I’m a big fan of John Williams’ compositions. He is most famous for composing the music for Star Wars, E. T., Superman, Indiana Jones, and many other such blockbusters. But, as “Johnny Williams,” he was already composing film scores in the 1950s. I learned recently that one of his earliest scores was for the movie “I Passed for White” which was released in 1960. An excerpt from his score can be found at the bottom of this post, courtesy of... Read more
The British Center for Science Education shared this example of how the ACE curriculum depicts evolution: I’ve encountered people who genuinely accept this depiction as being what evolution posits. If you are one of them and you do not know how the bottom is very different from what biologists mean when they talk about evolution, please ask. I and others here will happily explain this to you, as we have countless times before. Or you could just read a book... Read more
I’m delighted to be a participant in a multi-blog conversation on Patheos, about progressive Christians and Scripture. Let me start by giving readers the prompt for what I and others have written: Progressive Christianity is moving into the 21st century with a freedom to challenge and question tradition and scripture in ways that simultaneously respect the past and look for fresh ways to live into the future. Traditional Christian interpretations of scriptures on a wide variety of issues — hell,... Read more
This comment by Arcseconds seemed worth quoting on the blog. It is part of a discussion of a recent attempt by P. Z. Myers to make the infamous “religion is inherently opposed to science” claim. I accept that you and Myers admit that religious people can be excellent scientists. But by reifying religion and science as ‘spheres of endeavour’ and talking as if they interact with one another one their own rather than as being human activities that interact with... Read more
P. Z. Myers has seen the dark side of skepticism, the fact that its tools can be applied not just to fringe bunk but to anything and everything. And so he has written in an effort to distinguish science and skepticism. Here is an excerpt from his recent post on the topic: A short while ago, I received a very nice letter from a young woman in Indiana who liked my book. I scanned it and posted it, with her name and... Read more
Matthew Morgenstern shared the above cartoon on Facebook, while Tim Bulkeley wrote a blog post about increasing the number of videos of scholars speaking. I’d like to see even more use of animation and other elements that would make the videos of us speaking more interesting. But I’m not sure that putting ourselves on screens as scholars will keep students from being distracted by the little screens they have with them. Often people who obsessively check their phone aren’t even... Read more
Recently in a conversation I had, I was trying to remember where I saw the conversation below. It came to my attention on Pinterest again and so I thought I’d share it. It makes through anecdotes a general point that I think ought to be obvious: when you judge people for being poor and yet having some things that you take for granted, instead of judging the system that you participate in for leaving people poor, and instead of judging... Read more
The International SBL conference this summer will be in Vienna, and I’m going to be there for part of it. I’d be interested to know if any other scholars and students of Biblical studies whom I know will be there. If so, let me know! The European Association of Biblical Studies meets jointly with the Society of Biblical Literature, and has a section on the Bible and Science Fiction. I’ll be honest that that is the main reason I’m going... Read more
The above is based on the earlier meme image I created for the “Third Law of Theology” which states that “For every theologian there is an equal and opposite theologian.” I made it in response to some comments made by a mainline Protestant on Facebook about mainline Protestants, which reflected a different experience of this broad and diverse tradition than my own. And that, of course, is precisely what the above is intended to illustrate – the range of viewpoints among... Read more
An online post has suggested that Monster Energy Drink – with its slogan “Unleash the Beast” – has some connection to the mark of the beast in the Book of Revelation. They point out that the “M” made of slashed claw marks that is their logo looks like three of the Hebrew letter vav, which has the numerical value of “six.” It seems to be lost on them that the number of the beast in the Book of Revelation is... Read more
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