There have been a lot of devastating reviews of Stephen Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. One recent one is by Larry Moran, and it sums up one of the problems with the book in a picture: The circle indicates the small moment in the history of life that Meyer’s book focuses on. And so the book isn’t dealing with the origin of life or most of the history of life... Read more
Phil Harland asked me to share (and AWOL also drew attention to) the book and other online resources about the ancient world that are available via his website. He writes: Book info: Philip A. Harland. Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society. Second revised edition with links to inscriptions. Kitchener, Ontario: Philip A. Harland, 2013. <http://www.philipharland.com/associations/> The main advantage of this edition is that each of the inscriptions and sources mentioned is keyed to the new... Read more
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Jeri Massi has been blogging about the connection between Christian fundamentalism and conspiracy theories. Here is a taste from her second post about this subject: [C]onspiracy theories are launched and spread by people who need an excuse for their powerlessness. And some psychologists warn that avid fans of conspiracy theories: those who go from one to another, are projecting themselves onto their own favorite theories. Living in a conspiracy theory is like living in a happy dream, where, even if... Read more
Yesterday’s Speed Bump gets at the fallibility of religious leaders, even famous ones. It reminds me of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which depicts Jesus as a child, filled with incredible power, but also human and thus immature and prone to use his powers capriciously. Whatever one thinks of its contents, it reflects an awareness that one cannot think of Jesus as static and always perfectly mature and wise, and either claim that he was fully human, or for that... Read more
Tim Bulkeley has posted the first two of his 5 minute Bible videos, focusing on genre in the Bible. The first is above, and here is the second, focused on prose and poetry. Read more
I will be giving a brown bag lunchtime talk on campus next week on the topic of Doctor Who and religion. Click through to see the poster advertising the event! Read more
Happy new year to those who celebrate it according to the Jewish calendar! Even the Iranian president has voiced his Rosh ha-Shanah sentiments! Read more
Thanks to John Shore for drawing my attention to the NALT Christians Project website. NALT stands for “Not All Like That,” and it is a call for Christians who tell LGBT people “we are not all like that” to say that loudly and not just privately. Here is an introductory video by Dan Savage about the project. Savage should be familiar to you from his work on the “It Gets Better” project. And it was cool to get to see... Read more
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