Surviving a Police Encounter

Last updated on: April 14, 2015 at 1:09 pm By James F. McGrath

Sometimes satire is the only way to give voice to immense frustration and anger about something that has happened. The Onion did it well with its article about the Department of Justice deploying smartphone-carrying bystanders to the nation’s streets. I think the above image does an admirable job too. Because let’s face it, if you can take an infographic about bears and substitute “police,” and it makes sense, there’s a serious problem. For a non-satirical approach to the topic, see this SALT... Read more

LOST Rewatch: LAX

Last updated on: April 14, 2015 at 11:35 am By James F. McGrath

The first episode of the final season of LOST begins with reminders of last season, and then from the explosion of the hydrogen bomb, we are shown clouds, and a disoriented Jack, in Oceanic 815, having the conversation with flight attendant Cindi, and then with Rose, that we saw previously. Turbulence starts, and then stops, and Rose tells him that he can let go. Jack gets up to go to the bathroom, then when he comes back, Desmond is sitting... Read more

Ode to Coffee

Last updated on: April 14, 2015 at 9:32 am By James F. McGrath

Coffee, coffee, we adore thee! Java glory, java love. Brains awake like flowers before thee. Raise our mugs to God above. These new hymn lyrics come from Unvirtuous Abbey on Facebook, and I thought it worth turning into a meme image. One commenter on Facebook added a second verse: Melt the fog of sleepy stumbling; drive the dark of night away. Giver of immortal gladness, caffeinate us for the day! Of course, it should be sung to the tune “Ode to... Read more

A Baptist Timeline

Last updated on: April 14, 2015 at 6:08 am By James F. McGrath

Via Stuff Fundies Like. Baptists get picked on a lot in this regard, and not entirely undeservedly. Yet there is a sense in which all of religious history, and all of human history, is similar – people trying to improve on what came before, and sometimes succeeding, but more often than not, producing something just as bad if not worse. Read more

Geza Vermes Lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls

Last updated on: April 13, 2015 at 3:47 pm By James F. McGrath

HT 3quarksdaily Read more

The Criterion of Mortification

Last updated on: April 13, 2015 at 1:01 pm By James F. McGrath

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal featured the comic below, which illustrates a popular misunderstanding of the criterion of embarrassment which scholars sometimes use. I’ll share more thoughts below the comic. First, it is worth pointing out that, in historical studies, the fact that an author is honest about something does not automatically mean they are honest about everything. Patterns of honesty may make them more trustworthy, to be sure. But sometimes we acknowledge things because we have no choice. And that leads... Read more

Don’t Diss the Blog!

Last updated on: April 13, 2015 at 9:48 am By James F. McGrath

It is an older article, but Jennifer Raff’s piece on differentiating between science and pseudoscience only came to my attention recently (despite the fact that it quotes Doctor Who in the process of making its point!). It suggests the following ranking of sources: I don’t think anyone would disagree about placing YouTube comments at the bottom. But I think the others deserve discussion. On the one hand, academic journal articles do tend to have the most rigorous level of review prior to... Read more

Hacking S’mores

Last updated on: April 13, 2015 at 6:01 am By James F. McGrath

A former student of mine shared a photo on Facebook with the kind of life hack which deserves to be shared, not just to help others imitate it, but also because it illustrates the kind of creative mind one develops when one has a Butler education. You know how we make s’mores as a sandwich, and when we heat them, the contents melt and spread and drip? Well Aaron Abrahamson Cote (of Cote Percussion – check it out!) came up with this... Read more

Amazing Grace Sunday

Last updated on: April 12, 2015 at 8:10 pm By James F. McGrath

At Crooked Creek Baptist Church today we celebrated “Amazing Grace Sunday,” which included multiple versions of the traditional hymn and other songs that had some connection to that hymn or its theme. I don’t have a recording, but here are some videos from YouTube to give you a hint of what was involved. We opened the service with a version of this rendition of Amazing Grace set to the music of “Peaceful Easy Feeling” by the Eagles: I sang the song “Testimony” from the musical Amazing Grace,... Read more

Let the Punishment Fit the Crime

Last updated on: April 12, 2015 at 5:46 pm By James F. McGrath

This comic from Cyanide and Happiness relates to both religious ideas of punishments in an afterlife, and education, and so I had to share it. There is a long history of people imagining punishments in an afterlife that are suited to the evils they did in this life. And, however problematic that is, it is probably preferable to the notion that everyone goes to the same place of eternal torment merely for not assenting to certain ideas. I have sometimes suggested... Read more