Quiz: Why do people have trouble believing in God?
Michelangelo‘s Creation of Adam with a significant 21st-century alteration. Can you find it? Source: www.fotodiario2.it That’s the question I’m asking after reading physicist Marcelo Gleiser’s post...
View ArticleOn HHDL and the ironic practice of religion
Dalai Lama, London, 1996. Photograph by Steve Pyke. Used with permission of the photographer Back in early September, His Holiness the Dalai Lama shared the following via Facebook: All the world’s...
View ArticleToo simple to be wrong: the Bronze Age Goat Herder Conceit
My favorite goat herder: the constellation Auriga, copyright Sergey Mikhaylov. Auriga is usually called the Charioteer, but he’s almost always pictured as a goatherd on celestial maps. For those of us...
View ArticleOn religion, science, and The Breakfast Club
Hellraiser: The Breakfast Club‘s John Bender, played by Jud Nelson Note: This is a reworked version of a post published back in 2011. If all goes well, this version will be showing up at Huffpost...
View ArticleOn Walker Percy and those ridiculous Apple ads
Oh my goodness, what warm baths are these new Apple adverts! Candles and incense! And is that harp music? Does Apple have no shame? Apple is not the first company to take itself too seriously, of...
View ArticleJust as we suspected: big majority rejects conflict
The center third of Education, a stained glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany, located at Yale University. It depicts religion and science in harmony. Funny thing: it was created in 1890, just as the...
View ArticleAyn Rand’s perfect illusion or: Why my son will probably survive Anthem
Arnold Newman, Ayn Rand, 1964. According to biographer Anne C. Heller, Rand believed “the dollar sign was a better symbol than the cross, because it didn’t require the sacrifice of anybody.” So my...
View ArticleThe sacred and secular in ten minutes
The stars down there. Albrecht Dürer, Stars of the Southern Sky, 1515. Because most southern stars remain permanently underfoot for northern observers, this part of the sky was not familiar to 16th...
View ArticleThe Internet is killing religion (and science too)
That’ll preach: Adam Conover from Adam Ruins Everything It is true. The Internet is killing religion not because it exposes people to new ideas, and not because it tends to draw out everyone’s inner...
View ArticleBeyond “beyond creation versus evolution”
The old religion versus science duality is perhaps best exemplified by debates like the one that occurred between Ken Ham and Bill Nye nearly two years ago. Dull as this combat might be, however, most...
View ArticleYouth wanna know: Three questions on faith and science
Final Communion at PYM16, led by the incomparable Allyson Dylan Robinson Two weeks ago I was in Dallas for the Progressive Youth Ministry conference. I was there to deliver a plenary because one of its...
View ArticleOn communal embarrassment, Buddhism, and the soul: Three more questions from...
The practical Buddha This is the second of a three-part series addressing nine questions posed by a friend’s youth group in Edina, Minnesota. The first installment is here. What is the relationship...
View ArticleThe world is not finite: final questions from the youth of Edina
Master Bertram, Grabow Altarpiece (detail showing the creation of the beasts), c. 1383. I love how the lower section of the robe has been made to look like the sea Greetings, dear readers. I’ve had a...
View ArticleArk Encounter and the death of wonder
The ark seems to float on a sea of creationists in this image from Ark Encounter’s ribbon cutting ceremony. Jim Lo Scalzo I hoped it wouldn’t happen. I even secretly thought it wouldn’t happen. But I...
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