Feynman, the Onion of Scientific Discovery and Ultimate Laws of Nature

What if there were no ultimate laws of nature or even no ultimate description of reality? What if science would continue to make the kind of progress it seems to have been making without ever reaching a fundamental level of explanation?

The Constitution of a Christian Country

Looking back to the founding of the United States, is it right to say that the Constitution is the Constitution of a Christian country?  The answer has to be: “yes and no.” 

The Moral Underpinnings of Democracy and its Degree-Affected Variant

Motivated by some ideas that percolated around in the New Left, this essay argues that the core justification of democracy is not that it maximizes utility (which it often does pretty well) or even that it recognizes equality of citizenship (which is essential to any just political order), but instead that it is the best projection into the sphere of social decision making of the values of individual autonomy and liberty.  It follows that democracy keyed to the stake that each voter has in the outcome will sometimes realize democratic values more fully than does one citizen one vote.

Probabilities, Atheism, Agnosticism, & Hope

What should we say of a person who assigns a low, but non-zero, probability for the existence of God, or a high, but non-one probability? Are they agnostics? Can one responsibly hope that God exists while believing the probability is very low?