Redeem the Time

One:

People desire to make Aristotle’s God “rational” because they want to make Aristotle a rationalist, and this is an excuse to read him in as a humanist or secularist thinker. But trying to understand Aristotle apart from God is like trying to understand the road to Athens apart from Athens. Aristotle’s whole life was ordered to the contemplation of God, and all the roads of his philosophy lead to such contemplation.

Two:

One chief reason for the Scripture and the Sacraments is that we are the sorts of beings that are more drawn to boobs and sparkly-wedding dresses than to the angelic hierarchy and the contemplation of the divine nature.

A photoblog I didn’t know about—be sure to check out all the other photoblogs listed under “pictures” in the lefthand column.

UPDATE:

And another TAC grad here, setting something else up here.

Oh yeah—Achilles Running noticed a poem I recently trew up onto the long defunct instapoet.com site. Hey, somebody had to do it—more people should.

Yet another great TAC mom blog here.

“…it is a lot harder to be a new parent of one, than a parent of 3 or more…”

Heh, heh, heh. This seems to fit with Chim and his wife’s new name for their first child: Punu the Night Terror.

Remember also to visit Studeo, which we introduced below. A recent post worth reading:

“I see that a lot of moms judge themselves rather harshly and assume that their problems are unusual, or greater than anyone else’s – not even counting the extra burdens, stresses, etc. of dealing with homeschooling and a large family.”

I’ve always kind of noticed that, and wondered, especially as regards homeschooling—so many moms get bent out of shape and feel like they are not organized enough, not disciplined enough, or otherwise worry that they aren’t doing a good job. Meanwhile, of course, their kids are really doing great.

Considering what the average school teacher knows (if you’re lucky they have a degree in the ever-changing fads of teaching “theory” itself, rather than any actual body of knowledge), and what the average public and private school is like, and what the Catholic or Christian moms who homeschool are like—I don’t think I’ve ever seen a situation where I have ever said to myself—those kids would be better off learning in school.

Also, scroll down to my “More Math Blogging” post below for an excellent picture from the honeymoon.

Late night Thomism thinkingthroughexperimentalnotes, likely crossing over with some of what Shulamite has blogged before, although I have no clear recollection…

St. Thomas Aquinas asks whether one guy can understand something mo’ better than another guy can understand the same thing.

To answer the question, he says there are two ways in which we might mean “mo’ better.” OK, so St. Thomas actually says that there are two ways in which we might mean someone could understand things “more” than someone else. But he could have said “mo’ better”—and probably will in the soon-to-be-released ebonics edition of the Summa, put out by Catholic Church leaders of America.

St. Thomas does say—and I quote—in one way “the word ‘more’ be taken as determining the act of understanding as regards the thing understood” and “[i]n another sense the word ‘more’ can be taken as determining the act of understanding on the part of him who understands.” OK so I just set up the grammar so St. Thomas was speaking a little jive in that first distinction, but its late and. thats. just. the. GIN. Talk. Ing.

So are you with me? In the first way “one cannot understand the same thing more than another, because to understand it otherwise than as it is, either better or worse, would entail being deceived, and such a one would not understand it.” In the second way, “one may understand the same thing better than someone else, through having a greater power of understanding.”

Consider sight, which, along with light, is ever the proper analogy for the rational understanding of human nature. Meditation on this analogy in itself could provide one with a lifetime of contemplation (and what about when sight directs its gaze to light and we see that-which-allows-us-to-see—and the clearer we see that-which-allows-us-to-see, the more blind we become, eh? Thus the fact that we blind ourselves when we look directly at a bright lightbulb—nevermind the sun—can tell us profound truths about Almighty God).

For now, simply imagine: you and I are both looking at an old parchment in a dark, glass case (and to all of you out there with googly obsessive disorder, I don’t mean Parchment the city in Kalamazoo county)
In respect to the parchment, we either see it or we don’t. It is what it is, and if truly we see it, we see the same thing. In other words, if you understand something, you understand it, and since it is what it is and nothing else, knowledge of it, insofar as is it is true knowledge, is the same for all men. We are both seeing a parchment through a glass darkly, and insofar as we see the parchment, we see the same thing—since that parchment is that parchment is that parchment.

Running out of time for now, but a quick finish, potentially ripe with juicy equivocations:
Read the rest of this entry »

Diet Tangerine Lime Calorie Free (No Carbs!) Hansen’s soda +
Bombay Saffire Gin +
Sweet n’ Sour Mixer+
Pinneaple juice=

THE NECTAR OF THE GODS

My Honeymoon (Maui)
Of course, you must know the right combination in order to have these elements combine to become OTHER. I’d tell you, but this is formula was derived from extensive research into tropical drinks perfected in Maui, and I prefer to keep such treasure maps to gloriously uncharted territory secret, lest the swine trample the pearls where angels fear to tread.

Recent posts on math….here….here….here

Compare and contrast:

But not every action nor every passion admits of a mean; for some have names that already imply badness, e.g. spite, shamelessness, envy, and in the case of actions adultery, theft, murder; for all of these and suchlike things imply by their names that they are themselves bad, and not the excesses or deficiencies of them. It is not possible, then, ever to be right with regard to them; one must always be wrong. Nor does goodness or badness with regard to such things depend on committing adultery with the right woman, at the right time, and in the right way, but simply to do any of them is to go wrong.
—Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II.6

__________________________________________________

Of political justice part is natural, part legal, natural, that which everywhere has the same force and does not exist by people’s thinking this or that; legal, that which is originally indifferent, but when it has been laid down is not indifferent… Now some think that all justice is of this sort [legal], because that which is by nature is unchangeable and has everywhere the same force (as fire burns both here and in Persia), while they see change in the things recognized as just. This, however, is not true in this unqualified way, but is true in a sense; or rather, with the gods it is perhaps not true at all, while with us there is something that is just even by nature, yet all of it is changeable; but still some is by nature, some not by nature.
—Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book V.7

…with all the updates needed for the “Grads” section of the Blogroll.

Listen closely and you can hear Mumblings from the Philosopher’s Cave.

It takes all kinds—check THIS out—yet another site soon-to-be filed under the Grads section of my blogroll. Its not a blog, its a collection of close-up photos of minerals. If you want to learn about such things, its a good starting point.

I quote from the “About” section:

For those of you who know sweet nothing about minerals but find my pictures intriguing and want to know more concerning each mineral, I have provided some information beneath. All the information is taken either from my brain or the Smithsonian Handbook: Rocks and Minerals. Both surpass reliable.

www.minerals.cc is designed such that I can upload new photos.

If you have non-constructive criticism regarding my website, please call 867-5309.

If you have positive, self-esteem increasing comments, please email me at djamesbradley at yahoo dot ca

UPDATE
It has not escaped the all-seeing eye of Redeem the Time that this mineral guy’s roommate has put up a post or two recently on his long dormant site here. Would that he would post more often—I mean, who doesn’t love Tony Danza?

NorBlog is back with an excellent quotation against pacifism at its pansy gut-root.

See also his photoblog—I’m really digging this panoramic night-light shot of La-La land. Zoom in and you can make out The Knickerbocker and the Capital Records Building.