Nonsense for the rest of us
Benozzo Gozzoli, The Glory of Saint Thomas Aquinas. 1468-1484. Source: Wikimedia Commons. The speech bubble is of 21st-century provenance One of the pillars of the “New Atheism” (there’s nothing new about it) is that theology is a naked emperor. That is, theology is nonsense, through and through. And theologians, even really smart ones, are fundamentally [...]
Consider we now the lobster
This from the one and only Lobsterman: Lobsters molt (shed their shells) to grow. They secrete enzymes that soften the shell and connective shell joints. The shell splits up the back and the creature backs out leaving it behind…including the membrane that covered the eyes. They will increase their size by about 20% at every [...]
Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?r
Many of you, I am sure, have laughed at the stunning logic in this satirical and satisfying scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: She’s a witch because (1) she weighs as much as a duck; therefore (2) since ducks float, so does she; therefore (3) she is made of wood, which also floats; [...]
When I heard the annoy’ng poet
William Blake, Newton, 1795. Source: Wikimedia Commons Let us now consider the words of Walt Whitman from his poem When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer, included in the 1900 edition of Leaves of Grass. When I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown [...]
The joys of asymmetry
Edward Hopper, Soir bleu, 1944 | Whitney Museum of American Art | www.whitney.org In a mathematically perfect universe, we would be less than dead; we would never have existed. According to the basic precepts of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created in the Big Bang and [...]
The Body of Christ, shattered again
Hans Holbein the Younger, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, 1522 Wieuca Road Baptist Church, the church that raised me and loved me without reserve, is laid out in its tomb. Once again the Body of Christ has been broken by anger, mistrust, and fear. Once again we humble ourselves and beg [...]
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Welcome to the boundary: dragons, dark, a desert
Detail of the Carta marina, one of the first maps of Scandinavia, by Olaus Magnus, 1593. Click on the image to get a beautiful high-resolution reproduction of the entire map At the boundaries, knowledge gives out. The simplest example of this is the edges of old maps that say things like, “Here there be dragons.” [...]
