Here’s the conclusion from a review of the book The Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr by my co-worker on the Mandaean Book of John translation project, Charles Häberl: In summary, we have before us an outstanding contribution to the study of one of the rarest Semitic languages spoken today. Häberl is to be thanked for having brought all the tools of modern field linguistics and his wide understanding of general linguistics to clarify many of the basic issues in the phonology,... Read more
This is a follow-up to my motivational poster Doctor Who/Star Wars mash-up of the Doctor and Leonard “Bones” McCoy. If you join in one of these memes, please do share a link to your creation here! Read more
Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor that I have seen the least of, as of my writing this. Very few episodes with Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor had made it to America during the peak of my teenage fandom. This is not surprising, as they were very recent of just airing in the U.K. at that time. It was strange now to watch “Time and the Rani,” knowing that Colin Baker was fired because of the direction the show had been... Read more
In thinking about a talk I’m going to be giving on religion and sci-fi, in which I’m planning on comparing the treatment of religion in Star Trek and Doctor Who, I found myself brainstorming about possible humorous titles, which led me to make this mash-up: One could do a whole meme series, alluding to all the various things Bones has ever said along these lines. Anyone care to see if we can get a meme started? I’m sure there are... Read more
I keep coming back to this question. Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, says that pantheism is just “sexed-up atheism” (p.40). I have never been able to grasp why someone who believes this would choose atheism over pantheism. Seriously, if you had a choice between anything, and that same thing sexed-up, which would you choose? I would like to hear from those who identify with one of these categories or the other on why you self-identify as one... Read more
Via George Takei on Facebook Read more
Last Sunday in my Sunday school class, we continued to explore general and introductory topics related to the Book of Revelation, which we’re planning on studying over the course of the next several months. A question I posed is why, in view of the evidence to the contrary in the Book of Revelation itself, the futurist (aka Left Behind, aka premillenial dispensationalist) approach to interpreting the book remains so popular. For some, it is the only interpretation they have ever... Read more
This image has been circulating on Reddit and elsewhere: I think it is an interesting comparison to think about – as one who has blogged on more than one occasion about the relationship between religion and both the original Tron movie and the sequel Tron: Legacy. On the one hand, it certainly is mistaken to think that Tron depicts what goes on in computers, or that the Bible or the Qur’an gives scientific and historical information, other than in a... Read more
Iona, “Edge of the World” from their album Beyond These Shores. Read more
Via Dawn Shea on Pinterest Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In