Moving from Job straight to Chronicles this semester, I was struck by a contrast between the outlook of these two works in a way I hadn’t noticed in precisely these terms before. The Book of Job pronounces judgment on Job’s friends because they are willing to rewrite the history of Job’s life in order to preserve their theology. They turn him from a saint into a sinner because they believe that is necessary if God is to be viewed as just... Read more

Today my family and I had the delightful privilege of having Joel Watts (possibly known to readers as Polycarp of the blog The Church of Jesus Christ) and his family spend time with us, first at the public library and then at home. As if this weren’t enough of a treat, we had a visit from another family after they left. They just showed up in our back yard. We caught it on video: Read more

LOST Slapdown, Part 7 LOST Untangled – Recon Read more

Our recording of the lecture yesterday may have hit some hiccups – I’ll keep you posted. Either way, in the mean time, here are some other videos to enjoy. First, here’s a recent one posted by the BioLogos Foundation: And then here’s part one of a six-part sequence on YouTube with an audio recording of a longer lecture by John Walton: Read more

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Thank you to everyone who attended tonight’s lecture by John Walton on Genesis 1 and ancient cosmology at Butler University. I was really pleased with the turn-out, especially when there was the NCAA tournament game taking place at the same time. And congratulations to Butler’s team for winning – I know it wasn’t your fault the game was scheduled at the same time as the lecture! The lecture was videoed, and I will let readers know when and where it is available.... Read more

Lawrence Kuhn asks whether intelligent aliens would undermine God.Jesus Creed has part 2 of “The Challenge of Adam” which includes two videos by Peter Enns.Gordon Glover offers the latest installment in the Design Detective video series.Unreasonable Faith suggests that N. T. Wright’s interpretations can be too clever by half.Eric Reitan has been interviewed at Common Sense Atheism.Steve Wiggins mentioned “Biblical” and “Science Fiction” in a post’s title, and so I had to link to it.The Golden Rule shared a video... Read more

This classic piece of philosophical science fiction by Daniel Dennett, “Where Am I?“, is the reading for my Religion and Science Fiction class for Friday. It is a valuable piece in its own right, but also nicely illustrates how science fiction can be useful to philosophers and other thinkers as thought experiments to help us explore difficult and puzzling issues. Where Am I? http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf I also found (via Daniel Dennett’s home page) this 1988 Documentary “Victim of the Brain” which... Read more

There is more by Ravel on the Internet Archive, but here are a few samples… Daphnis and Chloe Suite No.2 (Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy) http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.0.5.swf?0.7942708843806401 Another recording of the Daphnis and Chloe Suite No.2 (because it is such a wonderful piece – I wish there was a recording of the whole ballet on the Internet Archive!) by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Artur Rodzinski http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.0.5.swf?0.0669800678256886 Piano Concerto for the Left Hand http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.0.5.swf?0.6217000647953552 Read more

Just a quick LOST-related thought. I think that most discussions of this season have neglected key insights from last season, such as that Widmore and Hawking may both have been acting in order to prevent the death of their son, Daniel Faraday. As far as Widmore can tell, the attempt was unsuccessful. And so perhaps he has gone to the island not to kill the smoke monster but to capture him and to make a deal. He wants his son restored to... Read more