The Knowlership Blog

I recently wrote an article on prayer and the public square for the Illinois Family Institute's prayer team.  Check it out  here . ________________________________________________________________ Our country has never been so parched for prayer, yet we never have found praying harder . Prayer is too hard for us , so our country withers. Our culture’s health intertwines with our prayers, and both contribute to the other’s success. We conservative Christians are quick to point our fingers at our public school system for discouraging prayer, but how many of us pray for our schools? We complain about the decline of church leadership in the public square, but who is praying for their leaders’ humility and wisdom? For the sake of clarity, I do not wish to suggest prayers—or the lack thereof—causes whatever happens in the public square. God rules the nations (Psalm 22:28, 47:8, Job 12:23), which includes the United States. No decisions made by voters, church leaders, or elected off...

Black lives matter vs. All lives matter. Gay pride vs. Straight pride. These are a couple battles we've seen crop up on social media within the last few years.  This is assuming you can call them battles, of course; they're really a one-two punch of reactionary movements.  Black Lives Matter is a reaction to the resurgence in notorious cases of police brutality against blacks.  To proclaim the oppression of one race, though, attention must be called to the race of the oppressor, and here, it's not just whites. Last year, for example, saw a Latino police officer shoot a black man several times despite the fact he was already neutralized.  So the Black Lives Matter movement rose to put the spotlight on the challenges blacks have with our criminal justice procedures.  The conflict arose when attention was called to the oppressors' races.  People have a psychological tendency to be defensive about groups they are part of, including race, because an attack...

Here's a somewhat hastily made documentary my friends and I made for a research class last semester. We chose to dive deeper into the story of the Gospel of Judas, a (relatively) recently published Gnostic text with a backstory worthy of a soap opera. Each of us dove into one or more influences of Gnosticism to better understand the text.   We cover the backstory to its discovery and publication, summarize the text, and analyze it according to early Christian thought, Platonist philosophy, and Gnostic cosmology. Wish we could have more time to make it a polished production, but our content beats the heck out of National Geographic's documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0ssxBO1PBg&feature=youtu.be  If you're interested, the Gospel of Judas is a rather short read, and you can read it here: http://www.brianauten.com/Apologetics/GospelofJudas.pdf 

When an infatuated young man gazes at a young lady, what is he admiring? What should he admire? How does sexual consummation relate to one’s desire for another? Such questions demand answers, for while it is human nature to experience desire for another person, misconceptions about the nature of desire may lead some to experience or express desire in ways unconstructive or destructive to their actualization as a human. A misconception cannot be corrected until it is recognized; thus, this essay examines some of the philosophical issues that arise from interpersonal desire. What is the nature of desire? Roger Scruton, a philosopher who has written extensively about aesthetics, considers desire to be a manifestation of humanity’s attraction to Beauty. Along with many other philosophers, Scruton considers Beauty a transcendental, like Truth and Goodness (p. 2), and is thus considered intrinsically desirable. In resonance with Plato and Kant, Scruton states a rational person is one w...

Why are we often frightened to demonstrate our work?  Perhaps I’m in the minority, but I have often hesitated to share fruits of my labor.  Whether artistic, athletic, or academic, I tended to keep my projects hidden, if I had a say in the matter.  While I’m unsure how many others resonate with my reluctance, I do know that I am not alone in this mindset.  Is this mindset good?  Does it more significantly promote humility or insecurity?  Should we encourage such thoughts or deter them? I propose that our fear of expressing our creativity is rooted in the uniquely personal nature of the human imagination, for no human faculty offers so clear a window into one’s soul.  To help us more properly respond to the sentiment in question, I wish to investigate its origin. When we create, we engage at least three distinct faculties: understanding, imagination, and the body.  Consider a chef.  To cook well, the chef must know the traits and capabil...

Thanks for taking the time to not only visit my humble site but to also read about my vision for it. Here’s a little bit about me in case we’ve never met.  I’m an undergrad student majoring in Economics and Humanities, and I'm also minoring in Political Science and Business Administration.  Those fields of study probably betray my tendency to think deeply–perhaps too deeply–about everyday things we often take for granted.  When I was young, I was that child who asked “why?” about everything, and I haven't changed much.  I enjoy contemplating the hidden, abstract forces of reality, and I do it a lot.  I also happen to have a short attention span, bouncing from one idea to the next.  Sometimes when I think I’m onto something neat I’ll get distracted and forget what I was thinking about. And that’s where the idea for a blog started.  Blogs are canvases, and I could use one to spit out some thoughts I’d like to develop.  The publicity o...