Theology gone bad
Clarence Larkin, Book of Revelation, 1919. Click on the image for a high-resolution (3 MB) version. Amazing, isn’t it? It’s a much nicer presentation that the one I was offered in Sunday school when I was 11, but it has a lot of the same general features. Although Rev. Larkin was by all accounts a [...]
Buddha’s back
Image source: introductionbuddhism.info Pray allow me me a little self-disclosure. I am Christian in faith and practice. Nine hundred ninety-nine days out of a thousand, I don’t give serious thought to religions outside my own. I have had several opportunities to learn about Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., some of them firsthand, but my understanding of [...]
Suffer the little children: Bees sting you because you’re naughty
Bombus terrestris, 1978. 10-dinar stamp from the Soviet days. Image source: Animal Kingdom I have recently stumbled upon a most depressing trove of nonsense at the Answers in Genesis website. As its name implies, AiG is all about answers. They love answers, which is why they love the Bible so much. The Bible, as we [...]
The only way out is through
Madelene Purdie, Stations of the Cross. Purdie, an Australian aboriginal artist, follows the minority convention of placing a resurrected Christ in a 15th panel When in seminary I had a New Testament professor who said something I will always remember. He said that of all the world’s religions he preferred Buddhism and Christianity because these [...]
Kim Frabicius on the literal and the literary
William Hogarth, The Distress’d Poet, 1737. Why is the poet distress’d? Perhaps the answer can be found in the following from Walker Percy: “Science works better, this is the age of science, scientists are the princes of the age, while artists and writers are the frantic Lazaruses at the feast, hungering for crumbs like the [...]
More on the 9/11 cross
Photo by Mario Tama As we all know, American Atheists have filed a lawsuit against those who plan to display a cross-shaped piece of wreckage at the 9/11 memorial. This is an artifact that brought comfort to many Americans, most particularly New Yorkers and those who were involved in the cleanup of Lower Manhattan. And [...]
Jerry Coyne falls into the gap
Eugene Berman, The Good Samaritan (1930). The Samaritan, a clear out-group representative from the perspective of Jesus’ audience, was plenty good. What Jesus didn’t know is that it was “evolution and secular reasoning,” and not God, that made him good. Turns out that’s what made Jesus good too. Image source: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum [...]
Mind the gaps
Illumination from the Codex Aemilianensis, 992. In the tenth century we had no reason to suspect Adam and Eve had not been actual people. Now we do. Image source: University of Florida God lives in the gaps. And the gaps must be getting downright cozy for God. The God of the gaps fallacy runs deep. [...]
Keep your eye on the story
As Scott at Scotteriology says, this must be what drove Noah to drink after the flood. WARNING Part 1 (above) is fantastic but Part 2 gets really tedious and features some harsh language Henry, my 11-year-old son, has a new hobby: magic. He’s getting pretty good at it, too. Whenever I take our toddler out [...]
Big Head Todd and the mass extinction problem
Todd Park Mohr of Big Head Todd and the Monsters recording at Ardent Studios in Memphis. I missed BHTM back in the 1990′s when they had their major-scale success; I blame graduate school for this. But a good friend introduced them to me several years ago and to this day I am grateful to him [...]
