CNET shared a link to and examples of Chris Milnes’ productions, for sale on Etsy, made using a 3-D printer. Yoda is a much more natural fit for a Zen depiction than some of the other figures. But all of them deserve to be checked out, and they include figures not just Star Wars but classic Battlestar Galactica and elsewhere. Read more
Thanks to RJS for pointing out the conference on Christianity and evolution, to be held in Michigan this summer by Biologos. I’ll share the call for papers here, but click through for more information. Call for Papers BioLogos invites oral and poster presentations from a variety of disciplines about topics at the intersection of evolution and Christian faith. Program tracks for oral presentations will be determined based on the collection of submissions and may include but are not limited to:... Read more
A discussion here on this blog brought up the question of whether other ancient works may, like the Gospels, have initially circulated without an author being indicated, with the attribution to the author being added only subsequently to the manuscript tradition. This led to a blog post by Matthew Ferguson, which made comparisons to the works of Tacitus, which may not have named him as author when first published. Since the manuscripts that we have of ancient texts are usually much later... Read more
In this episode, the Doctor and his companions finally make it back to space station Nerva, but at a different time. There they encounter the Cybermen. The episode does interesting things with the fact that gold is a weakness of the Cybermen, being capable of destroying them, while in another sense gold is also the weakness of humans. And because of these weaknesses, both seek Voga, the planet of gold. The Cybermen say that they do not subscribe to any theory of... Read more
I have seen students do some odd things in their bibliographies with such frequency that I am sure it cannot be a coincidence. But I am not sure where they are getting these practices from. The strangest part is the tendency, when citing online sources, to repeat the title of the article, web page, or blog post a second time in italics, as though it were the title of a book or journal from which the article was taken. But... Read more
I’ve been wanting to blog about the hilariously idiotic suggestion, made by someone purportedly an expert on Fox News, that Birmingham is a city inhabited only by Muslims, with non-Muslims simply not going there. This is a case of someone saying something which is not merely an error, but indicates clearly that they are making things up and have no idea what they are talking about. This isn’t a “blunder,” it is evidence that Steve Emerson willfully and deliberately asserts things for which he... Read more
Mike Bird shared this video of Bart Ehrman giving a nice succinct response to a mythicist. Read more
I came across the cartoon above on Reddit. It depicts a satirical cartoonist uttering the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi in response to an armed terrorist. What do you think that might be learned from thinking about Obi-Wan Kenobi as a martyr in the Star Wars story? Or the comparison between Star Wars and recent events? Or from the fact that terrorists who wished to become martyrs themselves in fact made martyrs of their victims? Tertullian famously wrote, “we multiply whenever we... Read more
Recent episodes of Downton Abbey have focused a lot of attention on the way changing society in Britain led to the economic collapse of many estates owned by landed gentry. It struck me recently that this is a nice picture of the situation confronting churches in our time. Society has changed dramatically, and that doesn’t mean that churches cannot continue to have a role, but it probably does mean that they will either need to adapt to the new situation,... Read more
“Genesis of the Daleks” is arguably one of the greatest episodes in Doctor Who history. It took a deeper look at the history of the Daleks, and also posed interesting moral questions. The time lords send the Doctor and his companions to Skaro, at a time before the first Doctor’s visit in the show’s second episode ever. They have foreseen a future in which the Daleks become the dominant life form in the universe, and so they want the Doctor to... Read more
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