Some Monday morning links, including: The Onion takes on Last-Thursdayism; bartending in Antarctica; flash-flood videos; $100 million buys a lot of lies about the climate; a legal extortion racket run by the police; Saint Never's Day. Read more
Some Monday morning links, including: The Onion takes on Last-Thursdayism; bartending in Antarctica; flash-flood videos; $100 million buys a lot of lies about the climate; a legal extortion racket run by the police; Saint Never's Day. Read more
Every scientist in every discipline must be in on it. ... But it doesn't stop there. It couldn't. ... The conspiracy requires that it be much larger than that. It can't be just the scientists and the sciences, the colleges and universities, the libraries, newspaper and the media who are in on it. Read more
We can make maps today that are clearer, more accurate and more complete than this old globe, but we do so mindful that 500 years from now, our best efforts may appear as sketchy as this beautifully carved artifact from 1504. We go about our learning mindful that our best knowledge may, someday, be improved upon in ways we cannot imagine by people with resources we cannot imagine that will enable them to see further and clearer and deeper than we are able to see now. Read more
Isaiah 1: "When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Read more
You can't be a young-earth creationist and be from Australia. I think if you're a young-earth creationist, you're not even allowed to believe in Australia. That continent is evolution's playground, it's showroom. Ken Ham couldn't have built his Creation Museum in Australia because they already have a thriving Evolution Museum there -- it takes up the entire island. The displays are fantastic. Read more
Science blogs tend to celebrate their heroes, and the heroes they celebrate are often people who are not usually celebrated in the religious blogs I also read and enjoy. People like Neil de Grasse Tyson or Carl Sagan. Those folks are my heroes too because they exemplify gratitude. "In everything give thanks," St. Paul wrote, and most of us fail to do that. But scientists like Sagan and Tyson show us what that looks like. Read more
You can approve of both embryonic stem-cell research and IVF clinics, or you can disapprove of both. But you cannot, as President Bush does, condemn the former while embracing the latter. Read more
Buck Williams isn't warned by God in a dream. He's warned by God in a dream in which he's a Bible character being warned by God in a dream. This dream-within-a-dream is kind of trippy and Inception-like, but it's not as dizzying as the endless recursion of literalism and inerrancy fueling the authors' logic here. Read more
We've been spending time here most Fridays looking at the execrable theology of the Left Behind series. So it might be good to also take some time on Fridays to remind ourselves of what the book of Revelation is really all about. This week's reminder comes from N.T. Wright. Read more
Bloggers react in disgust to the disgusting disgust of the "Gospel" Coalition. YNATKC. The people who used to add the local angle to wire stories no longer work for newspapers. Torturers sue their victims. RIP Elmore Leonard -- and a real-life story that seems like he wrote it. NRA compiling huge database of gun-owners in obvious plot to confiscate all weapons and take over the world. Why the Big Bang should really be called the "Everywhere Stretch." Read more
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