Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

So said a woman who drove us to the airport when we were leaving Florida in mid-June regarding the death of her very mentally ill daughter years ago. And I wondered, first, for whom was it a blessing? For the woman, because her daughter’s death freed her from a tiring duty to care for her? [...]

There are my own personal problems. 1) The Original Sin. I believe that man damaged God’s perfect created world, but as to when, where, and how, I don’t know and don’t care to speculate. The details are unknowable, but my solution is to thank our lucky stars that this non-trivial explanation of why the omnipotent [...]

“Then said Mary unto the angel, ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’” (LK 1:34) I agree that a couple contemplating marriage should know everything about each other, including their sexual “kinks.” But it is not necessary that they know each other intimately, i.e., by experience. They should know each other abstractly, [...]

Yes, if we mean that it does not “care” whether it is A or B or C… But there is another sense of indifference. Nature is not indifferent to man’s endeavors to change it, to make it suit his desires better. It allows human beings to manipulate it. If nature were indifferent to men in [...]

What men seek is harmony between themselves and the world. And the East and West approach this problem, namely, the disharmony, in different ways. The West seeks to change the world and bring it into conformity with how man thinks things ought to be. The East changes oneself, the soul, the psyche, consciousness, also in [...]

The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defends his practices as follows: “Yet the psychiatrist who enjoys his trade is also receiving constant feedback: the way the patient holds himself, the expression on his face, the hesitation in his voice, the content of the material he brings up in the therapeutic hour — all these bits of information [...]

Is there such a thing? Why would you need reason or intelligence in order to look about yourself, see what exists, and decide to… keep it exactly the way it is?!

These are the two basic worldviews. Pessimism brought to its logical conclusion says: “Nothing will be.” The opposite of pessimism is “something will be,” which is just barely optimistic, but I am interested in what optimism is when also brought to its logical conclusion. And that is expressed in the Catholic prayer: “As it was [...]

An acquaintance has expressed the following opinion. One should have plenty of sex with his future wife, because one should marry for love not for sex. One should get “sex out of his mind” before marrying the girl. This is the exact opposite of truth. One should marry for sex! As with all things Catholic, [...]

“On that same day the LORD told Moses, ‘Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo in Moab, across from Jericho, and view Canaan, the land I am giving the Israelites as their own possession. There on the mountain that you have climbed you will die and be gathered to your people, just as [...]

Let’s take a particular moral theory, utilitarianism. Its essence is the extent of one’s love and prudence. In Moral Minds Marc D. Hauser has been trying for 400 pages to convince us that many animals have prudence. I have no doubt of that. What animals do not have is love for each other, such that [...]

Here is a talk.origins reply to the claim that evolution is tautological. “According to Popper, any situation where species exist is compatible with Darwinian explanation, because if those species were not adapted, they would not exist. That is, Popper says, we define adaptation as that which is sufficient for existence in a given environment. Therefore, [...]

The parable (Mt 25:1-13) ends with “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” People keep looking for signs of the end of the world, even in the Bible. They fail to grasp that all the alleged references to the “Second Coming,” the “Armageddon,” and so on are in fact [...]

What is the meaning of the following? “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the [...]

The Democrats hate themselves; the Republicans hate everyone else, including the Democrats. The Rs think the American government is morally perfect; the Ds think the American people are all morally corrupt. The Ds believe in socialism; the Rs believe in nothing. The Ds love socialism for the poor; the Rs love socialism for the rich.

Did you know that this famous phrase uttered by Paul (1 Cor 2:9, also Isa 64:4) was also written down by the Greek Empedocles? “Week and narrow are the powers implanted in the limbs of men; many the woes that fall on them and blunt the edge of thought; short is the measure of the [...]

This is one of my favorite movie quotes, and it describes politics, whether electoral or bureaucratic, perfectly. Or one can invoke the great George Carlin: “I look at war a little bit differently. To me, war is a lot of prick-waving! OK? Simple thing. That’s all it is. War is a whole lot of men [...]

This is an attractive concept: we fight to bring universal peace. That was the message of the recent wars, World War I, and even the Roman conquests as portrayed in the movie Gladiator: “In the winter of 180 A.D., Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ twelve-year campaign against the barbarian tribes in Germania was drawing to an end.” [...]

So, I am watching Life on the Discovery Channel on my HDTV, and it’s so cool. Sometimes the narrator slips into saying things likes “this plant evolved such-and-such behavior” which of course is a mere homage to the dull Darwinian orthodoxy. I mean, suppose you replace “evolved” with “were created 6,000 years ago with” or [...]

G.E. Moore stuns me. He spends the first 150 pages in Principia Ethica trying to prove that what might be termed “strong Hedonism” or the view that pleasure is the sole good to be wrong. He is right about that, but, as I began to realize with ever greater amazement toward the end of the [...]