And so, today, if the state can no longer appeal to the old moral principles that belong to the Christian tradition, it will be forced to create a new official faith and new moral principles which will be binding on its citizens.
I missed the country sounds on the radio. I missed the Deana Carters and the old Faith Hill songs that are more richly country and not so highly pop. So I really wanted that to be on my first album.
The realm of immediate or personal knowledge is a narrow circle in which these bodies move; the realm of knowledge derived through faith is as wide as the universe, and old as eternity.
I've been gearing up for this future of writing a lot of new music by digging into my favorite old stuff, and twisting it around and highlighting the things I really love.
I never thought it was fair for an 8-year-old child not to be able to afford shoes, or to wander the streets having to beg for money. To know that child's joy would end soon, when they realised there was no future.
I started writing when I was 9 years old. I was like this weird kid who would just stay in my room, typing little funny magazines and drawing comic strips.
I was a very self-righteous 15-25 year old. Anyway, I wake up every morning and thank God I'm not a kid anymore.
Deny human rights, and however little you may wish to do so, you will find yourself abjectly kneeling at the feet of that old-world god, Force.
Do freshman philosophy classes nowadays debate updated versions of the age-old questions? Like, how could a merciful God allow AIDS, childhood cancers, tsunamis and Dick Cheney?
I believe, literally, in the God of the Old Testament, whom I understand as the Lord of the Jews and the Protestants. I'm a Christian Zionist, as well as a Christian feminist and a Christian socialist.
For me, the great problem growing up in England was that I had a very narrow concept of what God can be, and it was damn close to an old man with a beard.
The stone which Jacob consecrated at Bethel the generation of the living continues to anoint, paying the tithes which of old he vowed to the house of God there.
I've never been to the Himalayas, and I'm not really interested in them. I'm more interested in a dirty old quarry in Lancashire, and by god, they can be dirty.
When you look at the runway now, the girls are 15 and 16 years old with no knowledge of clothes, no idea how to project themselves. I was trained how to show off the dress, how to move to make the clothes look better.
It is becoming clear that the old platitudes can no longer be maintained, and that if we wish to improve our morals we must first improve our knowledge.
'The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movement in Iraq,' by Hanna Batatu. Few may wish to take on this massive, obscure work, but it changed my life, and I love it.
I was three years old when I started drawing. I did it all my life.
Call me an over anxious, middle-class mum, but my eight-and-a-half-year old son looks very much, to me, like he's headed for a life of crime.
I have to tell you I never in my life anticipated getting this old, this fast. It seems as if I were 25 just a few days ago.
I tend to be a subscriber to the idea that you have everything you need by the time you're 12 years old to do interesting writing for most of the rest of your life - certainly by the time you're 18.
Everything has the potential to be extraordinary, whether an old photograph, a book or a life. If you find it ordinary, you simply need to take a closer look.
