It would be inappropriate to apologize for the pun in the title of this post, since the fact that you read it means I chose not to go ahead with making it. The blog Like a Child, authored by a self-described “former scientist” wrestling with matters of doubt and faith, has posted the first part of a review of and reflection on the book Can We Trust the Gospels? by Mark D. Roberts. I know that there are many readers... Read more

Rod at the Political Jesus blog has a brief review of TRON Legacy. It is an indication of what those who have seen it found interesting that I have been getting lots of visitors coming to the blog via search engines, looking for information about isomorphic algorithms. I hope to return to that topic in more detail at some point, since it connects with a theme that is explored in The Matrix films but left largely unaddressed in both TRON... Read more

In response to the discussions of biblioblog rankings on this blog and elsewhere, the famed NT Wrong has reappeared and is promising to restart the Biblioblog Top 50, with a whole new set of criteria. Read more

Even if I didn’t have anything else to add to the whole Jim West as #1 biblioblogger discussion, I would have posted anyway, to stake my claim to the fantastic pun on that subject which serves as the title to this post. But as it happens, Dan McClellan has started a new blog dedicated to the top ten bibliobloggers to be selected by vote, chosen by the bibliobloggers themselves. I think this has a useful function to complement traffic-based ranking, since the... Read more

http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/main.swf HT IO9 Read more

Several blogs (The Lead, Irtiqa and Friendly Atheist) have mentioned the recent Gallup Poll results, which suggests that 4 in 10 Americans believe that God made humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years. They provide this chart illustrating how this compares with previous years’ poll results: Read more

Thanks to Phil Plait for the reminder that the universe has scheduled the next lunar eclipse for early Tuesday morning. Read more

Reviews of Biblical and Early Christian Studies offers a summary of Markus Bockmuehl’s presentation on creatio ex nihilo in ancient Judaism and Christianity. Read more

Jim Linville offers a roundup of how things are heating up in the biblioblogosphere. And Jim West is offering a new approach to biblioblog rankings, in the form of a chortle and a challenge. Read more

Some time ago I quoted Francisco Ayala, the well known Christian biologist, as pointing out that thanks to genetics there are now no more gaps or “missing links” in the family tree of life. We can study relationships via genes and no longer depend on the fossils that we are fortunate enough to have preserved down to our time. An article today on IO9 addresses the same point from a different angle, explaining how genetics allows us to study life... Read more