The above Pie Comic illustrates the danger of responding to tragedy, or anything else perplexing and troubling, by invoking God’s plan. The impression conveyed is inevitably of a highly anthropomorphic God whose benevolence and/or competence are placed in serious doubt. Read more
Via Brad Matthies on Twitter. Read more
This is a reminder to those in the United States and other parts of the world where clocks need to be changed early tomorrow. Kindly sleep an hour less, be a little grumpy as a result, and still get where you need to go on time. For more information, see Scot McKnight’s post about Daylight Saving Time. And some cartoons and images related to the topic follow below. Read more
Steve Caruso shared the above, in which he combined two images he found online, each trying to suggest that their worldview is affirming of human beings and gives meaning, while the other supposedly does the opposite. I think he is right that the very act of pretending that only one’s own worldview is meaningful, and that any opposing view by definition dehumanizes, engages in the very damaging of others that each side claims the other’s worldview causes. In other words,... Read more
Via Bart Ehrman Read more
Although most of the images in the series The Minimum Bible didn’t really speak to me in connection with the texts that they were supposed to represent, this one on the Book of Job seemed worth sharing: Read more
The cartoon above hopefully clarifies why some of us think that the expression of gratitude for one's own experience is problematic, when it posits God's direct and deliberate involvement in arranging circumstances for one's own benefit, while ignoring the contrasting experience of others and failing to offer a theological account of what befalls them in the same way one does for oneself. Is it not better to simply express gratitude, rather than voicing the view that God is showing favoritism... Read more
T&T Clark kindly sent me a review copy of Maurice Casey’s monumental opus Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of his Life and Teaching.Since Casey’s more recent book focused on mythicism builds heavily on the treatment of the details of the life of Jesus in this earlie volume from 2010, i thought I had better finish reading it and start blogging about it (even if not in that order). The reason for taking so long is that Casey’s book... Read more
The short answer to the question in the title of this post is almost certainly “no.” But it still seemed worth sharing the news article that came to my attention, claiming that an archaeologist has found the tomb of Judas, and in it, a pipe with traces of cannabis resin. I suspect that this may be an article someone was saving for April 1st but accidentally published too soon… Read more
Via God of Evolution Read more
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