Here’s a classic clip of a scene from The Simpsons focusing on evolution and creationism. I have to admit I laughed out loud at the “soundtrack” for the creation exhibit… simpsons creationism vs evolutionby PigLips HT Daniel Florien Read more

The Panda’s Thumb shared some videos that provide very useful explanations of aspects of evolutionary biology, highlighting in particular how evolution has led to fruitful hypotheses, explanations and discoveries in biology, genetics, and other related fields. Here’s one example: Read more

As I posted on Friday night, the Cinema Show solo is coming along, and so all that’s left is to keep practicing it. Presumably the place to go next is the keyboard solo from In The Cage. I actually tried learning it by ear many years ago, and I’m surprised that at key parts I got the key and the notes largely right. Here are two YouTube videos of people playing the solo: I’ve not found that there is actual... Read more

The comment below left on a recent post deserves to be highlighted in a post of its own: I had heard the interpretation several times before that, despite the praise for Abraham in the text, the fact was that Abraham FAILED the test, that God wanted Abraham to make the ethical choice and refuse the order to do evil. After all, in Nuremberg the world decided that obedience is not an ethical act and the individual has the ethical responsibility... Read more

I have only begun to listen to it, but there can be no doubt that the recent episode of the UK radio program Unbelievable, which features Richard Bauckham and James Crossley discussing monotheism and Christology in earliest Christianity, is worth listening to. Click here to listen! Read more

I am delighted to be able to highlight further developments related to the Early Jewish Monotheisms project based at the University of Goettingen. The project is directed by Nathan MacDonald of the University of St. Andrews. Here’s the project description from its web site: The origins and development of monotheism in ancient Israel has been one of the most significant debates within the study of the Old Testament of the last thirty years. It has generated numerous books and articles... Read more

The National Center for Science Education regularly shares interesting links. Ones I found particularly noteworthy are the Vatican page with links related to biology and evolution, and the September 2009 issue of the Journal of Effective Teaching which focuses on evolution in the high school and college classroom. Read more

The Mandaean Associations Union has posted several articles and updates over the past few weeks, including this one about how the scattering of the Mandaean community of Iraq places their cultural and religious heritage at risk. Read more

Julia M. O’Brien has turned her attention to a broader form of a question I posed here recently. Her new article in The Bible and Interpretation addresses the angles from which authors and scholars seek to connect the Bible to concerns and interests of modern readers. Read more

Andrew of the blog The BWAIN (which stands for Blog Without An Interesting Name) shared this gem of an advertisement from Dr. Boli (surely the oldest blogger in the world today): Read more