The above photo came to my attention on Facebook. It is a very clever way of making the point about how much computers have changed over the past 58 years. The photo at the top is the first delivery of a computer. The photo at the bottom has one that has a much greater computing power, held in someone’s hand, at the right distance from the very same building in Norwich, England, so as to make it look like it is... Read more
It has been funny to see what atheists have had to say about the Seven Tenets posted online by a Satanic Temple. You can read them below. What is interesting to me is the way these newly-minted tenets of a newly-minted religious group are used as a basis for mockery, saying something like “Look, Satan’s ethical code is better than God’s.” That, presumably, was the point of creating them in the first place. But the whole enterprise is problematic, even as an... Read more
After having a discussion here at Exploring Our Matrix in which an atheist insisted that there cannot be atheist fundamentalists because atheists reject all dogmas, it was interesting to see Harry McCall dogmatically insist what atheists “must assert” when it comes to the historicity of Jesus. Indeed, he goes further and insists that he (despite offering nothing more than weak garbage in his post) knows why all professional historians, and all but a couple of fringe New Testament scholars, draw the... Read more
This episode begins with a monologue about the sense of life being lived in constant threat of danger and death. The Doctor thinks about Clara’s death, and is angry in a way that we have rarely seen. The Doctor has been brought to a castle, but with TV screens on the walls. The Doctor realizes he is afraid of dying, and is confronted with the specter of a woman whose death he saw as a child and which terrified him... Read more
Due to the AAR/SBL conference and Thanksgiving, I am more than a week behind in blogging about the latest Doctor Who episodes. And so I will get caught up with two blog posts today – and then will soon get back to finishing off my blogging through the classic series, which I finished rewatching a while back and just need to actually blog about. The episode “Face the Raven” witnesses Doctor Who going full Harry Potter, with a secret street... Read more
Via Chris Spinks. It has some typos, and awkwardly places the period before the end of the sentence (I have a lot of students who do that when ending with a parenthetical citation, too). But it still seems useful. Read more
And Jesus said to her, “It is not appropriate to take the birds’ food and throw it to the squirrels.” The Syrophoenician woman replied, “But sir, even the squirrels eat seeds that fall from the birds’ feeder!” People with bird feeders who also know the Gospels will get it… Read more
This cartoon has been making the rounds. It is a pity that some are treating it as a condemnation of Christians, when it clearly is a condemnation of a group that I think ought to be labeled CINA: “Christians in Name Only.” If you fear others, hate others, judge others, and fail to hold yourself to a high standard of love and self-sacrifice, and fail to be humble and repentant because you fall so far short of that high standard,... Read more
Rick Brannan and Chris Brady both shared their papers from this year's Blogger and Online Publication session at SBL. Bart Ehrman shared his thoughts about the session, in which he was a panelist. And Tony Burke shared his perspective, having been in the audience. It should not be allowed to go unnoticed that blogging led these scholars to be involved in a session about blogging at the biggest conference in their field, which they have now in turn blogged about.... Read more
I recently found myself reminded of the famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” And for some reason, it occurred to me to reverse the phrase. And when I did so, I found that it made more sense. One can talk about a supposed future in which sinners will be at the mercy of a seemingly merciless God. But for that to be plausible, one really must explain why that same God is not punishing/torturing them already.... Read more
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