Bruce Charlton's Notions

One of the spiritual tests of "AI" is that it offers un-personal pandering, like a "benign" bureaucracy. That is what mo...

From time to time, something relatively minor happens that nonetheless strikes me as indicating an inflexion point in the accelerating dysfu...

It is common to regard the suffering (and death) of "innocents" such as young children, babies, unborn babies; as especially diffi...

There is a very great deal of importuning God, or Jesus, to have mercy on us, or other people - I have done great deal of such importuning m...

Evil is specific, but Goodness is affiliation with God's creative purpose, a positive affiliation rooted in love.  When a group is good,...

The computer I use for blogging has suddenly been cut off from the internet by enforced wi-fi changes, and solving this may be a process tha...

The self-styled anti-Left corner of the internet is mostly filled with revelations, analysis, and discussions of the latest Shocking News th...

These days are the death throes of Christianity as an institution-defined and institution-led phenomenon; the death throes of Christianity a...

Watching the series " AD " (which has way too much explicit torture and violence, the inclusion of which is a sign of unrepented ...

When I was aged 20-21, I was very strongly attracted by DH Lawrence 's novel, Women in Love ; and I have been re-listening to it in the ...

Over at The Notion Club Papers blog ; I provide textual evidence that Frodo - with part of his mind, at least - was actually planning to cla...

I am re-watching a 2015 TV series AD: The Bible continues ; which is supposed to be a dramatization of ("based on") the Book of Ac...

Some forty-plus years ago I met somebody who had a holiday job working at Balmoral Castle - the Queen's Scottish Highland home; and he t...

We cannot plan stuff and stick to that plan (force it through if necessary), except to make it worse.  Maybe there was a time when good stra...

Some scholars claim this is an image of Mediocrites Socrates's older brother, Mediocrites (c 485 BC-?), is regarded by most modern Weste...

  Gollum in reflective mood At my Notion Club Papers blog ; I give three favourite passages from The Lord of the Rings, in which Gollum'...

The ending of Das Rheingold by Richard Wagner* is one of my absolute favourite pieces of music; for its dramatic complexity but also the un...

What follows is an attempt to explain that we are profoundly mistaken when we try to picture God's creation as an objective and unavoida...

In the past, it was a reasonably effective way to become a Christian (or a better Christian) to learn and practice Christian knowledge syste...

If we have concluded (perhaps from reading the IV Gospel ) that it is true that Jesus came to save sinners; then Christianity is neither a d...

One of the reasons that so many deeply-dissatisfied atheist-materialists are repelled from Christianity; is that Christianity means picking ...