I find it bizarre that critics of evolution who claim that science is simply guessing, and that one cannot draw conclusions about past biological evolution based in present evidences, do not see how this undercuts their own claims every bit as much, if not more so. Religious fundamentalists, of the sort that offer pseudoscientific critiques of evolution, typically claim that God spoke to and through people in the past. They claim that this revelation has persisted or left an impact... Read more
Brian LePort has posted on one of the different manuscript readings in Acts 20:28. For those who may be new to the topic, there are two important variants in that verse in the Greek manuscripts we have. On the one hand, manuscripts vary on reading “church of God” or “church of the Lord.” On the other hand, in some manuscripts, the phrase “his own blood” is worded in such a way that it can mean “the blood of (the one... Read more
A colleague has this shirt, and I liked it so much I had to share the image from it. If you’re looking for his expression when romantically dejected, then click here… Read more
Jeff Carter has posted another installment in his series of images exploring the intersection of religion and sci-fi/superheroes: Read more
In my Sunday school class yesterday, we found ourselves talking about Paul’s at times universalist-sounding language in Romans, and how it relates to traditional Christian ideas about salvation, punishment and afterlife. I shared my own thought that it is hard to believe that Paul, having worked in the first part of his letter to demolish traditional boundaries such as those between Jews and Gentiles, he was now simply replacing them with others, Christian vs. non-Christian for instance. It seems that... Read more
At IO9, an article on “Why We Still Love Battlestar Galactica” focuses on Ron Moore’s work not only on BSG but also on Star Trek and other shows, using religion to provide depth and realism to fictional alien cultures. There have also been numerous new posts over at Philip K. Dick and Religion, including one on Gnosticism and Dick’s epistemology, and another on Dick, Spinoza, the Bible and the world. Read more
In Biblical studies news in the blogosphere: David Burnett shared the latest in his series of monotheism interviews, this one with Michael Heiser. Rogue Classicism shared a link to an article on the bioarchaeology of crucifixion. If you were hoping for something more humorous, then there are some spoof religious video games at Something Awful (HT Hemant Mehta). Here’s one example: Read more
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The Doctor Who episode The Crusade sees the TARDIS and its passengers encounter Richard the Lionheart as he fights – and unsuccessfully considers a means of potentially reaching peace with – Saladin. The episode had the potential to have much more reference to religion than it did. But in fact, it was probably realistic to depict the situation as one involving first and foremost military conflict aimed at achieving victory, with religious motivations at best in the background. Religion comes... Read more
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