Articles

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Three kinds of secularism, three critiques of centralism

Thomas Howard’s Broken Altars: Secularist Violence in Modern History (Yale University Press, 2025) brilliantly flips the meme summarized by Christopher Hitchens in the title of his 2007 book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I debated Hitchens that year and offered examples of Christian compassion that should have pushed him off absolutism, but he was adamant: “Everything.” Howard, Read More ›

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Waving English and American flag
Image Credit: Martin Bergsma - Adobe Stock

This Should Be Trump’s Top Trade Priority

An agreement between the world's largest and fifth-largest economies will create a huge free trade zone, benefiting businesses and spurring growth on both sides of the Atlantic. Read More ›
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Healthcare comfort and hands of doctor and patient for consoling empathy and support for diagnosis results Hospital clinic and health worker embrace person for medical care service and : Generative AI
Image Credit: The Little Hut - Adobe Stock

A Compassionate Doctor Keeps Hope Alive

"Futile care" is a bioethics theory in which doctors are authorized to refuse wanted life-sustaining treatment based on their belief about the quality of a patient's life. It can be cruel — and on occasion, mistaken. Prominent medical journals usually support futile-care theory. But the New England Journal of Medicine just published a contrary column by a compassionate doctor who rejected that approach in order to keep hope alive for his terminally ill patient and her family. Read More ›
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saving energy and money concept. idea for save or investment. businessman holding lightbulb beside piggy bank and coins stacking on desk with note book.
Image Credit: Looker_Studio - Adobe Stock

The Virtues of the “Knowledge Theory of Value”

Kevin Hoover suggests that William Nordhaus relied on the labor theory of value in his paper on light (Letters, April 24). Yet Nordhaus actually used knowledge, not labor. He offered a method to measure innovation: the discovery and sharing of valuable new knowledge. Nordhaus measured the amount of knowledge per unit of time and observed that knowledge about light was growing exponentially, surpassing traditional measures of economic development. It is the time price over time that truly deserves our attention. Read More ›
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Hopeless beggar on the sidewalk
Image Credit: Photographee.eu - Adobe Stock

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