The Secular Frontier - Latest Comments

Re: Celebrating 100 Years of Martin Heidegger’s “BEING AND TIME” (Dedicated to Edmund Husserl April 8, 1926)

John MacDonald — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:43:03 -0000

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Re: Happy Secular 4th of July to my American Friends!

John MacDonald — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:26:37 -0000

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Re: What I’m Watching: Jacob Berman and Dr. Robert M. Price on Christian Writers Rewriting the Old Testament to Create Stories About Jesus

John MacDonald — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 17:44:17 -0000

Also, Plutarch suggests that Numa played on superstition to give himself an aura of awe and divine allure, in order to cultivate more gentle behaviors among the warlike early Romans, such as honoring the gods, abiding by law, behaving humanely to enemies, and living proper, respectable lives. See Plutarch, “The Parallel Lives, Numa Pompilius” §VIII.

Re: (2/2) What I’m Watching: Jacob Berman and Dr. Robert M. Price on the Parousia

John MacDonald — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 20:04:13 -0000

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Re: (2/2) What I’m Watching: Jacob Berman and Dr. Robert M. Price on the Parousia

John MacDonald — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 19:29:45 -0000

You can see too how post temple hints in Paul prompt commenters like Jacob Berman to suppose a post 70 CE date for the letters, as with the apocalyptic wrath language of 1 Thessalonians.

Re: What I’m Watching: Jacob Berman and Dr. Robert M. Price on the Parousia

John MacDonald — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:57:37 -0000

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Re: (2/2) Celebrating New Teachers: The Interview

John MacDonald — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 20:38:23 -0000

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Re: (2/2) Celebrating New Teachers: The Interview

John MacDonald — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 19:59:39 -0000

Guided reading is sometimes thought as separate from Literature Circles, but in my mind it depends on how the teacher works with a group during the meeting time. Guided reading targets specific strategies (e.g., inferencing, summarizing, analyzing character motivation). You will need to explicitly teach and model these before students read.

Re: (2/2) Celebrating New Teachers: The Interview

John MacDonald — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 16:15:36 -0000

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Re: Celebrating New Teachers: Education and Metaphysics with Squaring and Circling

John MacDonald — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:03:03 -0000

The irony though is that when we look at assessment and evaluation as classically performed by teachers the specific student/product/teacher aren’t involved in the process at all. When we looked at the writing example, it was a matter of indifference with the exemplar who wrote it or what they wrote or who the instructor was. The writing sample, and there were two examples at each achievement level, only mattered insofar as the particular piece re-presented a level of criteria in the rubric. The classic instructional process is machinic in this regard: Teachers establish where a student is on the developmental continuum (e.g., First Steps Writing Continuum), and then target what needs to be taught to move them along. The actual piece of student writing (or a portfolio collection) is not the “really real,” but merely a symptom of what is really going on with the piece expressing a level of the rubric criteria. When the Derridean Caputo quests against “Criteria,” this is an entirely different education model all together.

Re: Celebrating New Teachers: Education and Metaphysics with Squaring and Circling

John MacDonald — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:18:18 -0000

Regarding the fourfold Platonic way, Heidegger notes:

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Re: Celebrating New Teachers: Education and Metaphysics with Squaring and Circling

John MacDonald — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:32:28 -0000

I got a question from a friend, so I'll just qualify a few thing. Regarding presence/presencing, Plato has a character in the Gorgias say that with the beautiful thing Beauty is present, and in the Phaedo Plato talks about the incarnate, the "parousia or presencing" of Beauty in the beautiful thing. On another issue, the philosopher Kant notes that the mind unconsciously legislates a rule that we in responsibility "own" all our actions, in distinction to certain mentally challenged people, and animals, who are not responsible in that way. Schelling thus says Evil is a distinctively human possibility and freedom - that only humans can sink below animals in terms of depravity. The universally attested to golden rule, and general declaration of human rights, are grounded in our nature as moral animals.

Re: Have a Great and Reflective Summer!

John MacDonald — Sat, 23 May 2026 16:20:40 -0000

Added note 1

Re: (Part 6) The Fourfold Cord vs The Threefold Cord: My thoughts on Derrida’s “Interpretations at War Kant, the Jew, the German”

John MacDonald — Thu, 21 May 2026 21:33:00 -0000

Fixed a few more typos

Re: (Part 6) The Fourfold Cord vs The Threefold Cord: My thoughts on Derrida’s “Interpretations at War Kant, the Jew, the German”

John MacDonald — Thu, 21 May 2026 13:05:27 -0000

Fixed a typo

Re: (Part 6) The Fourfold Cord vs The Threefold Cord: My thoughts on Derrida’s “Interpretations at War Kant, the Jew, the German”

John MacDonald — Thu, 21 May 2026 13:02:37 -0000

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Re: (Part 2) Threes and My thoughts on Derrida’s “Interpretations at War Kant, the Jew, the German”

John MacDonald — Sat, 16 May 2026 21:04:54 -0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33S_owWFUIg

Re: My Thoughts on Derrida’s Faith and Knowledge The Two Sources of “Religion” at the Limits of Reason Alone

John MacDonald — Tue, 12 May 2026 15:49:01 -0000

EDIT Changed "deferential" to "deferring."

Re: Conclusion: Encountering Caputo’s Cross and Khora

John MacDonald — Wed, 06 May 2026 19:27:52 -0000

It is easy to see Luke’s own distinctive view by considering what he has to say in the book of Acts, where the apostles give a number of speeches in order to convert others to the faith. What is striking is that in none of these instances (look, e.g., in chapters 3, 4, 13), do the apostles indicate that Jesus’ death brings atonement for sins. It is not that Jesus’ death is unimportant. It’s extremely important for Luke. But not as an atonement. Instead, Jesus death is what makes people realize their guilt before God (since he died even though he was innocent). Once people recognize their guilt, they turn to God in repentance, and then he forgives their sins. (Ehrman, 2017; compare Ehrman 2022a, 2022b, and 2022c)

Re: Conclusion: Encountering Caputo’s Cross and Khora

John MacDonald — Wed, 06 May 2026 19:21:04 -0000

Jesus tells this parable of the prodigal son (along with the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin) to show God’s joy over repentant sinners. The older brother represents the self-righteous (such as the Pharisees and scribes) who were complaining about Jesus welcoming “sinners.” The parable challenges the idea that fairness should override grace and mercy. We thus see the dynamic of salvation with the remorse of the prodigal, the forgiveness without fine or punishment of the father, and the call for accountability of the brother. This as a whole gives us the interplay of substitutionary atonement and moral influence atonement. Luke more conspicuously than our other sources argues against substitutionary atonement and is a favorite of universalists. The early Q1 saying about loving your enemy fits well with moral influence and Nietzsche (on Goicoechea's reading) sees here the dichotomy between the earlier loving Jesus with the later portrayal of the judging Christ.

Re: (INDEX) My Blog Series on the Anthology by and About John Caputo: Cross and Khora

John MacDonald — Tue, 05 May 2026 15:12:35 -0000

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Re: Caputo and Glazebrook on Trying to Appease God’s Wrath vs Focus on Love of Undesirables

John MacDonald — Sun, 03 May 2026 19:55:40 -0000

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Re: Caputo and Glazebrook on Trying to Appease God’s Wrath vs Focus on Love of Undesirables

John MacDonald — Sun, 03 May 2026 19:52:25 -0000

In Luke-Acts Stephen does of course pray for himself too, but the emphasis is on the prayer for his persecutor. Likewise, Jesus does not petition the Father for anything for himself, bur just gives his spirit to him.

Re: The Holy Atheist: John Caputo and the Dark Night of the Soul

John MacDonald — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 16:31:56 -0000

See for example the holy atheist in the Woody Allen classic Hannah and her Sisters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Z98ZlvpPU

Re: The Holy Atheist: John Caputo and the Dark Night of the Soul

John MacDonald — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:01:47 -0000

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