Posts Tagged ‘happiness’

            I have a Ph.D. in theology and religion and have had the privilege to teach in leading colleges, universities and seminaries in the United States, Latin America, India and Russia.  This week I was in charge of “crowd control” of kindergartners through sixth graders in the gym of a small school in Topeka, Kansas, and I’m glad I was.  Let me tell you why. Read the rest of this entry »

            Ray Bradbury’s famous novel Fahrenheit 451 is a story about a society in which books are illegal and the job of firemen is to burn books.  It has often been misunderstood as a protest against government censorship because it was published in 1953 during the height of the anti-Communist movement in the United States led by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House on Un-American Activities Committee.  This superficial political reading of Fahrenheit 451 misses the depth of Bradbury’s critique of modern mass society, its technology and its false view of the nature of happiness. Read the rest of this entry »

            There is much to be concerned about in this typical election year of heated and superficial political vituperation that goes under the wholly misleading name of debate.  As a teacher at a Christian school, I am more troubled by the peculiar attraction that the militantly atheist writer Ayn Rand (1905-1982) holds for a number self-styled, right-wing libertarian Christians. Read the rest of this entry »