More pictures from my Spanish trip. Click the link below to see: … [Read more...]
Strange But True: The Misnumbered Pope
June 6, 2011 By 18 Comments
I've been reading Bob Curran's book Unholy Popes, an extremely amusing chronicle of papal misbehavior over the centuries and the more infamous scandals and shenanigans attributed to the various men who've held the seat. There have been periods of decades when Rome was rife with corruption, nepotism, bribery, and at times, open warfare and murder over the papal succession. There have been times when no one was pope and times when there were multiple contenders, each one claiming to be the true … [Read more...]
Darwin’s Long Regret
June 4, 2011 By 7 Comments
Since we've been reading a lot lately about scientists pandering to religion, it's worth remembering that there's nothing new under the sun. As long as there's been science, there have been believers who fought fiercely to prevent their god of choice from being dislodged from a gap, and there have been scientists who felt obliged to placate them. Even some of humanity's greatest scientists felt this pressure, and bowed to it on occasion. Here's one example, which I first read about in Richard … [Read more...]
Words Worth Reading: The Mother’s Day Proclamation
May 8, 2011 By 9 Comments
As you probably already know, today is Mother's Day. But I learned something very interesting about the holiday from a sermon today at the Unitarian Universalist church my wife and I attend, and I'd like to share it with you. Given how rampantly commercial Mother's Day has become, you might be forgiven for assuming, as I did, that it was dreamed up by the jewelry and greeting-card companies. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Although the holiday did become commercialized soon after … [Read more...]
Movie Review: Agora
March 21, 2011 By 72 Comments
When I wrote my review of Creation last year, a commenter suggested I see Agora, the 2009 film by Alejandro Amenábar about Hypatia of Alexandria. It took me a long time to get around to doing that, but I've finally seen it, and it was worth the wait. It only had a very limited theatrical release in the U.S., but if you have Netflix or similar, I strongly encourage you to see it. Agora is set in Alexandria, Egypt, in the late fourth century CE. Egypt is a Roman province in this age, and … [Read more...]
The Abolition Spirit Is Undeniably Atheistic
January 17, 2011 By 9 Comments
Having written recently about what really caused the Confederacy to secede, I wanted to say some more about the topic. I've previously discussed the religious foundations of the CSA and how they repeatedly appealed to God and Christianity as a defense of the rightness of slavery, and I'd like to add some more evidence on that subject. Benjamin Palmer was born in Charleston in 1818 and became one of the preeminent Christian preachers of the antebellum era. He served as Moderator of the first … [Read more...]
Why the Confederate States Seceded
January 7, 2011 By 31 Comments
I've written previously about the Confederate States of America and how that short-lived country was a Christian theocracy which invoked religion to justify slavery. But even today, there are still religious conservatives who try to whitewash these historical facts and erase the memory of what really led the South to try to break away from the Union. This post is for them. South Carolina was the first state to secede, and in December 1860, its government issued a document explaining why. This … [Read more...]
Weekly Link Roundup
December 11, 2010 By 7 Comments
If blogging was my full-time job, I'd probably have written a post about each of these stories! As it is, I leave you with some food for thought - and there's a virtual banquet this week: • In the U.K., more and more decaying churches are being converted into homes - a fitting use for these still-beautiful buildings, in my opinion. • According to a study in the journal Pediatrics, gay teens are more likely to be punished by schools and courts than their straight peers. One wonders if … [Read more...]
New on Ebon Musings: The Origins of Orthodoxy
November 27, 2010 By 16 Comments
Over the past several months, I've been writing a lengthy new essay for Ebon Musings. I've finally put the finishing touches on it, and I'm quite proud of the result: go check out "The Origins of Orthodoxy". This essay covers a topic I've been interested in for a long time: the origins of the Christian New Testament canon. It's the story of which books made it into the Bible - and which ones didn't - and why, and all the historical twists and turns over the first three centuries that resulted … [Read more...]
Follow Patheos
Atheist: