In every true searcher of Nature 
there is a kind of religious reverence — Albert Einstein. In his recent Zeteo post, Drew Whitcup cites a New Yorker polemic by Lawrence Krauss, who posits a necessary conflict between science and religion. But the emergence of modern science is inconceivable without the ancient and medieval assumptions of a divine orderliness to things. The great philosopher-scientists of the early enlightenment — say, Kepler and Newton — saw no necessary quarrel between science, on […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR

What happens in great choral performances? How do we write (or think) about music that moves us? I came across this sparkling account written by someone who should know, a conductor who has trained generations of American choral conductors. We put in muscle and blood and brains and breath—and out comes holy Spirit. A miracle happens—the Flesh is made Word, and dwells among us. That’s earthy, religious, even Christian. It’s the great Robert Shaw writing in 1972 about the miracles […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR

How many in Los Angeles will care about the legacy of Martin Heidegger? Fans of the American film writer and director Terrence Malick might care, but they’re unlikely to live in LA. Malick translated Heidegger as a Harvard philosophy graduate student, and traces can be found in his films. LA fans of The Los Angles Review of Books (yes, it exists) will also care.  It recently ran an intriguing piece on a new Heidegger book. So not all good criticism […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR