When I was a grad student and a nihilist, I perceived that my closest professors also held nihilist assumptions, but they didn’t draw nihilist conclusions.  Of course this is still going on.

There are moments when I could imagine being a lexicographer.  One of the most interesting stories of the last few centuries must be how rapturous intensity of feeling came to be regarded as a good thing rather than a bad one, and the terms we use to describe it became words of praise.

Question:

Can you suggest – for starters -- just one thing to read about contemporary religion clause jurisprudence?  Have you written anything about it?  And what did the Framers themselves mean by the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses?

A reader who is considering blogging asks me to blog about blogging.  Since I’ve been at it for a few years, what have learned?

Maybe not much.  Presently the site is pulling five to six thousand hits a month.  That may sound like a lot, but in the blogosphere, it isn’t really.

Question:

My question is really double.  Or triple.  First, disparagement of natural law has been a common theme in most of my law school courses.  I expected that.  What I didn’t expect is that everyone calls natural law theory “natural rights theory.”  Is there a historical or ideological reason for this change in terms?  If so, could you comment on it?