One of the downsides of doing grocery shopping at 7 a.m. on Sunday is that, if you’re listening to National Public Radio (NPR), as I’m wont to do, you’ll probably have to hear the unctuous Krista Tippett and her “On Being” show. The American version of a less scholarly Karen Armstrong, Tippett never met a religion […]
With my post on “The Dog Delusion“, I was ahead of the curve, though I thought of it as a humorous Papal remark that wouldn’t go anywhere. I was wrong: the Pope’s implication that all animals go to Heaven (implying they have souls), as well as the discovery of an earlier and similar statement by Pope […]
Okay, I’m not going to dissect the article cited below for two reasons. First, I’m working on the copyedits of the Albatross, an onerous and tiring task. But the main reason is that a colleague and I are writing a scholarly critique of the paper , and it’s wearisome to state the arguments twice. But the paper […]
Today’s Jesus and Mo strip is apparently a reprinted old one, as the authors says he/she has had “unforseen circumstances” (according to the subscriber’s email, it’s “bad family news”). Let’s wish the artist well. This is about as good a four-panel description of theology as I’ve seen. I’d love to put this as the frontispieces […]
That was the header of the email that reader Diane G. sent me along with the following cartoon. It’s amazing that this would get published! “I beesech you, in the bowels of Christ. . .” Could Schulz have been reading about Cromwell?
Well, there’s this website whose name (which includes “Science and Nonduality”) has some strange characters in it, so I’ll just give a screenshot that links to the site: Part of the site’s aim is to “ignite the dialogue between science and spirituality,” which already erects my fur. And on that site, someone named Bernardo Kastrup has […]
What a good feeling it is to see a university get rid of its theology courses! Religious history or comparative religion is fine; theology, not so much. If you want to teach about the properties of nonexistent objects, do it in a private divinity school or seminary. There’s simply no excuse for a public university […]
Philosophers have reproved me because, as a mere biologist, I have no right to criticize the teaching of philosophy of religion in colleges, nor to call for its end. But I reject the idea that biologists have no standing to give such an opinion, just as I reject the notion that philosophers can’t pass judgement on whether […]
In all the to-and-fro we’ve had in the last couple of weeks, some people have maintained that very few people—and almost no theologians—see the Bible as literally true. If you live in the US, you’ll know how ludicrous that is. While I agree that Americans who take the whole document as the literal word of […]
Over at the website Pictoral Theology, reader Pliny the In Between offers one theological explanation for natural evils” (deaths not involving human “free will,” including natural disasters, childhood cancers, and so on):
