The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record: “The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.” ¶ Darwin’s argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing the its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I wish only to point out that it was never “seen” in the rocks.
The opinion has been spreading that in the epoch of space flight we know so much of nature that we don’t need to believe in God anymore. This opinion is completely mistaken. I can’t understand the scientist who won’t admit a Higher Reason in his entire belief system, just as I couldn’t understand a theologian who denied the progress of science. All truths come from God.
There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of [a] higher order than the right to life … that was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned. ¶ …In the abortion debate, one of the crucial questions is when does life begin. Anything growing is living. Therefore human life begins when the sperm and egg join… and the pulsation of life takes place. From that point, life may be described differently (as an egg, embryo, fetus, baby, child, teen-ager, adult), but the essence is the same. ¶ …What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth.
It is no common thing to find an artist who, even if he be willing to try, is capable of expressing his aims and ideals with any clearness and moderation. Some people will say that any such capacity is a flaw in the perfect artist, who should find his expression in line and colour, and leave the multitude to grope its way unaided towards comprehension. This attitude is a relic of the days when ìlíart pour líartî was the latest battle cry; when eccentricity of manner and irregularity of life were more important than any talent to the would-be artist; when every one except oneself was bourgeois.
The last few years have in some measure removed this absurdity, by destroying the old convention that it was middle-class to be sane, and that between the artist and the outer-world yawned a gulf which few could cross. Modern artists are beginning to realize their social duties. They are the spiritual teachers of the world, and for their teaching to have weight, it must be comprehensible. Any attempt, therefore, to bring artist and public into sympathy, to enable the latter to understand the ideals of the former, should be thoroughly welcome …
Sienkiewicz … compares the spiritual life to swimming; for the man who does not strive tirelessly, who does not fight continually against sinking, will mentally and morally go under. In this strait a man’s talent (again in the biblical sense) becomes a curse — and not only the talent of the artist, but also of those who eat this poisoned food. The artist used his strength to flatter his lower needs; in an ostensibly artistic form he present what is impure, draws the weaker elements to him, mixes them with evil, betrays men and helps them to betray themselves, while they convince themselves and others that they are spiritually thirsty, and that from this pure spring they may quench their thirst. Such art does not help the forward movement, but hinders it, dragging back those who are striving to press onward, and spreading pestilence abroad.
Instead of always being one of the chief bastions of the social status quo, the Church is to develop a Christian counter-culture with its own distinctive goals, values, standards, and lifestyle — a realistic alternative to the contemporary technocracy which is marked by bondage, materialism, self-centredness, and greed. Christ’s call to obedience is a call to be different, not conformist. Such a Church — joyful, obedient, loving, and free — will do more than please God: it will attract the world. It is when the Church evidently is the Church, and is living a supernatural life of love by the power of the Holy Spirit, that the world will believe.
Life After Life (New York: Bantam Books, 1976), 21-25, 181-84.
Go
Despite the wide variation in the circumstances surrounding close calls
with death and in the types of persons undergoing them, it remains true
that there b a striking similarity among the accounts of the
experiences themselves. In fact the similarities among various reports
are so great that one can easily pick out about fifteen separate
elements which recur again and again in the mass of narrative that I
have collected. On the basis of these points of likeness, let me now
construe a brief, theoretically "ideal" or "complete" experience which
embodies all of the common elements, in the order in which it is
typical for them to occur. ¶ A man is dying and, as he reaches the
point of greatest physical distress, he hears himself pronounced dead
by his doctor. He begins to hear an uncomfortable noise, a low ringing
or buzzing, and at the same time feels himself moving very rapidly
through a long dark tunnel. After this, he suddenly finds himself
outside of his own physical body, but still in the immediate physical
environment, and he sees his own body from a distance, as though he is
a spectator. He watches the resuscitation attempt from this unusual
vantage point and is in a state of emotional upheaval. ¶ After a while,
he collects himself and becomes more accustomed to his odd condition.
He notices that he still has a "body," but one of a very different
nature and with very different powers from the physical body he has
left behind. Soon other things begin to happen. Others come to meet and
to help him. He glimpses the spirits of relatives and friends who have
already died, and a loving, warm spirit of a kind he has never
encountered before — a being of light — appears before him. This being
asks him a question, nonverbally, to make him evaluate his life and
helps him along by showing him a panoramic, instantaneous playback of
the major events of his life. At some point he finds himself
approaching some sort of barrier or border, apparently representing the
limit between earthly life and the next life. Yet, he finds that he
must go back to the earth, that the time for his death has not yet
come. At this point he resists, for by now he is taken up with his
experiences.
It must be confessed, moreover, that perception, and that which depends on it are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is, by figures and motions. And, supposing there were a machine so constructed as to think, feel and have perception, we could conceive of it as enlarged and yet preserving the same proportions, so that we ight enter it as a mill. And this granted, we should only find on visiting it, pieces which push one against another, but never anything by which to explain a perception. This must be sought for, therefore, in the simple substance and not in the composite or in the machine.
Aside from the light it may shed on the abortion question, the issue of infantacide is both interesting and important in its own right. The theoretical interest has been mentioned: it forces one to face up to the question of what makes something a person. The practical imprtance need not be labored. Most people would prefer to raise children who do not suffer from gross deformities or from severe physical, emotional, or intellectual handicaps. If it could be shown that there is no moral objection to infanticide the happiness of society could be significantly and justifably increased. Infanticide is also of interest because of the strong emotions it arouses. The typical reaction to infanticide is like the reaction to incest or cannibalism, or the reaction of previous generations to masturbation or oral sex. The response, rather than appealing to carefully formulated moral principles, is primarily visceral. When philosophers themselves respond in this way, offering no arguments, and dismissing infanticide out of hand, it is reasonable to suspect that one is dealing with a taboo rather than with a rational prohibition.
One of the interesting ways in which the abortion issue differs from most other moral issues is that the plausible positions on abortion appear to be extreme positions. For if a human fetus is a person, one is inclined to say that, in general, one would be justified in killing it only to save the life of the mother. Such is the extreme conservative position. On the other hand, if the fetus is not a person, how can it be seriously wrong to destroy it? Why would one need to point to special circumstances to justify such action. The upshot is that there is no room for a moderate position on the issue of abortion…