Eric Scheske

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Pragmatism and the Saints

Pragmatism and the Saints

"Pragmatism" and "practicality" aren't the same things. When a person says, "I'm just being practical," he's probably being highly impractical. It normally means he's just thinking rationally: with the certitude of his left hemisphere, which excludes

The Fact Is, Saints Have Levitated

The Fact Is, Saints Have Levitated

Daniel K. Williams at Mere Orthodoxy

Russia’s Freaky History with the Cult of Mother Earth

Russia’s Freaky History with the Cult of Mother Earth

The Russian digs Mother Earth. This has been the case from Russia’s earliest years when dark and brutal paganism soaked her culture in blood.[1] The Russian venerates Mother Earth for her black depths, for the crops of life she provides, and for the resting home she gives at

Listening to Podcasts at Oxford in 1374 and Kansas in 1974

Listening to Podcasts at Oxford in 1374 and Kansas in 1974

Why do we love those conversational podcasts? If you were a student at a medieval university, you listened to lectures. And listened and listened and listened to lectures, often more than ten hours a day. But they weren’t like lectures at today’s universities, where hundreds of students sit

Parliament Created the 18th-Century’s Great Gin Craze

Parliament Created the 18th-Century’s Great Gin Craze

“[N]oe sort of Brandy Aqua vite or other Spirits or distilled Waters of any Kingdome Country or place whatsoever shall after the said foure and twentyeth day of August be imported into the Kingdoms of England or Ireland . . .”. If you read the Wikipedia entries about England’s Great Gin

If You Can Successfully Get SNAP Out of KFC, I'll Listen

If You Can Successfully Get SNAP Out of KFC, I'll Listen

Until that obvious and flagrant and massive fraud is remedied, I'm afraid any argument for more government action is laughably absurd

California was a Hot Bed of Libertarianism

California was a Hot Bed of Libertarianism

Given the ideological condition of the Golden State today, it must've been the most-failed ideological movement in history My opinion of Gavin Newsom, Eric Garcetti, and other imbecilic politicians in California is strongly colored by Joe Rogan, who has an extremely low opinion of them. So whereas I

Science and Magic . . . And Math

Science and Magic . . . And Math

This is a great historical tie into Part II of Existence Strikes Back and its observation that modernity's momentum began to build in the 13th century, as Western civilization's capacity for control increased. Magic and science were twins in the cradle of modernity. This essay points

What the Ape Man Can Teach Us About a Common Mental Mistake

What the Ape Man Can Teach Us About a Common Mental Mistake

Pithecanthropus is the ape-man. He's also known as the Java Man and the Peking Man. Latin-loving scientists call him Homo erectus, Homo modjokertenses, Meganthropus palaeojavanicus, Pithecanthropus robustus, and Pithecanthropus dubius. He is the creation of Dutch physician Eugene Dubois. In the 1890s, Dubois discovered a few bony remains

2024: 800-Year Anniversary of the Franciscans' Arrival in England

2024: 800-Year Anniversary of the Franciscans' Arrival in England

The year 2024 marks the eight-hundredth anniversary of the arrival in England of the Friars Minor, sent personally by Saint Francis of Assisi, and the establishment of England’s first Franciscan friary in Canterbury in 1224. The Franciscans followed the Dominicans, who had already arrived in England in 1221, and