Doing more research is admirable, when that is one’s overall approach to a topic. But when you find that you don’t need to do further research before insulting whole ethic groups and religious bodies, but supposedly do need to do further research before insulting a very famous hate group that is without any doubt guilty of murder and terrorism, then that is not something admirable. “I need to do more research” is a great way of life, but as an excuse for not having a... Read more
I just received my author’s copy of the book Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion from Fordham University Press. The e-book has been available for a while, but this means that the print edition will be shipping soon to those who have ordered it. It is an honor to be a contributor to a volume that includes so many other illustrious names, such as Robert J. Sawyer, David Brin, and Guy Consolmagno, and... Read more
Via The Lighter Side of the Force. I am pretty sure I’ve seen another attempt at adding lightsabers to this famous fight scene from The Princess Bride, but this version is particularly well done. For some delightful images featuring Star Wars pictures mashed-up with quotes from The Princess Bride, go here. Read more
I recently received a question in a comment on an older post about mythicism, and thought I would share my answer in a post, since I doubt that many people are still following the post in question, which is from three years ago. Mythicists often emphasize that Paul never explicitly says that Jesus was crucified on Earth, outside Jerusalem. My point is that he never says Jesus was crucified in the sky, upon the firmament either. In general, when Paul... Read more
“The Bible is not a book of answers, but a library of questions.” – Timothy Beal I am grateful to John Anderson for drawing my attention to the above quote, in a post that explores the trouble when the Bible becomes too familiar to us. Here’s a sample of what John has to say in his post: Just as the crowd becomes angry when Jesus doesn’t affirm their expectations, so too we often go on the defensive when someone suggests the... Read more
I have felt connected to very important events in recent years, as well as more closely in touch with Islam in North America, thanks to the presence of the Islamic Society of North America's headquarters in nearby Plainfield. Students from Butler regularly visit there, and some have even done internships. And so I was dismayed to read that someone vandalized the building, spray painting racial slurs and other things. Ironically, apparently the graffiti mentions ISIS (which ISNA has condemned) and... Read more
I Googled the phrase “Make the Galaxy Great Again” to see if there was anything creative that had been done since the Darth Trump video that made the rounds back in December. I expected to find more combinations of Donald Trump and Darth Vader. Instead I found the image above – and the bumper sticker below. Read more
Internet apologists for mythicism are always ready to point to Sherlock Holmes and Batman and say “look, here we have stories, so these prove the existence of fictional detectives and comic book heroes, don’t they?” Can they not see that this is absolute silliness, that one could respond with the same trite comeback about anyone or anything? What if someone compares the case of the Hound of the Baskervilles to the Holocaust? Does that somehow prove the latter did not... Read more
“People of faith can read the Bible so that almost any perspective on a current issue will find some support in the Bible. That rich and multivoiced offering in the Bible is what makes appeals to it so tempting – and yet so tricky and hazardous, because much of our reading of the Bible turns out to be an echo of what we thought anyway.” -Walter Brueggemann in Chosen? Reading the Bible Amid the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Read more
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