Quiz: Why do people have trouble believing in God?
Michelangelo‘s Creation of Adam with a significant 21st-century alteration. Can you find it? Source: www.fotodiario2.it That’s the question I’m asking after reading physicist Marcelo Gleiser’s post published last week at 13.7. Pointing to the problems with creationism and the fact that that belief in evolution decreases as church attendance increases, he asks, “Why do so [...]
Repost: Door by door
Dear Alert Readers, This was first published, in a slightly longer form, several months ago. I am reposting it because it really fits my mood these days. Hope all is well with you and yours. Paul Doorway in Galileo’s villa. I took this photo in 2003 when I visited Arcetri, a small village just to [...]
The magnificent defeat
Jack Baumgartner, Jacob Wrestling the Angel of the Lord (2010). Used by permission of the artist The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he [...]
One world
Kathy Chapman, Stephen Jay Gould. Image source: Wikimedia Commons Stephen Jay Gould was one of the foremost scientists of the last 100 years. He was an evolutionist and paleontologist and a prolific writer. A self-described “agnostic Jew,” he was fascinated with religion. In 1997 he wrote an influential article for Natural History. The title of [...]
Job redux: Loss and the glory of the world meet in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life
Sean Penn as Jack in Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life. Penn works his world-weary visage to great effect in the film Don’t worry, there are no spoilers here. In fact, I’m having a hard time even imagining a spoiler for this film. I could tell you the whole thing and it wouldn’t change its [...]
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 [...]
On sex and negative theology
Daniel Bonnell, Adam and Eve, 2011. Black crayon on grocery bag paper. See more of Bonnell’s works here. Used with permission of the artist Back in my physics grad school days I hung out with a lot of people who were students at the University’s divinity school. And several times, just for grins, I would [...]
