I mentioned previously that these two episodes from the Patrick Troughton era were rediscovered in Nigeria and are now available for purchase on iTunes (they will be released on DVD next year). I downloaded and watched them as soon as they were available, and my son and I both enjoyed them. Web of Fear is particularly important because it is directly connected to the enemy The Great Intelligence and to specific stories in the recent season of Doctor Who. I... Read more
There is a Tumblr called “Facts I Just Made Up” which includes a lot of outlandish explanations of photos. It also includes this rather unique false but funny claim related to Gnostic interpretation of the Bible: Read more
Via Reddit. Read more
Terry Firma shared the above image. It helpfully illustrates what is really going on in fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. Their view should never be referred to as “Biblical literalism” since it only insists on the Bible being literally true when it is desirable to do so, and not where it is “obviously” a metaphor, such as the dome over the Earth, or in its teaching about gluttony or giving up all your possessions. Calling the fundamentalist view “Biblical literalism”... Read more
Some may be thinking that they have missed the deadline to get free shipping for items they want to buy for Christmas via Amazon. But that isn’t so. If you sign up for a free trial of Amazon Prime, you can get free two-day shipping, and then if you don’t want to pay for it, just cancel it after your Christmas shopping is done. You can also get Amazon.com Gift Cards in a greeting card with free one-day shipping –... Read more
Students in one of my classes wrote about the problem of evil this semester, and some chose to do their final paper on that topic. For many of them, the problem of evil seems to be something simple. Sure, there may be suffering, but all the joys and pleasures of life make up for them. It seems that for at least some modern Americans, sheltered from the experiences of poverty, famine, disease, war, and other catastrophes that have typified human... Read more
From a t-shirt Read more
Fred Clark has a post that starts off being about the whole Duck Dynasty hullabaloo, but in the process focuses on the character of Paul’s letters and the nature of prooftexting. Here’s my favorite part: Quoting Paul to defend exclusion is like quoting Tony Soprano to defend pacifism. Maybe you can find something Tony said that you can pluck out of context to make it sound like it might support that. And then you can ignore everything else Tony ever... Read more
I recently mentioned the slow pace at which conversations can take place in the blogosphere. As if to illustrate this point, Tim O’Neill has posted a response to David Fitzgerald’s blog post from almost two years ago, which was in turn responding to O’Neill’s review of the book. I discussed the book here back in 2011. The mills of the blogosphere grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. Read more
Dale Tuggy has revisited a discussion that took place between myself and Michael Kruger about the Christology of the Gospel of Mark. One nice thing about blogging is that discussions can take place over extended periods of time, as one finds the time to chime in, assuming the topic is engaging enough to sustain interest – as this one surely is. Click through to see what he has to say. James Dowden has also joined in the ongoing conversation. UPDATE: Dale... Read more
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