In looking for songs to sing, I have recently listened more closely to Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs than I ever had previously. Below are two of them that I particularly like, with the lyrics. First, here is “The Heavenly Banquet”: I would like to have the men of Heaven in my own house; with vats of good cheer laid out for them. I would like to have the three Mary’s, their fame is so great. I would like people from... Read more
The prologue to the Gospel of Luke is unique among the Gospels. Its author provides a prologue indicating something about his aims and methods. This would have been a great opportunity to mention something like his receiving of divine revelation. Instead, here is what he wrote: Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were... Read more
I had someone ask me recently if I was a pantheist. I assume it was because of something that I wrote which had not been read carefully. The model of the divine that I find most resonates with me is panentheism. Obviously there are a number of different ways that panentheism can be understood and configured, from the view of God as relating to the cosmos as the soul does to the body in traditional Cartesian dualism, to God as... Read more
“If we have the truth, [it] cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.” — J. Reuben Clark, leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Read more
Today in my Sunday school class, we started off talking about the separation of church and state, and by the end we were talking about Syria. Syria also came up in the sermon, which was on Psalm 3, the first lament in the Psalter. I found my thoughts turning to Syria in one of my classes at Butler University as well, as we discussed one of the readings for that day, which was Clifford’s classic essay “The Ethics of Belief.”... Read more
There is now a page on the University of Manchester website about the upcoming day conference on religion and Doctor Who: Join scholars from the UK, US and Scandinavia as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who with a wide-ranging examination of the way it has dealt with (and been used by) religion and religious organisations. Over the show’s long history on television religion and religious themes have consistently been a subject of interest. From early depictions of Buddhism... Read more
Tim Widowfield has a post at Vridar which he says has nothing to do with mythicism, and yet somehow the post manages to repeat many of mythicism’s standard canards and talking points. In it he claims that that we know nothing about the Gospels’ provenance (this is not any more true in the case of the Gospels than many other ancient texts that are historically useful), that there is no agreement about their genre (it is not as open a... Read more
There’s a wonderful op-ed piece by Aaron Hirsh in today’s New York Times, on online teaching and what it stands to gain and lose. His proposal, that wise use of online components can free up more time for experiential learning, resonates with my own thoughts on this subject. Read more
I recently mentioned the contrast between two very different sorts of “design argument.” Now another Patheos blog, The Secular Outpost, has gone even further, suggesting that the addition of additional design arguments undercuts others. The point of that post in a nutshell is this: If one argues for evidence of design in biology, brought about through direct intervention, then you undercut the argument that the universe is fine-tuned for life to emerge and flourish. The former is rendered less persuasive... Read more
The above screenshot from a Yahoo! question came my way via Facebook. Most felt it to be a parody. If so, it is a good one – taking the Bible at its word and insisting on its literal truthfulness about a detail that most self-proclaimed literalists are happy to ignore. Perhaps I should do a series arguing for the literal truthfulness of every single detail in the Bible, precisely as written and understood at face value, irrespective of extrabiblical data,... Read more
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