read More The Nature of Time Confining events within a single order of magnitude reinforces our tendency to categorize events as past, present, or future. After all, if a quantum of experience can be no more than one second long, almost everything must seem past or future from that perspective. Read More Quark Soup “I once filled the entire universe, but for less than a second. I am 100,000 times hotter than the center of the sun, but I am still a liquid. I am denser than anything in the universe, except a black hole, but I flow 20 times more easily and smoothly than water. Who am I?” Read More

Culture Culture Culture is the way we live out Philosophy and Theology in community. Pontius Pilate “Pilate could be the avatar of an entire class of folks in the post-industrial West, society’s so-called middle managers.” Read More What’s the Matter with Santa Claus? “Do you remember when and why you stopped believing in Santa?” Read More The Seven Pillars of Wisdom “Kabbalah kept the pre-Socratic tradition alive until it could be born anew in the Age of Aquarius.” Read More Don’t Teach Your Kid to Count! “Our own number system is based on a highly specialized, and not necessarily privileged, concept of quantity.” Read More The Great River “What the Cross is to Christianity…the River is to Process Philosophy.” Read More Self, Inc. “You’re the CEO of Self, Inc…What’s your mission statement?” Read More Childhood Lost “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, but children are from the planet Mercury.” Read More Be Half There “'Be Here Now,’ cried Baba Ram Dass in the ‘60s. But was that good advice?” Read More Alphabet “Reciting the alphabet is like peeling layers off of a prize-winning red onion.” Read More Arithmetic “I want to repeal all the fundamental laws of Arithmetic.” Read More Just One More Beer “…Regretting your actions would mean disclaiming the entire forward course of world (cosmic) history.” Read More Everybody Loves Grammar “If the physical world isn’t structured according to the rules of grammar, the social world certainly is.” Read More Mythology Before Marvel Comics “Sturluson searched for the universal patterns that connect all times, all places, and all scales…and, Glory be to God, he found them.” Read More Should I Vote? “What if there was an election where everyone was eager to vote…but nobody cared who won? It’s happened!” Read More The Paradox of Childhood “…We treat children…as pets, slaves, snuggle bunnies and proto-adults”. Read More Is Childhood a Crime? “Parents dote on their royal highnesses…and rarely miss an opportunity to damage them in the process.” Read More Vanity “Every day for 80+ years, we imagine ourselves to be someone we are not, and we work tirelessly, and fruitlessly, to become that person. 'That' is Vanity.” Read More Bacteriology…and American Football “…Will it surprise you to learn that not every bacterium is a team player?” Read More Kabbalah and Thomas the Train “Children and tank engines are not so different from the rest of us. They crave meaning! They only settle for pleasure when…they lose hope.” Read More Deconstructing Popeye “…then I am basically an automaton. I am carbon-based AI. I am the product of nature (inherited traits) and nurture (upbringing)…my parents’ mini-me.” Read More Age is an Algorithm “We systematically suppress our actual experience and replace it with whatever it is we think we are supposed to experience, and we call that reality.” Read More Chess “A recent headline in the 'New York Post' read: King Castles!” Read More Football and Quantum Mechanics “This is what we do on Sunday nights and Mondays during football season: we play 'what if' and 'if only'.” Read More May Day “This one day converges mythology (Norse), cosmology (Pagan), theology (Christian) and ideology (Marxist) with ancient fertility rites. And for my next trick…” Read More The Lego Movie and John Stewart Bell “This movie includes a huge twist with cosmological implications.” Read More Middle Voice “Eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. It’s a terrible way to live! But we’re living it…(but) it wasn’t always this way, and it doesn’t…have to be this way.” Read More JK Rowling and Pliny the Elder "What about werewolves, giants, trolls, and dragons? We don’t believe in them; they’re not real! Are they?" Read More Dante and The Beatles “If a world can or must…self-annihilate…then that world does not exist, never did exist, never will exist, cannot exist.” Read More Football Math “At last, an opportunity to watch football in peace! … Just beer, pretzels and picking out the next Tom Brady.” Read More I Led Three Lives “Modern physics is right now living at least three lives and possibly a fourth.” Read More I Wasn't Anything Every day is Halloween…Every day I get to make the decision anew: who am I going to be today? Read More Mommy Math Part One If counting is such a powerful tool, how is it that for the most part, we don’t count? Read More Pronouns Next time someone asks you for your ‘pronouns,’ try telling them, ‘you/you’…see what happens. Read More Ectaban Ecbatan may share the seven-ringed pattern of the solar system, but Paradise shares the seven-ringed pattern of Ecbatan! Read More /ˈdjuːti/ Why can’t a monarch wear whatever shade of nail polish she wants? Read More Learn to Swym “Language Endures. We Don’t” – now that is a bumper sticker! Read More Alice In Looking-glass world, there’s plenty of there and then, but not a whiff of here and now. Read More Imagine! “John’s Utopia is a 20th century version of Friedrich Nietzsche’s flat universe.” Read More BeHukkotai: Why Land is Different Land is imbued with holiness, which means that, like God, it is beyond human measures of usefulness or control. Read More Xiako Can't Count So, what’s up with the Piraha? How can they get by without numbers? Read More Speaking Piraha The hidden grammar censor in our Euro-brains whispers inaudibly, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Why did the speaker place ‘tall’ and ‘basketball’ in the same sentence, unless they are somehow connected?” A major fallacy that comes with a huge price tag. Read More Enlightenment! “It is often said that victors write history. That is even truer when the war is cultural rather than political.” Read More How to Coach an Undefeated Football Team “Team is not a collective noun; it’s a verb: to team.” Read More Teaching Physics in the 21st Century Schools will soon be reopening with kids returning to begin a new school year. Now is the time to begin thinking about the fall curriculum. In this article, we outline a 10-unit physics curriculum for grades four through eight, all based on The Yellow Submarine. Read More I'm Bored! “We are co-responsible for the world. We are all always our siblings’ keepers!” Read More Believers Need Not Apply We’ve constructed a super-elaborate cosmology to explain how ‘it is’ arose spontaneously from ‘it is not.’ (If that doesn’t make any sense to you, trust me, it doesn’t make sense to me either.) How did the universe come to be? It just did! How did the ratios of the masses of subatomic particles get so finely tuned? They just did! Read More Offense Taken! There is nothing more self-satisfying or self-aggrandizing than ‘taking offense’. Read More Is 65 the New 45? That’s conventional wisdom…and in this rare case, conventional wisdom is not wrong…but neither is it perfectly right. Read More Everybody's Autobiography Is it possible to write an autobiography of everyone, to somehow incorporate the wildly varying events of different people’s lives into a single story? Absurd, right? But not so fast! Read More Can Subject/Verb Agreement Make the World Go Round? We imagine that our world is made up of ‘things’ (nouns), their accidental qualities (adjectives), and the relationships between them (verbs). We imagine this because just such a classification system is embedded in our native tongue: modern English, for example, or most any other contemporary Indo-European language. Read More Voice Verbs “I am stuck on Band-Aid ’cause Band-Aid’s stuck on me!” So says the jingle for one of the world’s most iconic products. But more importantly, and quite unexpectedly, this slogan is one of the best examples of ‘middle voice thinking’ in American pop culture. Read More Antonyms Antonyms. No such thing! Not-X includes the shadow of X. Example: ‘Pretty’ and ‘Ugly’. ‘Pretty’ refers to the totality (gestalt) of a person, place, or thing. ‘Ugly’ refers to those elements of the aforementioned that are not consistent with a ‘pretty’ whole. ‘Pretty’ and ‘ugly’ appear to be antonyms…but they’re not. In fact, they operate on two entirely different syntactic levels. ‘Ugly’ actually derives its meaning from the concept of ‘pretty’. Therefore, we can say ‘ugly’ includes “the shadow of ‘pretty’”; but not so the other way around. Read More Covid 20 So we were told that COVID-19 came from bats. By the summer of 2020, it should have been obvious that this was wrong. COVID-19 has behaved in some very unique ways that most probably reflect the effects of ‘human engineering’. Now the scientific consensus is shifting. Read More Amazon Amazon provides reliable, rapid, and inexpensive delivery service; and the US Postal Service? Well, to be kind let’s say ‘not so much’. So who is being sued by the feds? You guessed it…Amazon. Apparently, success today is automatically an anti-trust violation. Read More Culture

Essays in Aletheia Today magazine relating to scripture and how to incorporate scripture into family, life, work, and daily life. Plus, original prayers, reflections, and meditations. Spirituality Mar 1, 2024 I'm Ageless and Timeless “I am a spy; I can sense it, but I have no spy craft, no Bond-tech, and no ‘should you choose to accept it’ mission.” Read More Mar 1, 2024 Is Techno-Optimism a New Religion? “This is the first time I’ve seen AI presented with all the trappings of a new Aquarian theology.” Read More Mar 1, 2024 Happiness “Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar.” Read More Jul 15, 2023 Ave Maria “Of course, no one needs to invoke Mary’s intercession… (but) imagine OJ without his Dream Team.” Read More Jun 1, 2023 The Our Father “This tiny prayer…is a cyber-wonks dream. The density of information content is out of this world, quite literally!” Read More Jun 1, 2023 The Structure of Prayer Formal Christian Prayer is a cornucopia of spirituality. Yet in the Roman Catholic tradition at least, two prayers stand out: Jesus' prayer, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary (Ave Maria). Read More Apr 15, 2023 My Breastplate Read More Oct 15, 2022 St. Paul’s Lord’s Prayer “But deliver us from evil,” this last verse is the key to entire prayer. Read More Oct 15, 2022 St. Paul’s Lord’s Prayer “But deliver us from evil,” this last verse is the key to entire prayer. Read More Oct 15, 2022 Faith, Hope, and Love This excerpt from the writings of St. Paul is among the best-known passages in Judeo-Christian scripture. But what does it really mean? Read More Sep 1, 2022 Serenity Prayer Is the Sermon ‘in the can’ after all? Read More Jul 5, 2022 Teaching Physics in the 21st Century Schools will soon be reopening with kids returning to begin a new school year. Now is the time to begin thinking about the fall curriculum. In this article, we outline a 10-unit physics curriculum for grades four through eight, all based on The Yellow Submarine. Read More May 29, 2022 Being a Faith Chaplain in a Secular World As a chaplain, I am allowed to talk about faith or pray with a client if that is what he or she wants. Like many people in our secular and even religious society, I am to be there for ‘those of all faiths or none.’ Read More Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue Spirituality is the practice of Philosophy and Theology; it is the ‘How To’ for those who “walk in the valley of the shadow of death.”

Aletheia Today magazine essays relating to religious writings, beliefs, values, and traditions held by Judaism and Christianity Theology Theology is the intersection of Philosophy and Mythology where we consider matters of ultimate concern. Sep 24, 2026 Christology 101 “…Without Christ, the World would consist of a vast multiplicity of isolated events, a sea of ships passing in the night.” Read More Apr 1, 2025 Miracles “…Everything that happens happens only once…there is nothing under the Sun that is not new! Being and novelty are synonymous.” Read More Apr 1, 2025 Is There ‘True Religion’? “We confuse a person’s right to express a hairbrained idea with the notion that that idea should be taken seriously.” Read More Feb 1, 2025 Apocalypse Now! “We are not midway through the Second Act of a Mystery Play called Salvation… Brunhilda has sung; we just need to applaud!” Read More Dec 1, 2024 Jesus Gets Us! “A bond exists between us that unites who Jesus is essentially with who I am existentially. I change with every breath; Jesus never changes.” Read More Dec 1, 2024 R U Body, Soul or Spirit? “Are soul and spirit just two names for one concept…and do we need either?” Read More Oct 15, 2024 World Without God Amen “God is dead, and we have killed him…who will wipe this blood from us?” (Nietzsche) Read More Sep 1, 2024 Mark’s Diary – Notes for a Screenplay “And so they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were filled with awe, while those who followed behind were afraid.” Read More Sep 1, 2024 Is Christology a TOE “Cosmologists cannot rely on science any more than astronomers can rely on religion. There can be no successful TOE (‘Theory of Everything’) without both. ….” Read More Sep 1, 2024 The Mustard Seed “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds find shelter in its branches.” (Matthew 13: 31 – 32) Read More Aug 29, 2024 Show Us a Sign! “We have been shown our sign…and it’s a simple one. The sign is that there are signs!” Read More Jul 15, 2024 God is a Bother! “The reason most people don’t believe in God is that they haven’t fully considered the alternative.” Read More Jun 1, 2024 Job Verses God: The Trial of the Epoch “Job v. God is the Marbury v. Madison of theological law.” Read More Jun 1, 2024 Proof of God: The Empirical Argument “Because God is not perfectly manifest anywhere in our World, we perceive that God is present everywhere…” Read More Jun 1, 2024 Proof of God: The Ontological Argument “Value permeates every nook and cranny of the World. God is Value… No values – no world...” Read More Jun 1, 2024 The Beatles and John “Both Johns looked out their respective windows and saw their worlds on fire. Both Johns situated their profound and ultimately hopeful message in that apocalyptic context.” Read More Apr 15, 2024 Marx vs. Mark “The Gospel of Mark is no biography…It’s a call to action, a manifesto, a How-To manual for non-violent guerilla warriors everywhere, 1st century…or 21st.” Read More Apr 15, 2024 Sacramental Priesthood “I’m willing to bet there are some people out there (actually, a lot of people) who would literally love to spend their careers revealing the presence of God to others.” Read More Mar 1, 2024 Philip Goff “You’ll end up living life as though you were counting cards at a Black Jack table in Las Vegas – in other words, profitably! But it’s still gambling.” Read More Mar 1, 2024 The Theology of Science-Fiction Can AI have soul ? Read More Jan 15, 2024 Faith Is Not Belief Without Evidence "Faith is not belief without evidence; it's the content of a relationship with God and is based upon the private experience of God's love." Read More Jan 15, 2024 A ‘New’ Old Theory of Consciousness “The simplest unicellular species display behaviors that are clearly cognitive in nature.” Read More Dec 1, 2023 Re-Imagining the Magnificat "In our zeal to project our conceptions of The Ideal Woman onto this enigmatic first-century figure, we’ve strayed a bit from the little we do know." Read More Dec 1, 2023 Christ and the Kids “So what is it that makes children so much better than us? First…a child is not a ‘mini-you’… Is an Octopus a mini-you? Then neither is a child.” Read More Oct 15, 2023 Idolatry “An idol is that with no this…the sound of one hand clapping. It is Alice’s Cheshire Cat – all face, no body; all hat, no cattle!” Read More Oct 15, 2023 “Is God Dead?” “Right now, scientists and philosophers all over the world are engaged in the search for a ‘TOE’, a Theory of Everything…(but) we already have such a TOE.” Read More Oct 15, 2023 The 7th Day “Genesis is no longer something that explains; it has become something that has to be explained away.” Read More Oct 15, 2023 Satan, Mary, and ‘Da Judge’ “Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo…Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution...” Read More Sep 1, 2023 ChatGOD "ChatGPT can be smart, but it can never be holy. In being an e-being, precisely because its intelligence is artificial, it is necessarily alienated from the Divine. It can only be 'as if,' never truly as." Read More Sep 1, 2023 Navigating the Nexus of AI "Imagine if AI had its own commandments, like 'Thou shalt treat all data equally.' Encouraging ethical principles in AI programming can keep its decisions in line with virtues like fairness, justice, and empathy." Read More Jul 15, 2023 The Theology of Mikhail Bakunin “Bakunin was fierce in his profession of atheism; but unlike his Marxist counterparts, he was not shy about using the language of Judeo-Christian theology to make his points.” Read More Jul 15, 2023 A Jewish Approach to Cognitive Dissonance "I would like to be an intellectually honest spiritual seeker, a warm and loving and dynamic wife and mother, a supportive friend; but at the end of the day, I look in the mirror, and see an annoyed and tired dish rag, and all I want to do is have a cup of coffee and a bar of chocolate. Warm dynamic spiritual seeker aside, anyone who stands between me and my mug is in for it." Read More Jul 15, 2023 Eucharist “…The spacetime world of matter and energy, 14 billion years old and almost 100 billion light years across, is not the final word.” Read More Jul 15, 2023 Korach Over Dinner "Like most people of my generation, I cringe when I hear the M word." Read More Jun 1, 2023 God’s Will “We can say that God wills the events that constitute the world, even though God does not in any way cause those events to occur.” Read More Jun 1, 2023 Whitehead and Zohar “Zohar and Whitehead, separated by more than 500 years, both deliver us a map of the world where X marks the spot of the eschatological treasure.” Read More Apr 15, 2023 Mary Magdalene, The Witness "That Christ ushered in this new era of life and liberation in the presence of women, and that he sent them out as the first witnesses of the complete gospel story, is perhaps the boldest, most overt affirmation of their equality in his kingdom that Jesus ever delivered." Read More Apr 15, 2023 Growing Into Pentecost "In any case, Pentecost turns out to be a big deal after all. Reformed folk can join with those claiming to be a “full-gospel church”—maybe even remind the others of some overlooked elements in that mix." Read More Apr 15, 2023 Matzah of Hope--Passover Part One "This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms." Read More Apr 15, 2023 Tantum Ergo Read More Mar 1, 2023 Two-Faced God “All gods are two faced…and that’s not blasphemy!” Read More Mar 1, 2023 Hell “Nobody believes in Hell anymore…and that’s a good thing.” Read More Jan 15, 2023 Educating Christians “We must teach our children a totally counter-cultural model of nature. We must teach the doctrines of our Faith, not as exceptions to natural law, but as the highest expressions of natural law.” Read More Nov 30, 2022 Christ the King “Sir, you are quite simply insane. We know exactly what holds our universe together; it is electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong force…not Christ.” Read More Oct 15, 2022 What Did John See? The Bible doesn’t tell us what John saw, but it does tell us that the breaking of the seventh seal was followed by half an hour of total silence. Why? Read More Oct 15, 2022 A Theory of Everything (TOE) Thirty years after the death of Jesus…St. Paul quoted an already ancient Christology…a TOE. Read More Jul 13, 2022 Competing Creeds Suppose we were to express our generation's secular worldview as a 'creed,' how would it read? Read More Jul 13, 2022 The Great Commandment “The second is like it…” Really? The second is like it? Like it? At first glance, this seems ridiculous. The two verses don’t look alike at all. One concerns our relationship with God, the Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth; the other concerns our relationship with the jerk down the street who doesn’t mow his lawn and plays his music loud on Saturday nights. Read More Jul 12, 2022 The People's Creed But did you know that a 6th century Irish poet developed his own version of a ‘creed’…which I have named, the People’s Creed? Read More May 28, 2022 Jesus Meets Mister Spock Science and Religion should assist each other in pursuing the truth. Science can be too closed to the life of the spirit, the mind, imagination, thought, and creativity. Religion can be closed to anything new that threatens its perception of reality. Read More Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry, usually consisting of 17 syllables, arranged in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Does this formal rigor seem like it would be inhibiting? The reverse is true. It’s liberating! Haiku Corner Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry, usually consisting of 17 syllables, arranged in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Does this formal rigor seem like it would be inhibiting? The reverse is true. It’s liberating! Learn about Haiku? Read some Haiku? (See below.) Write and submit a Haiku? (We may publish it in a later issue.) Join (or start) a Renga Cycle (our “Japanese Poetry Slam”). Haiku Read More Renga Cycle 1 Read More Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue

The Bible The Bible is a treasure trove of primary source material at the foundation of the Intellectual History of the West. The Riddle of Job “God is subject to the same objective ethical values and standards as the rest of us! This is what Job is really about.” Read More Ephesians 2:10 “In this one verse…St. Paul proposes a radically new model of what it means to be a human being.” Read More How Matthew Spins Mark “The same facts can take on different ‘meaning’ depending on how they’re presented. Read More Mark’s Diary – Notes for a Screenplay “And so they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were filled with awe, while those who followed behind were afraid.” Read More Jeremiah “God places his words in Jeremiah’s mouth. How can this be consistent with Jeremiah’s status as a free and independent entity?” Read More Mark’s Marks of Authenticity “There is no single work more important than the Gospel of Mark…the Intellectual History of the West hangs on it, so its authenticity is of paramount importance.” Read More Re-Imagining the Magnificat "In our zeal to project our conceptions of The Ideal Woman onto this enigmatic first-century figure, we’ve strayed a bit from the little we do know." Read More The ‘O Antiphons’ “We are asking Christ to come… to teach us, rescue us, shine on us, free us and, repeated three times, to save us.” Read More Eucharist “…The spacetime world of matter and energy, 14 billion years old and almost 100 billion light years across, is not the final word.” Read More The Comedy of Job “Failure to appreciate the comic elements in Job has resulted in an almost universal misreading of the text.” Read More Revelation “This is possibly the shortest ‘play’ in all of literature…and yet it is arguably more important than anything Shakespeare (or even Andrew Lloyd Weber) ever wrote! Read More Psalm 151 “But deliver us from evil,” this last verse is the key to the entire prayer. Read More Beatitudes “The eight beatitudes are a 'manifesto' for change, a change in the way we understand the world…behave in that world… (and) act toward one another. Read More Jericho “Some of us were waving copies of Mao’s Little Red Book; we all should have been clutching copies of the Old Testament.” Read More Job is My Superhero "No one has taken a bigger risk than Job, and no one has faced longer odds; and yet, Job has taken God to court and won!" Read More Bible Read Backwards What would happen if we read the Old Testament in reverse order? From back to front. What if we began with Malachi and ended with Genesis? Read More What Did John See? The Bible doesn’t tell us what John saw, but it does tell us that the breaking of the seventh seal was followed by half an hour of total silence. Why? Read More The Final Psalms Ultimately, the Kingdom of Heaven is the transfiguration of the historical realm into the eternal realm, according to God’s values. Read More Corinthians How is it that God can perform the miracle of Incarnation? Or to put it more accurately, how is it that God is the miracle of Incarnation. Read More Genesis Wins Nobel Prize Traditionally, Nobels are awarded only to ‘living recipients’ and only for work completed in the preceding year. In its statement, the committee said it felt an exception was needed in this instance “in order to right a grievous wrong.” Read More

Win prize money or the chance to be published in Aletheia Today magazine by taking of the AT Challenges. Challenges Are you clever? Good at riddles, a poet, a writer, a math whiz, or just a sharp critical thinker? Take one of our AT Challenges and you may win prizes or see your work published in a future issue. The Sultan and the Sea Challenge First, read The Sultan and the Sea in this issue of Aletheia Today magazine. Next, take the Sultan and the Sea challenge. Read More Winner of the Haiku Challenge Find out who is our first ATM Haiku Challenge Winner! Read More The Haiku Challenge Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry usually consisting of 17 syllables, arranged in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Take the Haiku Challenge today! Read More The Faith Chaplain Challenge Inspired by this issue's Being Faith Chaplain in a Secular World, tell us how you navigate not just your faith in the workplace, but also how you share your faith with others in places where your personal beliefs aren't always popular or even welcomed. Read More

Society Society is the way we live together. It is the concrete manifestation of Culture in interpersonal behavior and institutions. Christian Anarchism “An unjust state is not a bad state…An unjust state is no state at all. There are no ‘bad states’…only states and pseudo-states.” Read More From Marx to Mark “The Gospel of Mark is no biography…It’s a call to action, a manifesto, a How to manual for non-violent guerilla warriors everywhere, 1st century…or 21st.” Read More Fifth Grade Slump, Eighth Grade Cliff “We must surrender the notion that adolescence is a dress rehearsal for adulthood. It’s not; it’s real life! Read More Jesus Christ Revolutionary “He cured the sick and fed the hungry…because it was the right thing to do, here and now, and because it demonstrated what might be possible, universally, in a time to come.” Read More The End of History “Fukuyama proclaimed ‘The End of History’ with a celebratory flourish. But be careful what you celebrate!” Read More The Wonder School “Learning begins with curiosity and children are nothing but question-boxes.” Read More Leviticus and the Fed "The Fed’s 2% inflation policy is a modern version of the Levitical program. It pays for the social safety net that is our way of redistributing wealth.” Read More Home Alone “Macaulay Culkin is ‘every boy’ and his Home Alone family is ‘America’s family’ – except it’s not!” Read More Satan, Mary, and ‘Da Judge’ “Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo…Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution...” Read More Political Alienation “Marx’s hypothesis that a person’s voting habits would be determined by their relationship to the means of production was blown out of the water…” Read More How Moses Saved Egyptian Civilization “…Walk through the streets of Jerusalem, through the marketplace at Mahane Yehudah, and find distinctly Judaized foods, dress, music, and customs from every part of the world.” Read More The Lottery “The state lottery is just about the only financial vehicle that offers some folks a realistic opportunity to materially impact their economic circumstances.” Read More Jean-Paul Sartre and Pope Leo XIII “Separated by c. 75 years, these men nonetheless faced a common challenge: Rebuild civilization!” Read More Christ the King “Sir, you are quite simply insane. We know exactly what holds our universe together; it is electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong force…not Christ.” Read More Job vs. James, Rex “God is good because he’s good, not just because he’s God.” Read More

What happens when we converge a completely unlike pair of ancient and modern influencers? Converge This! Converge This! Articles exploring the 21st century convergence of philosophy, theology and science.

You Are the Elephant explores the hard problem of consciousness and Aletheia Today’s proposed solution, rooted in a framework dating back 2,500 years. Consciousness October 1, 2026 Issue It is routinely referred to as ‘the hard problem’; consciousness is the one thing that even committed scientists acknowledge may never be fully explained. Yes, it’s tricky; but a model framework exists…and has existed, at least in embryo, for 2500 years. You are the Elephant defines the problem and outlines AT’s proposed ‘solution’: You are the Elephant There is an ancient Hindu story of blind monks attempting to describe an elephant; but what if you are the elephant? Consciousness & Genesis Amazingly, a framework for a possible solution to the dilemma of consciousness is embedded in the Judeo-Christian creation story. What’s it Like to Be a Bat? Thomas Nagel theorized that consciousness must extend beyond homo sapiens because ‘there must be something it is like to be a bat’. He was right…but for the wrong reason. Virtue or Freedom Much of what we do we do unconsciously. But that does not necessarily mean that we are not responsible for our actions. Bot Conscious Whether AI is or can become conscious is a topic of intense debate. But perhaps it doesn’t matter. Perhaps what matters is whether my Bot thinks it’s conscious. Readers React What's the buzz about? Our readers' reactions to Aletheia Today... Additional Reading Can't get enough of Aletheia Today's content? Check out the books that inspire our magazine.

“I’m willing to bet there are some people out there (actually, a lot of people) who would literally love to spend their careers revealing the presence of God to others.” < Back Sacramental Priesthood David Cowles Apr 15, 2024 “I’m willing to bet there are some people out there (actually, a lot of people) who would literally love to spend their careers revealing the presence of God to others.” Prior to 1800, it was more or less taken for granted that human life had some sort of transcendent purpose or value. After 1800…not so much! Popes Leo XIII, Pius X, and John XXIII each made a valiant, but largely unsuccessful, effort to win back the hearts and minds of the ‘once faithful’. The high water mark of this renewal was Vatican II (V2), the Church’s 20 th century effort to reinvent itself. For all its good intentions and fine documents, V2 did not accomplish its objective. In retrospect, JP2 probably did more to make the church relevant . Today, the Church is adrift. Even a generally popular Pope like Francis seems oddly out of touch. The Church’s structural and institutional problems are serious and well known but they are not the root cause of this cultural schism. That goes to something much deeper: Christians believe… or are expected to believe, things that fly in the face of everyday common sense : that God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, is also a human being, born of a virgin to a working class family in first century Palestine; that he cured the sick, raised the dead, turned water into wine, wine into blood, and bread into his body; that he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Non-Christians… believe in science. See the problem? Believers and non-believers do not just disagree about things like Abortion; they disagree about what the World is ! What the meaning of ‘is’ is! Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, science and religion coexisted, albeit uneasily. Science had its realm, religion had its, and never were the twain to meet. If this ‘two state solution’ ever worked, it certainly doesn’t today. Science strives to be a Theory of Everything (TOE) and, frankly, Theology should do the same, not excluding science, not co-opting it, but incorporating it. The scientific world view - logical, empirical, material and practical - has permeated every nook and cranny of civilian life. 8 year olds today are doing science that was unimaginable for 80 year olds a generation ago. It is hard to imagine a role for religion in such a world. However, we also know that the scientific world view is ultimately unsatisfying. Despite stupendous material progress, people are at least as unhappy today as they ever were. Stress, anxiety, depression, boredom, and self-harm are symptoms of an even deeper malaise – the loss of meaning and purpose. I mean a universe that comes into being spontaneously, evolves randomly, and vanishes without a trace is hardly reassuring. May I be excused for at least asking, “Could something else be going on?” I mean, if it turns out that everything is worthless and nothing has any meaning, then fine! But don’t expect me to go gentle into that no good night. Science offers no ultimate explanations; it can’t. It’s not in its nature. Now don’t get me wrong: science does an outstanding job of explaining things , one thing at a time, in terms of other things, one thing at a time. Any Best of Science highlight reel must include a shot of a billiards table. But why are there things to explain in the first place? Not a cue! (Oops, clue.) We have everything…we are nothing! Materialism has proven to be the first cousin of nihilism; so re-enter Christianity? Most Christians believe in science – deeply! It’s Nature after all. It’s the Mind of God. In 1000 CE, Pope Sylvester II was said to be the finest scientific mind in all Europe. In Jewish tradition, the Torah is thought to have been given twice: once as Written Torah (first five books of the Old Testament) and once as Oral Torah (nature, logos , the cosmic order). One law, two expressions! Science and religion don’t conflict…or even complement; they reinforce. A knowledge of science can and should lead to a deeper understanding of religion… and vice versa! But this is 2000, not 1000, CE, and it’s certainly not 500 BCE. Science reigns, religion is in exile. The priesthood itself, the scaffolding of the hierarchical Church, is an endangered species. There are no priests! And religious? Forget about it. What can a priest do? He (sic) can educate, heal, counsel, administer; he can perform the Works of Mercy…but so can others . A priest can ‘also’ facilitate the Seven Sacraments. These are 7 ‘moments’ or ‘stages’ in someone’s life that can bring a person into closer contact with the Transcendent. Generally speaking, this is something others can’t do! Beyond the 7 Sacraments, most of what the Church does can be laicized, subbed out, or snubbed out. Much can and should move to the public sector and/or to non-denominational charities. Where the Church wishes to retain a role, e.g. in education, there is no need for ordained clergy to be involved. Imagine a Church with two ‘tracks’: (1) the lay track for those primarily interested in public service, education, administration, charitable work; (2) the ordained track for those wishing to devote themselves to manifesting God’s presence through the Sacraments. We are all called to be Priest, Prophet, and King . Absolutely! But perhaps in our professional lives, we should be priest, prophet, or king. For example, reimagine the priesthood as a loose confederation of men (sic) welcoming newborns and converts, strengthening faith, hearing confessions, celebrating Mass (Eucharist), marrying couples, ordaining clergy, and easing the way for the sick and the dying. Not the worst job description! To whom could we compare such a ‘reformed’ clergy? To Robin Hood’s Merry Men, to Worker-priests, to Medieval troubadours, to Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums? Wait, I’ve got it, how about we compare the new priesthood to Jesus’ band of disciples (Gospel of Mark), wandering the border regions of Galilee, performing good works and manifesting the presence of God. In other words, the Church as Jesus and the Apostles lived it. How about that? Of course, in the process of carrying out these spiritual functions, priests would overlap with lay practitioners and even civil servants as the latter perform their material and/or social duties: caring, counseling, educating, et al. It could be no other way! Each Sacrament is not only an encounter with Christ; it is also an encounter with, and an unmasking of, the world ( Aletheia ). Sacraments strip away the world’s phenomenal veneer to reveal its noumenal essence. They hijack Parmenides’ Doxa and shine its ‘bright light’ on Aletheia . This is Neant without Etre , Dasein without Wassein , the unheard sound of a tree falling in a forest, the unheard sound of one hand clapping. Imagine officiating at these moments of sacramental epiphany…and doing it for a living! Doesn’t appeal to you? You’d rather shuffle papers? No problem. I’ve got plenty of work for you . But I’m willing to bet there are some people out there (actually, a lot of people) who would literally love to spend their careers revealing the presence of God to others. And if I’m right, Eureka! We have priests again! Maybe John Webster was right, “Better days are coming,” after all! David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the cover image to return to Holy Days 2024. Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, Fall Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back JD Salinger vs Wally Shawn David Cowles May 18, 2026 “Rather than reject Salinger’s derogatory depiction, Shawn leans into it… He dismisses the Gregory/Salinger aesthetic and lifestyle as fantastic, illusory, arbitrary and magical.” Any mildly competent Intellectual History of the US post WW II would have to recognize the contributions of J.D. Salinger (JD) and Wallace Shawn (Wally). (Although we’ve never met, I feel as though I grew up, culturally, alongside Mr. Shawn so referring to him as ‘Wally’ does not seem irreverent.) JD, of Catcher in the Rye fame, is known for his eccentricity, his physical isolation, and his meagre, if cherished, literary output. Wally, on the other hand, seems to have two fingers in every cultural pie. Actor, director, author, critic, and TV celebrity, Wallace Shawn is an iconic member of the post-War literary scene. Respecting your time, dear reader, I will mention just a few of Shawn’s many credits: My Dinner with Andre , Vanya on 42 nd Street , The Princess Bride , voice roles in Toy Story and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , and of course, the olive in every martini, Young Sheldon . He’s collaborated with everyone from Woody Allen (6 films) to Louie Malle ( Atlantic City ), Bill Cosby ( The Cosby Show ), and Noam Chomsky. Nor did the apple fall far from the tree. For several decades, Wally’s father, William Shawn, edited America’s literary magazine of record, The New Yorker . During that period the elder Shawn was close friends with Salinger and they dined regularly at the Algonquin. JD was not yet 25 when Wally was born. It is likely that he followed his maturation closely and was no doubt aware of his emergence as a cultural icon in his own right. How JD felt about that, however, is unknown, at least by this commentator. In 1961, in the third of his four published works, Franny and Zooey , Salinger gives Wally a cameo role that I don’t think was meant to be flattering. JD presents Wally as unmemorable, as someone who looks, talks, dresses and acts like everybody else. He has the sort of face that you keep seeing, but not seeing, in every crowd. Salinger presents Wally as a charmer and a gossip, one who drops a name only to disparage its nominee. “It’s not just Wally…it’s everybody. I mean everything everybody does is so…tiny and meaningless,” says Franny Glass, JD’s anti-hero. According to Franny, Wallace Shawn is a poster boy for banality; but worst of all, Wally is introduced to us, and to Franny, as a friend of Lane, Franny’s foil, a shallow, entitled, prep-school frat boy living a life utterly devoid of authenticity. 20 years later (1981), almost to the day, the world got Wallace Shawn’s reply in the form of a full length feature film, My Dinner with Andre (Louie Malle, director). As you know, the film consists almost entirely of conversation over dinner between Wally and fellow director, Andre Gregory. Trust me, you’ll be on the edge of your seat for the full 110 minutes. There is no direct connection between Gregory and Salinger, except for a shared eccentricity that borders on the anti-social and a total disdain for the ordinary and the everyday. However, there are certainly notes of similarity between Salinger’s version of Wally and Malle’s kinder, gentler treatment. That said, Wally’s apparent identity across 2 decades begs us to seek a parallel identity between his interlocutors, Salinger and Gregory. In a style fully suggestive of Salinger, Gregory savages the mundane. For an hour and a half, Gregory holds court, only briefly interrupted by the baffled Shawn and their slightly annoyed waiter. But reminiscent of Molly in Ulysses , Wally gets the last word with a 10 minute virtual soliloquy that shreds the Gregory/Salinger aesthetic: “I’m trying to earn a living. I’m trying to pay my rent and my bills… I have a list of errands and responsibilities that I keep in a notebook, and I enjoy going through my list and carrying out the responsibilities and doing the errands and then crossing them off my list… I don’t feel the need for anything more than this… A delicious cup of coffee and a piece of coffee cake, why is it necessary to have more than this or to even think about having more than this? “You seem constantly to be finding a significance in these things that to me are just facts…that things in the universe are there for a purpose, to give us messages. Whereas I believe that things in the universe are just there. They don’t mean anything.” Here, Wally is aligning himself with such luminaries as Epicurus, Voltaire (“tend your own garden”) and Solomon (traditional author of Ecclesiastes ): “I know that there is nothing good for man (sic) except to be happy and live the best life he can while he is alive. Moreover, that a man should eat and drink and enjoy himself in return for all his labors is a gift of God… “Go to it then, eat your food and enjoy it, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for already God has accepted what you have done… Whatever task lies to your hand, do it with all your might.” Rather than reject Salinger’s derogatory depiction, Shawn leans into it. He turns vice into virtue and in the process he dismisses the Gregory/Salinger aesthetic and lifestyle as fantastic, illusory, arbitrary and magical. Truth to tell, there is much to admire in the works of Salinger and Gregory… but no more than in the work of Wallace Shawn. Ecclesiastes can be read as a commentary on Deuteronomy : “I set before you life and death…” becomes “I set before you the fantastic (nihilism) and the mundane (quietism); therefore choose…” What world do you live in, dear reader? ‘Wally World’ (Solomon & Shawn) or its ‘Anti-World’ (Salinger and Gregory)? Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.