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 [...]
War is over: top ten R&S peacemakers of 2011
The billboard came before the song. This NYC photograph is from December 1969; “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” was released two years later. Image source: The Rock File I’ve a new article up at Religion Dispatches. Here’s the lede: This year has marked, I believe, the beginning of the end of the war between science [...]
Keep Austin somewhat less weird
Lucky LaRue, Altoids That Bite, 2009. At the South Austin Popular Culture Center. This is the kind of weirdness we like. There are kinds not so likeable. Used with permission of the artist. Image source: redbubble.com it hurts a bit that I’ve never been to weird Austin, Republic of Texas. Alas for me: Everyone I [...]
Twinkle, twinkle, little nonradially-pulsating delta Cepheid
Radial equations from the analysis of convection within pulsating variable stars. You should see the nonradial equations. Stars are pretty, sure. But when you stop to think about them, they get all complicated and stuff. Image source: Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series A friend of mine told me a story recently, and it made me laugh: [...]
On detachment: what religion can learn from science
Tamara Grizjuk, Detachment, 2002. From 29 November – 20 December, Ms. Grizjuk’s work will be on display at the Agora Gallery in Chelsea, NYC. I believe it will be her first show on this side of the Atlantic, so go check it out if you can. Image source: ARTmine. Used with permission of the artist [...]
Something new under the sun? A secular case for intentional creation
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Source: S. Beckwith & the HUDF Working Group/HST/ESA/NASA. Is everything you see here part of a high-tech stab at survival by a mega-species? That’s what Clay Naff has proposed recently. Click on the image for a nice high-resolution 19-MB version. It may take a minute to load, but once you [...]
What we have lost
Michael Bailey, Looking Back From Image via I Think I Believe: We are god-obsessed because we have lost God or we are running from God or we are hopelessly seeking Him, and maybe all of these at once. We are god-obsessed the way a child snatched from his mother will always have his heart and [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
