Some Baptists just can’t keep their heads
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Salome with the Head of the Baptist c. 1609. Source: caravaggio-foundation.org In the last month a friend of mine at church has sent me some interesting stories provided by the Associated Baptist Press. Both have to do with statements made by faculty and administration of the once-great Southern Baptist Theological Seminary [...]
William James considers the M word
Roy Behrens, William James (2001). Source: William James Cybrery. Used by permission of the artist THE FIRST THING TO KNOW: Mysticism is not a very nice word. In a recent post I said that you will not find that word mentioned very often at psnt.net. This is true, despite the fact that negative theology and [...]
It’s a bottomless sky
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Source: S. Beckwith & the HUDF Working Group/HST/ESA/NASA. Click on the image for a nice high-resolution 19 MB version. It may take a minute to load, but once you have it you can have a boatload of fun getting lost among the jillions of distant and colorful galaxies. Of course, [...]
An invitation for you
Jesus and Zaccheus, from the icon collection of St. Mary Coptic Orthodox Church, East Brunswick, NJ. Jesus saw Zaccheus and wanted to know his story. I’m not Jesus and you — I assume — are not perched in a sycamore tree, but I want to know your story anyway Dear Alert Readers, I’d like to [...]
The third way
Lisa Perrin, The Triumph of Reason, graphite on paper, 2009. Used by permission of the artist. Perrin writes on her site: “Yes, that is Charles Darwin riding a unicorn as a symbol of ‘The triumph of reason over fantasy and fallacy.’ You might also note the finches with various beak sizes, the slain dragon (the [...]
Thoughts on solitude
Marc Chagall, Elijah Touched by an Angel, from the Bible suite, 1958. Image source: The Jewish Museum, New York Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, ‘So may the gods do to me, and more [...]
Queen of the Damned quits Christianity. One asks, why not?
Anne Rice by I Am Second. She was a Christian, now she’s not The news is a few weeks old, I guess, and maybe I need to get out more. But just this week it has come to my attention that Anne Rice, most famously the author of many dark and popular vampire tales, has [...]
This just in: Bible proves Einstein wrong
The left-wing rabble-rouser, anti-truth conspirator, and Bible-unbeliever at his home in Princeton, NJ in 1950. Only a liberal agitator would wear shoes like that Friends, I had to create a new category, weirdness, for this one. I really love it when people of some prominence say things without thinking about it first. In this case [...]
Evolution and the art of dying well
They died out, sure. But did they die out well? Apatosaurus lived about 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period (Kimmeridgian and Tithonian ages). It was one of the largest land animals that ever existed, with an average length of 23 m (75 ft). Yet it, like every other form of life on our fair planet, [...]
Salvador Dalí and the curse of feel-good science
Despite my extraordinary lukewarmness toward Salvador Dalí‘s art, I love this Phillipe Halsman photograph of him in midair, three flying cats, water thrown from a bucket, and other levitating odds and ends. The title of the work is Dalí Atomicus, in reference to the painting Leda Atomica in background right. Leda Atomica is one of [...]
