The Torch Magazine,
The Journal and Magazine of the
International Association of Torch Clubs
For 83 Years
A Peer-Reviewed
Quality Controlled
Publication
ISSN Print 0040-9440
ISSN Online 2330-9261
Spring
2015
Volume 88, Issue 3
Articles in the
Spring 2015 Issue
- Messianism and
Zionism: Two radically different
approaches toward creating a Jewish
State in Palestine
by Rabbi Jonathan Brown
There were
two radically different approaches
toward creating a Jewish state in
Palestine. Rabbi Brown takes a
close look at the practical and
theoretical differences between
messianism and Zionism, the debate
which is important to the history of
Israel. A
.pdf file is available here
- The Progressive
Bias of Truth
by
Roland F. Moy
Conservative columnist
George Will once observed,
“Conservatism is true” (qtd. in
Zakaria), explaining that
intelligent conservatism was
grounded in reality, as opposed
to the party line Marxists in
the old joke, who asked, “I know
it works in practice, but does
it work in theory?”
This perspective on contemporary
conservatism in the United
States, together with the 2012
publication of Samuel Arbeson’s
The Half-Life of Facts: Why
Everything We Know Has An
Expiration Date, prompts
an inquiring mind to examine how
deeply what we know of reality
has influenced various strains
of American thought and policy
over the years. The following
analysis will provide a brief
historical overview of how
changes in factual understanding
of the world and the evolution
of values have impacted
governmental policy and
practice. A
.pdf file is available here
- Robert E. Lee,
Vietnam, and Abortion: History,
Truth, and Changing Times
by Steven Brown
What we call historical
facts can change over time.
The civil war in the United States
today is thought of as a war over
freedom from slavery. Earlier,
the war was portrayed as necessary
to keep the nation united.
Views of Robert E. Lee, Vietnam and
Abortion have also changed over time
and with them the sense of what is
factual has changed also. A .pdf file is
available here
- Evolution and
“I”
by Abraham Rempel
This article presents the
current argument that intelligent
design really does explain the human
animal, not evolution as commonly
understood. Following
the original article,
letters to the editor pointed out
corrections.
A .pdf
file is available here of the
original article.
- The Trouble
with Truth
by Barnet Feingold
The subject of this paper
is apparent truth—not truth itself;
that which humans accept as true—not
the Platonic Ideal (Kraut). When I
use the word truth, I am not
referring to that which the wise
yearn to embrace, but to that which
the arrogant embrace, thinking
themselves wise. I am not referring
to those daunting revelations that
the strong can endure only with
support, but to those reassuring
misconceptions that lead the weak to
see themselves as strong. I am not
referring to that which science
incrementally approaches, but to the
blind alleys of scientific fashion
that masquerade as progress. I am
not referring to that which the
principled strive to speak, but to
the twaddle that, in the mouths of
the frivolous, tastes like virtue. I
am not referring to the lightly-held
conceptions of those who struggle to
understand complex and changing
phenomena, but to the disfigured
horrors that ideologues create when
they torture bothersome facts into
compliance with their
doctrines. A .pdf file is
available here
- The Ballad World
of Francis James Child
by Charles Darling
The
single most important work in
Anglo-Scottish balladry was compiled
by Francis James Child, who between
1882 and 1898 published a five-volume
collection of 305 ballads, The
English and Scottish Popular Ballads.
Even in the 21st century, the ballads,
including variants and offshoots,
retain the Child catalog number; the
popular ballad “Barbara Allen” is
known to researchers as Child number
84. But who was this compiler
and what caused his magnificent
obsession, analyzing ancient balladry
and what influences does he have on
contemporary singers? A .pdf file is
available here
- Paddling the
Boundary Waters Then and Now
by Ernst Behrens
The vast canoe area
wilderness between Minnesota and
Ontario known today as the Boundary
Waters is only a small part of an
even larger network of lakes,
rivers, and forests that the early
French fur traders called “le pays
d’en haut” (the Upper
Country). Each year, tons of
animal pelts collected the previous
winter were transported in small
birch bark canoes over hundreds of
miles to a rendezvous in July at
Grand Portage on Lake Superior,
where they were loaded into bigger
canoes for shipment to Montreal and
then on to the fashion centers of
Europe. Paddling in the wake
of these “voyageurs” is both a great
wilderness experience and a
nostalgic visit to a fascinating era
of North American exploration.
A .pdf file is
available here
©2015 by the International
Association of Torch Clubs
An EBSCO Publication
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