Roger Wolsey shared the above on Facebook. If Jesus were living in our world today, how do you think he would have responded to the ice bucket challenge? Living in a world without modern medical research possibilities, he did what he could. What would he do today? Read more
I’m delighted that St. Martin’s Press sent me an advance reading copy of Joel M. Hoffman’s book The Bible’s Cutting Room Floor: The Holy Scriptures Missing From Your Bible. The book is due out September 2nd, and will be of interest to many readers of this blog. It can be pre-ordered on Amazon in both hardback and Kindle formats. The title is a clever one (and may remind you of this Non Sequitur cartoon). But it does need to be clarified from... Read more
I recently became aware that Frauke Uhlenbruch, who chairs the EABS program unit on science fiction and the Bible, has a blog, gods and machines. It will obviously be of interest to academics who study sci-fi, comic books, and/or fandoms. Also of interest is a site connected with the “Fan Studies Network” which works to keep scholars who study fandoms connected, and aware of upcoming conferences and events. Read more
This past Sunday in my Sunday school class, we dived back into the Letter of James after a long break. We didn’t get far. We were up to James 1:17, and I decided not to let the cosmological and theological assumptions behind the notion of good gifts coming down from above, and God as the “Father of lights,” pass by without comment. For most ancient people, the lights in the sky were the hosts of heaven, celestial beings which were... Read more
Jerry Coyne shared the cartoon below, which illustrates the tendency we have to consider that the culture, religion, species, and everything else we are brought up with is the best, rather than the more likely scenario which is that we think they are the best because they are what we were brought up with. Ironically, some atheists assume that what is sometimes called the The Outsider Test for Faith (as in the title of the book by John Loftus) leads naturally to... Read more
On his new blog, James Crossley has taken a critical look at the traditional criteria that some hoped would get us certain historical knowledge about Jesus. I appreciate that, despite his criticisms, he acknowledges that one criterion, that of embarrassment, has held up reasonably well over time. I do think the point he makes, that we may not know what was embarrassing to ancient people, has less force than he and others seem to think it does. Our uncertainty about what was embarrassing... Read more
I am really tired of those pseudo-literalists known as young-earth creationists. I really want people to take the entirety of Genesis 1 literally, and not just the parts they find acceptable. Saying that you believe in creation in six literal days, but without a literal dome over the earth, and without the greater and lesser lights fixed in that dome, you are not taking the account literally. If you say that there was a vapor canopy in the upper atmosphere,... Read more
Jerry Coyne has shared a close look at the details of a Discovery Institute promotional video. They have made backgrounds that are supposed to look scientific. But if you take a screenshot and look at the details, you find things like whiteboards filled with nonsense – and the words “Rocket Man.” What else do you see? Ted Herrlich notes that the Discovery Institute also blames Darwin for the Civil War and pretty much everything else they can think of. I... Read more
Kasterborus shared the above infographic (click through if the size doesn’t appear correct here). Although the Doctor has encountered monks, and mentioned learning from monks, throughout the show’s history, as far as I know Tom Baker is the only actor to play the Doctor who actually was connected with the profession of monk. I still continue to learn things about Doctor Who, after such a long time watching the show! Read more
David Hayward shared the above cartoon he created, which depicts a rather literal cookie-cutter type of entrance to the kingdom. The fact that the kingdom’s inhabitants are thus low-budget robots is not without symbolic significance. Once they get in, they sing “Just as I am” – but obviously they have only been accepted “just as they are” because they already fit a particular mode. This gets at one of the real challenges for progressive and liberal churches. While we want... Read more
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