Young earth creationists are notorious for two things (among others): a handful of them have obtained a PhD in a relevant scientific domain, doing research the legitimacy of and basis for which they intend to repudiate as soon as they have the letters after their name, with the sole aim of adding legitimacy to the ideology that they adhered to before ever studying science; and they claim that the overwhelming consensus of those who have PhDs in biology, genetics, paleontology,... Read more
Time, Space, and Faith: Religion and Doctor Who John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, 2nd November 2013 Doctor Who is a cultural phenomenon in both the UK and the United States, continuing to go from strength-to-strength as it celebrates its 50th anniversary in November 2013. Over the show’s long history on television—and in various spin-off TV shows, audio adventures, novels and comic books—religion and religious themes have consistently been a subject of interest. From early depictions of Buddhism and pagan... Read more
Kathy Vestal wrote an interesting post with this title at Red Letter Christians. Here is a taste: [W]e forget our place before God. We twist our religion to be about knowledge. We contrive and memorize “facts” about God, dividing ourselves from those who understand differently, making God into our image rather than us in God’s, because our image is all we are humanly capable of understanding. What if we devote our whole life to trying to understand God? Our knowledge... Read more
I saw this today on the University of Indianapolis campus. Apparently American TARDISes are even smaller on the outside. Read more
Richard Carrier has written a characteristically-long blog post which ends with the following sentence: “But alas, when people make false claims about our work and straw man our arguments in an effort to malign our competence, sometimes we have to pay at least the respect of exposing what they’ve done.” The post also mentions a “McGrath” who I assume is me, and he writes this: If he was fabricating, he would invent a prophesy that said Jesus would be a... Read more
Unvirtuous Abbey posted this status update on Facebook: If I speak in the tongues of men or R2 units, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or bleeping android. Someone added the comment: If I am fluent in over six million forms of communication, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give up my body to be frozen in carbonite, but have not love, I gain nothing. There are so many others one could... Read more
Statistics tell us… well, even though they are numbers, statistics do not automatically provide answers to questions. And 73.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot – as that one was. But sometimes statistics can tell us something important. They can quantify what otherwise may seem vague and merely impressionistic. I regularly cite statistics in talking about the differences between the Gospel of John and the Synoptics. Comparing how often “kingdom,” “father,” and “I” occur (as James D.... Read more
David Hayward’s cartoon which he posted today depicts what “faith” is for many people: Hundreds of years ago, faith meant a response of trust and faithfulness to a God whose existence was thought to scarcely be in serious doubt. The order of the cosmos, the power of storms, and many other aspects of life seemed to point to a powerful personal agent within and behind it all. Faith meant responding with faithfulness and trust to that entity. Today most of... Read more
The president of Butler University, Jim Danko, made this announcement today: Dear Butler Community Members, Butler University values its Indianapolis neighbors and opportunities to collaborate with them on innovative projects. This announcement concerns one such very fulfilling partnership. During the 2012-2013 academic year, world-renowned South African theologian Allan Boesak held a joint visiting appointment at Butler University and Christian Theological Seminary (CTS). While at Butler, he worked with students in a number of classes in peace studies, political science, religion,... Read more
Select your answer to see how you score.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In