Having written a song that appreciates the traditional Christmas story as story, I feel like I need to counterbalance it with some other songs which take into account historical criticism and other scholarly methods and their conclusions. I have a few ideas already for new lyrics to traditional Christmas songs – and so let me start things off with “O Little Town of Nazareth”: O Little Town of Nazareth O little town of Nazareth Minute village in fact From... Read more
Over at the blog Freedom in Orthodox, there is a review of my book The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context. Walker manages to be remarkably fair, given his hostility to my stance even prior to reading. I really appreciate that, and encourage readers to click through and read his review, and leave comments there and here, to get some conversation going between those who find my arguments persuasive and those who do not. It may... Read more
The major difference between the kinds of design arguments one encounters in cosmology and biology is this: The design argument in physics involves accepting what the majority of scientists in that field conclude, while the design argument in biology involves rejecting what the majority of scientists in that field conclude. And conversely, the objections to the latter are scientific objections, while the objections to the former are about philosophy and worldview. For instance, that various biological features are irreducibly complex... Read more
Joseph Kelly shared this lovely bit of seasonal library creativity on Facebook, which he and his library colleagues Haley Curtis Moss and Chris Wells created. Read more
From yesterday's Family Circus. Read more
Lindsey Sterling performs the classic melody. Read more
Patheos has a new feature called Versus, which is a place set aside specifically for debate about issues. Take a look, see what’s there to start with, and provide input on what sorts of topics it would be interesting to see debated there in the future – including any that you’d like to see me get involved in! Read more
The inspirational comic in the series Doodle Alley by Stephen McCranie, “Be Friends With Failure,” deserves to be shared widely. It focuses on a very basic truth, but which many never learn, and as a result, they give up because they aren’t immediately good at something, rather than realizing that failing frequently is the only path to success. An excerpt is provided below. Click through to see the rest. Read more
A. David Lewis has put out a call for more attention to be paid, perhaps in the form of an exploratory session next year, to religion in comic books. David has also set up a discussion forum for this and other topics. Those interested in this intersection (you know who you are) should click through and participate in the discussion! Read more
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