Behold the Kepler Collection
Kepler‘s planets, seen in silhouette, against their parent stars. The star colors — which are accurate — indicate temperature: the redder, the cooler; the bluer, the hotter. These are not images taken by Kepler, but are generated from Kepler data; measurements of the stars’ temperatures and distances help astronomers determine their luminosities, and once these [...]
XI. Thou shalt not speak before thinking
Fra Angelico, Peter Martyr Enjoins Silence, c.1441. Peter Martyr, known also as St. Peter of Verona, was an Italian Dominican friar whose preaching was responsible for returning many heretics, most notably Cathari, to orthodoxy. Catharism was a religious movement with dualist tendencies; that is, it held that there was a God of Good and a [...]
Art Sunday: Seven from Sister Wendy Beckett
Pia Stern, The Room of Longing (2008). “I saw the spirituality of her images right from the start,” said Sister Wendy of Ms. Stern’s work. Wendy’s enthusiasm for Ms. Stern made me curious, and today I’m a fan. See more of her work here. Used by permission of the artist. Click on image for a [...]
On prayer: Simone Weil and the excluded God
Simone Weil‘s 1935 factory identification photo. In that year she began working as a power press operator at the Alstom Company in Paris. She was highly educated and had many options but chose to work alongside those who had no power. She later wrote, “A modern factory reaches perhaps almost the limit of horror. Everybody [...]
Leonard Pitts Jr. on the de-evolution of America
LPJ knows which end of the stick is up. Image source: The Salt Lake Tribune We have always loved Leonard Pitts Jr. for his insight, wit, and humanity. So we thought we’d pass along this piece to all Alert Readers. It pretty much speaks for itself, and certainly speaks for us when it comes to [...]
The end of faith? Bring it
And he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Anonymous, Jesus and the Rich Man, 11th century. Image source: Index of Armenian Art By all appearances, the end is near. That’s what the scientists are telling us, anyway. It seems that a group of specialists in the (really cool) field of nonlinear dynamics have [...]
Did Jesus really die for our sins?
Fritz Eichenberg, The Black Crucifixion, 1963. Placing a black Christ on the cross changes the meaning of the image. We may need a change in our understanding of the atonement and of Christ’s passion and death. Image source: Sacred Art Pilgrim We’re in the Christian season of Lent, and Lent is a good time to [...]
Art Sunday: The spectacular Mandelbrot Set
The Mandelbrot Set, named after one Benoit Mandelbrot, who spent years studying and popularizing it. We at psnt.net are grateful for Wolfgang Beyer, who created these beautiful images and freely released them for the world to enjoy. Source of all images: Wikimedia Commons It’s Art Sunday again! This week we bring to you the Mandelbrot [...]
The wages of sin is plate tectonics
Here’s a nice elevation map of our poor fractured home planet. Click on the image for a detailed look. Notice in particular (1) the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the S-shaped mountain range running from the extreme South Atlantic all the way up to Iceland and beyond, and opening up at an average rate of 2.5 cm per [...]
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, we are dust
Last weekend’s tsunami washes over Sendai I will try to make this brief. Today, five things: 1. This is hell. I don’t watch TV news. And I have been busy. So I had not, until this afternoon, watched any of the footage of Japan’s earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-meltdown crisis. It is heartbreaking. The above video came from this [...]
