We had a really interesting discussion in my Sunday school class today. The focus was on the idea of God's will, and the view some Christians hold that there is a perfect will of God for each life, including where one should study, whom if anyone one should marry, where one should work, and so on. As we read Romans 12:1-2, I was struck by the implications of the wording as never before. That passage reads: Therefore, I urge you,... Read more
I saw this cartoon, and as a religion professor, my first reaction was to ask what sort of religion would look to both Marduk and Sekhmet as authorities. But I guess stranger combinations have occurred in the history of religious syncretism. If people can write books like Jesus CEO to promote a particular business model, then less well-known (in our time) ancient Babylonian and Egyptian deities will certainly offer businesses the flexibility to creatively design a religious vision that can... Read more
I saw this cartoon on Facebook. I have never encountered anyone who tried to win people to the scientific method this way. But it does raise the question of how we should spread the good news about our ever-improving understanding of the world through the application of science. Sometimes it is something one is brought up with, sometimes it is something one comes to through reading, sometimes it is something that one is won over to by some other means.... Read more
I came across the above quote from Raymond Chandler on Pinterest. It seems to me that a lot of controversy in our time is generated by people who mistake the one for the other. Read more
I came across a post I wrote a while back, and thought I would share part of it again in the form of an image. It is a response to a text image that called evolution a tool of Satan. Read more
I am almost two weeks behind in my watching of and blogging about Cosmos. The second episode does a great job of introducing evolution, beginning with the shift from natural to artificial selection that turned wolves into dogs. DNA is depicted visually in a way that some have not appreciated, but who knows what a molecule would “look like” from such a tiny perspective? It is referred to as the “ancient scriptures” of our species, and each living thing is... Read more
I saw the above at the end of a long collection of misused and simply bizarre quotation marks. This one seemed worth singling out and discussing – and as you might guess, not because I want to figure out what the “gazebo” really is. What in your experience makes “worship” deserve scare quotes? Read more
I actually had the vague idea for this song last year, when it was snowy around Easter time. Today, as it is snowing outside again, and I have a cold for the third time in a row, I felt the need to finish writing the words and record it. I am sure that if I felt healthier I would have done a better job with it. But having a cold while making it seems somehow appropriate. This is, of course,... Read more
It must be added that the dichotomy does not have to exist. There is no one who only wonders, and never believes. The danger is when beliefs are treated as sacrosanct, so that nothing and no one can cause us to open ourselves to new information and new possibilities. Read more
My friend and colleague Charles Allen shared the following as part of an e-mail: John’s Gospel doesn’t really say that much about her, but that hasn’t stopped preachers and listeners from letting their imaginations run wild. After all, she’s had five husbands, and now she’s living with a man out of wedlock. So it’s been easy to jump to the conclusion that she’s been doing a lot of bed hopping.But the Gospel doesn’t tell us that. We do know that... Read more
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