Free Republic

Cerebral scans for right and wrong "Can you name a scientific discovery that has ever added to our understanding of morality?" asked Discovery Institute senior fellow, Wesley Smith, over dinner after our recent debate with science reporter Chris Mooney in New York City. Fortunately, I could. Anyone who has ever taken an undergraduate course in moral philosophy will remember the moral dilemma posed in the "trolley problem": You are standing next to a switch in a trolley track and you notice that a runaway trolley is about to hit a group of five people who are unaware of their danger....

Oct.12, 2005 (Washington) -- Children growing up in same-sex parental households do not necessarily have differences in self-esteem, gender identity, or emotional problems from children growing up in heterosexual parent homes."There are a lot of children with at least one gay or lesbian parent," says Ellen C. Perrin, MD, professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. She revealed the findings at the American Academy of Pediatrics Conference and Exhibition.Between 1 million and 6 million children in the U.S. are being reared by committed lesbian or gay couples, she says. Children being raised by same-sex parents were...

As a prelude, I should state my own interest in Private Revelations. I have visited Paray-le-Monial (where Jesus showed His Sacred Heart to St Margaret Mary in the 17th century). I have visited Rue de Bac (where the Miraculous Medal was given to St Catherine Labouré in 1830). I have visited Lourdes, Knock, and Fatima; also the two Belgian towns where Our Lady appeared: Beauraing (1932-33) and Banneux (1933). I wear the Brown Scapular and the Miraculous Medal. I have conducted Holy Hours to celebrate the Feast of Divine Mercy since 1993. I think, from all this, you can see...

My previous column, 'Denying The Obvious And Becoming Stupid And Depraved," dealt with how moral truth and reality are knowable to us by virtue of the four witnesses: the witness of design in nature, the witness of our own design, the witness of deep conscience, and the witness of natural consequences. These four witneses used in conjunction with common sense (empirical historic knowledge) lead us to the principle of 'how things are meant to work.". Things naturally work correctly in certain ways and wrongly in others because of the existence of transcendant inbuilt disciplines that function as laws. In short,...

NEW YORK - Vampires are usually her passion, but Anne Rice is getting biblical in her next book, due out in November from publisher Random House. "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" will tell the story of Jesus' early years in his own words. Excerpts of a lengthy letter that will accompany advance review copies of the book this summer are published in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine. "For over 10 years I've wanted to do this book — Jesus in his own words," Rice writes. "For five years, I've been obsessed with how to do it, and...