Free Republic

Many parents put a lot of focus into teaching their kids about cleaning their rooms, acting responsibly and doing homework. These things are important, but there’s one thing that many of us are completely forgetting about: how to enjoy life. .... Children can easily get the wrong message about happiness In my experience, people are happiest when their life includes some type of meaningful, productive activity. Unfortunately, we are constantly being bombarded with the message that happiness comes from consumption. When advertisers tell us to “treat” ourselves to their products, they are trying to make us believe that buying things...

We must have been fifteen or sixteen when we discovered the church visitor’s book. It was an old church, maybe medieval, and I would pass it with my school friends on our way to the town center. I’m not sure what possessed us to go in; it might have been my idea. I’ve always loved old churches. For a long time, I would tell myself that I liked the sense of history or the architecture, which was true as far as it went. Like the narrator in Philip Larkin’s poem “Church Going,” I would venture into any church I found,...

After more than 40 years of studying humans and other primates, Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky has reached the conclusion that virtually all human behavior is as far beyond our conscious control as the division of cells or the beating of our hearts. (Of course, he had to.) Therefore, we mustn’t harshly judge such heretofore disdained folks as drunk drivers, serial criminals, Hamas terrorists, and those who bring 29 items to the “8 items or less” checkout lane. Sapolsky said: “The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish...

Contemporary liberals are the ideological heirs of a rebellion against the God of Revelation and Christian theism that began as far back as the Renaissance:“The desire to be liberated from the constraints of Christianity was the original reason for modern liberalism’s embrace of a world defined entirely by materialism—the view that there are no immaterial entities like God of the soul, but only physical entities. This embrace of materialism began as far back as the Renaissance. And the same impulse was behind the nineteenth-century enthusiasm for scientific materialism, and it remains a staple of liberalism today.” (Benjamin Wiker “Worshipping the...

The difficulty in explaining the enigma of free will to those unfamiliar with the subject isn’t that it’s complex or obscure. It’s that the experience of possessing free will – the feeling that we are the authors of our choices – is so utterly basic to everyone’s existence that it can be hard to get enough mental distance to see what’s going on. Suppose you find yourself feeling moderately hungry one afternoon, so you walk to the fruit bowl in your kitchen, where you see one apple and one banana. As it happens, you choose the banana. But it seems...

Why do so-called ‘scientifically enlightened’ progressive liberals ridicule and shame prayer? The answer lies in their view of reality.

To those who see no link between Lent and our failing economy, it might be the case to look again. Economics is about people. It cannot be reduced to numbers, formulae and analyses. “The subject matter of economics,” observes economic historian Odd Langholm, “is properly the habits, customs, and ways of thinking of producers, consumers, buyers, sellers, borrowers, lenders, and all who engage in economic transactions.” That means our moral habits can have a definite effect on determining if our economy grows — or fails. In my new book, Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian...

Ever since her last relationship ended this past August, Liz has been consciously trying not to treat dating as a “numbers game.” By the 30-year-old Alaskan’s own admission, however, it hasn’t been going great. Liz has been going on Tinder dates frequently, sometimes multiple times a week—one of her New Year’s resolutions was to go on every date she was invited on. But Liz, who asked to be identified only by her first name in order to avoid harassment, can’t escape a feeling of impersonal, businesslike detachment from the whole pursuit. “It’s like, ‘If this doesn’t go well, there are...

The economic indicators all show the economy is booming. Unemployment is at record lows. The stock market is seeing record highs. Wages are up, and taxes are down. Stifling regulations are being lifted. Everything seems to be working just fine. There is much truth in this perception of a boom. Part of this can be attributed to less government interference and taxation. Unnecessary government regulation and spending always hurt the economy. When markets are freer, profits tend to come galloping back. And much has galloped back. However, beneath the surface, major problems threaten the boom. These problems have long plagued...

A brutal business climate and societal breakdown have brought major changes to America. In response, many Americans, especially conservatives, are soul searching for something more compassionate for those left behind. Unfortunately, they are looking in the most unlikely places: business and government. They will likely be searching for a long time. The controversy over this shift in mentality erupted with the publication of a Wall Street Journal advertisement in which major firms pledge a commitment to “stakeholder” capitalism, which holds businesses should be run having all society, not just shareholders, in mind. Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) stirred the pot with...

Killer gene The killer read his Bible. He drank. Heavily. It was a fall night in 2006, when Bradley Waldroup walked out of his rural trailer in southeastern Tennessee, carrying his .22 caliber hunting rifle. His estranged wife and her friend, Leslie Bradshaw, had just pulled up to drop off the Waldroups’ four children. Waldroup began arguing with his wife and Bradshaw, who was unloading the car. Drawing his gun, Waldroup shot Bradshaw eight times, killing her. He used a knife to cut her head open. He then chased his wife with the knife and a machete, managing to slice...

Full title: Kerala rape case: Sister Lucy, who protested against accused bishop, says sexual abuse is rampant in Church Religious women, priests and laymen who supported a nun after she filed a police complaint of rape against Jalandhar ex-bishop Franco Mulakkal, are being systematically targeted by the Catholic Church in Kerala. Nuns, who form the most vulnerable community in the Church, are facing most of this oppression. While five nuns who took to streets demanding the arrest of the bishop are being put under pressure and threatened, another nun who was an important witness in the case was harassed and tortured...

...In 1953, Eartha Kitt recorded “Santa Baby,” a song that is a testament to the more capitalist tendencies the season can evoke. Over the course of a dozen sultry stanzas, Kitt asked for the sorts of gifts that any American could imagine: nice cars, luxurious homes and a few blank checks. Talk about true love. So let’s figure out just how much fulfilling her Christmas wish list would cost. “Santa baby, slip a sable under the tree for me . . .” Sable: $88,000 So a sable is a small weasel-like animal, as you may know, that mostly lives in Russia. Kitt...

People who believe they have lived past lives as, say, Indian princesses or battlefield commanders are more likely to make certain types of memory errors, according to a new study. The propensity to make these mistakes could, in part, explain why people cling to implausible reincarnation claims in the first place. Researchers recruited people who, after undergoing hypnotic therapy, had come to believe that they had past lives. Subjects were asked to read aloud a list of 40 non-famous names, and then, after a two-hour wait, told that they were going to see a list consisting of three types of...

Here is how many times keywords were spoken: Wall Street: 23Tax: 20Inequality: 9Wealthy: 7 Now, compare the number of times other national concerns were mentioned: ISIS: 4Terror/ists/ism: 2Defense: 2Military (excluding Jim Webb): 1Freedom: 1Debt (national): 0Liberty: 0Strength: 0Armed forces: 0Islamist/Islamic: 0

‘Scoring top marks doesn’t give happiness’: India’s best student renounces the world to become monkA top Indian student who received the highest score in the exams has decided to take an unusual path. Instead of applying for prestigious college, he renounced the world’s pleasures and became a monk, saying that scoring top marks in exams “does not give happiness”. Varshil Shah from the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state scored 99.9 percent in the May 27 Class 12 exam, topping the state, the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) said. He is Varshil Shah. He is from Ahmedabad...

Pandora has apologized to a bride and groom who were left humiliated by one of its store workers when they made fun of a set of $130 wedding rings as the couple was buying them. Speaking to DailyMail.com on Wednesday, Ariel McRae confirmed the company had been in touch to offer its apologies after her Facebook post about its staff's treatment of her went viral. 'Pandora has reached out to me and offered me their sincerest apologies and I accepted,' the 22-year-old student said. It came after an incident in a Tennessee store while Ariel and her husband Quinn were...

For a 6 month period in 1990, I was a member of a New York chess club, in which I was the only person who was religious. Most members were extreme atheists. There is a difference between regular atheists and extreme atheists. Extreme atheists not only reject the existence of God, but deny the existence of the human soul. Extreme atheists believe that human beings are collections of atoms, and are not different from tables and chairs. They believe that love does not exist, as it cannot be seen in a microscope, and is a mental hallucination. They also believe...

The U.S. presidential campaign and issues raised by nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are evidence that “spirituality and faith are lacking among those in power” in America, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared on Wednesday. Speaking to university students, Khamenei addressed what an official website paraphrased as “the difficulties and problems perplexing mankind today, and the dead-ends that materialistic thought patterns sustain.” He told his audience, “The campaigns held during presidential elections in the U.S. and the worries conveyed by the two candidates are a clear example that spirituality and faith are lacking among those in power.” …

< snip > Gold well spent on holiness and goodness atones for gold badly misspent on idolatry and wanton behavior. This idea is very much in line with the Jewish concept of repentance, which sees the penitent being in the same position and circumstances as when he originally sinned but no longer behaving sinfully in those circumstances. It is truly wise to avoid temptation but it is heroic and noble to overcome it. < snip > We live in a transformative generation regarding communication and interpersonal connections. Unfortunately, much of this technological achievement has been exploited for base and harmful...