8 – 10 February 2008 — Evolution Weekend Evolution Weekend is an opportunity for serious discussion and reflection on the relationship between religion and science. One important goal is to elevate the quality of the discussion on this critical topic – to move beyond soundbytes. A second critical goal is to demonstrate that religious people from many faiths and locations understand that evolution is sound science and poses no problems for their faith. Finally, as with The Clergy Letter itself,... Read more

“When we hear the words ascribed to Jesus in John’s Gospel, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me’, we do not hear them in a narrowly exclusive way. In John’s gospel, let us remember, the words of Jesus are the words of the Logos, not just of the individual human being, Jesus of Nazareth. That Word or Logos enlightens every one who comes into the world. Those of us... Read more

I continue to have visitors reach my blog because they have been contacted by Sterling Who’s Who and invited to sign up with them. I am sure one reason my complaint was resolved so quickly was the fact that my blog features so prominently on search engines, and thus the post on my blog was being found by many of the company’s would-be customers. Let me, as a public service of sorts, share another e-mail I just received, purporting to... Read more

Today was the day this semester for the students in my religion and science class to engage in speculation about the future of technology. They are asked to discuss in small groups whether a husband who has a “fully functional” female android hidden away in his closet can sue for divorce on grounds of adultery. I address this topic in a forthcoming chapter entitled “Robots, Rights and Religion”, which I circulated to them prior to class. What do you think?... Read more

Is treating existence as meaningful a ‘leap of faith’? Is our experience of meaning sufficient to make it something other than a blind leap in the dark? Is treating existence and meaningless, a brute inexplicable fact, also a leap of faith? Is the experience of tragedy and chance enough to justify it? Do such experiences make it any more reasonable a leap than those that people with a religious outlook take in the opposite direction? Paul Davies wrote an op-ed... Read more

Experimental Theology (hat tip: Find and You shall Seek) has an entertaining but also thought provoking post, asking why dispensational premillenialists assume that the antichrist will be someone who never reads the Book of Revelation (or the Left Behind books). Read more

My friend with the time machine has brought me back another gem, this time a 23rd century translation of the Bible. I was going to post the whole dynamic-equivalent translation of the Sermon on the Mount (in an approximation in modern English), but decided to just share a few highlights instead: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the galaxy. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall have it replicated unto them in abundance.... Read more

“The processes revealed by the sciences, especially evolutionary biology, are in themselves God-acting-as-creator. There is no need to look for God as some kind of additional factor supplementing the processes of the world. God, to use language usually applied in sacramental theology, is “in, with, and under” all-that-is and all-that-goes-on” (Arthur Peacocke, “Biological Evolution – A Postivie Theological Appraisal”, reprinted in God and Evolution: A Reader, ed. Mary Kathleen Cunningham (New York: Routledge, 2007) p.254). Howard J. Van Till (in... Read more

Since my current research is not on Q, I thought that perhaps others for whom this is more their area of expertise might like to make use of some of the following puns (which I will gladly part with to the highest bidder) in posting on this subject: J’aQQQQQQ…Mark Goodacre A Qmulative Case for a Hypothetical Sayings Source Qrious Arguments for Luke’s Use of Matthew Source Criticism in Hebrew Bible and New Testament Scholarship: Minding Our Ps and Qs Cute... Read more

Is there any evidence for Q that could puncture “the case against Q” which seems watertight to its proponents? Perhaps the Lord’s Prayer will answer the prayers of Q supporters everywhere. The Matthean version of the prayer is better known and longer. It is easy to envisage the author of Matthew adding these comments as clarifications. It is much harder to imagine the author of Luke removing them. Why shorten a reference to our Father in heaven to simply ‘Father’?... Read more