First, one Barton shared a video of another Barton saying something utterly ridiculous: Arni Zachariassen shares a link to a video of Michael Nowak speaking about evolution and Christianity. And Mason shares how his view on evolution has changed over a decade. Read more
For many people, the title of this post may be meaningless. “What is penal substitution?” would seem to them a better question. But if I explain that it is the idea that there is a penalty for sin, and God punished Jesus instead of us, they will immediately recognize it and say “That’s what I believe!” So forgive the technical shorthand if it is unfamiliar to you. I abandoned the penal substitutionary view of the atonement while I was an undergraduate... Read more
IO9 posted a photo of a sign that is apparently to be found here in Indianapolis. I’ve never seen it, but now that I know it is out there, I’ll be looking for it. Here’s the sign: It’s almost as good as the one Charles Schmidt posted and Mark Goodacre spread the word about. Read more
IO9 reported the news that bow ties will remain cool for another year. Matt Smith has confirmed that he is returning to play the Doctor on Doctor Who for another 14 episodes. Read more
The following cartoon was shared today by Unreasonable Faith and then by Scotteriology (with a twist): Far worse than combining Biblical literalism with science is combining religious faith with scientific ignorance, as in the example below from Facebook which came via P. Z. Myers: For an impressive example of the sun’s power on display today, see the video Phil Plait shared. And if that radiation reaches earth, it might lead to people singing this song. A concluding note: if, having... Read more
The two possible meanings of the title of this post are intentional. It seems to me that the same tactics that Christians who believe in the Bible’s inerrancy use to deal with evidence to the contrary are the tactics being used to defend the inerrancy of Sarah Palin (and other politicians – Palin just provides one obvious recent example – and to do something similar with other subjects altogether). What do inerrantists do when it seems that the Bible, or even... Read more
Although I never followed the show, catching even a few snippets of Babylon 5 here and there have left me with a memory of the catchphrase that Babylon 5 was the “last, best hope” for peace. And it failed. Perhaps the same sort of phrase would fit what R. Joseph Hoffmann wrote today about Richard Carrier’s yet-to-be-published work attempting to make historical inquiry more rigorous by using Bayes theorem. Here’s a sample: Debaters like Carrier have suggested that the critical... Read more
Not everyone who reads the title of this post will agree with it immediately. But via P. Z. Myers I learned that it is now a simple matter of indisputable fact in at least one sense: According to the National Center for Science Education, the company that produced the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Premise Media Holdings, has filed for bankruptcy. The NCSE created a web site addressing some of the movie’s claims. Read more
I’d say that Exploring Our Matrix is off to a pretty good start here at its new location on the Patheos site. Today it reached a hundred posts and exceeded a thousand comments. While I think that this suggests that all is well, milestones like this provide a good opportunity for reflection and feedback. So if you have any thoughts on what you like about Exploring Our Matrix as you’ve come to know and love it, what you could do... Read more
Just in case anyone hasn’t seen this yet… Read more
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