I’m continuing watching old episodes of LOST, and am about two-thirds of the way through season 2. In the episode “The Whole Truth“, I was struck to notice (I hadn’t before) that the pregnancy test Sun took was made by Widmore Labs. So when Kate asked ironically “Who carries a pregnancy test with them on a plane?” it wasn’t a throw-away line. We were supposed to ask ourselves that question seriously. And the answer we’re to come up with once... Read more

My colleague Dave Mason created a blog connected to his new book, The End of the American Century. Since he has now posted his first blog entry, I thought I’d try to send him some traffic and give him a baptism of fire into the wonderful world of blogging. His first post is entitled “Bankrupt America“. If the subject of the book/post sound interesting, why not pay his blog a visit and take a look? Read more

In addition to books about composers and sheet music, archive.org has actual music that you can listen to and download. I presume few readers have heard the American Symphony (No.3) by Romanian composer Serban Nichifor, so I’ll offer it as one example. Read more

Here are some past posts of mine about Intelligent Design. I thought it might be useful to list them in one place, for readers’ convenience, and in particular for the benefit of new readers. Enjoy! Monkeys and Typewriters on the Edge of EvolutionDesign, Information, and Languages such as DNA and Indo-EuropeanTransitional Forms as Evidence for EvolutionAn Immoral, Godless PseudoscienceEvolutionist ConspiracyThe Darwin CodeEvolutionists, Darwinism and Crackpot TheoriesThe Argument From IncredulityIt’s Not Whether You Win Or LoseSeeking Truth vs. Seeking VictoryWhich is... Read more

I highly recommend Delwin Brown’s book What Does a Progressive Christian Believe?: A Guide for the Searching, the Open, and the Curious (New York: Seabury, 2008). Of course, it is always encouraging to find others drawing the same conclusions and making the same points as oneself. For instance, Brown makes the same point I made not long ago on this blog, namely that the fundamentalist denial of the obvious diversity in the Bible renders its position unbiblical (pp.17,19; see also... Read more

Digby at Hullabaloo picked up on the “Evolution and Indoctrination” post from Mike the Mad Biologist, and has sent hundreds of visitors over here to my blog. He even went further than that and ordained me! Does anyone know the appropriate blog etiquette for such situations? Should I return the favor and refer to him as Rev. Digby? At any rate, welcome to all of you who are visiting from Hullabaloo. But just so you know, I’m not a “Rev”,... Read more

Apologies for the pun in the title, but it seemed the best way to sum up the theme of today’s installment in my Sunday school class. After a brief introduction of how historical study works, we compared the geographical movements and time frames in the infancy narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In Matthew, unless one knew otherwise before reading the text, one would assume that the hometown of Jesus’ family was Bethlehem, the first geographical setting mentioned.... Read more

Mike the Mad Biologist has quoted my post on “Evolution and Indoctrination” at length over on his blog. Those interested in the subject may want to take a look at what happens when that post from here gets transferred into the world of ScienceBlogs. No discussion as yet (maybe you’d like to start some…). Read more

Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams have accomplished something important, and indeed rather remarkable, in their book The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos (New York: Riverhead/Penguin, 2006). They seek to offer nothing less than the route to a mythology for our age, one that embraces all of our best scientific knowledge, without understanding it to imply the insignificance of human beings, all the while recognizing that the myths that always... Read more

Today I started reading Bridget Gilfillan Upton’s book Hearing Mark’s Endings (Leiden: Brill, 2006). It connects up both with my interest in the end of Mark and in oral tradition. At one point she writes the following about the author of the Gospel of Mark: “That the evangelist could read and writer Greek suggests that he had received at least a primary education, and therefore must have come from a background which offered him a certain level of privilege” (p.10).... Read more