Polkinghorne gets it right
The Rev. Dr. Sir John Polkinghorne has some good things to say about science & religion. He also has more titles than you. Image source: University of St. Andrews Last week Biologos released a short video called John Polkinghorne in a Nutshell. In it, our protagonist says something with utter clarity that I’ve been trying [...]
Flannery O’Connor and the end of all things
Barry Moser, Flannery O’Connor (detail). Wood engraving. See the original at moser-pennyroyal.com. Used with permission of the artist The First Sunday of Advent. That was yesterday. And what a Sunday it was. Julie’s sermon was taken from Malachi. Malachi! Can you imagine?! I almost fell over when I saw that. The passage (3.1-3) reads, See, [...]
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: [...]
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 [...]
The shape of our ignorance: Catherine Keller on life’s contradictions
Catherine Keller. Image source: Vancouver School of Theology A couple of days ago there appeared, at Religion Dispatches, an interview with theologian Catherine Keller. I read some of Keller’s stuff as a seminary student and found her to be extremely challenging. She reads not unlike poetry. Over time, though, I began (I like to think) [...]
On depression and “Buddhist science”
Not depressed: HHDL’s call for “Buddhist science” may make sense. Image source: buddhachannel.tv Several years ago I went on antidepressants. It was one of the most difficult, drawn-out, painful decisions I have ever made. When I finally did, though, there was very little pain and a lot of relief. Several days before my first prescription [...]
Where, not why: Annie Dillard and Hubble’s threatened successor
One of Hubble’s many triumphs: NGC 5257/8 (Arp 240) is an astonishing galaxy pair, composed of spiral galaxies of similar mass and size, NGC 5257 and NGC 5258. The galaxies are visibly interacting with each other via a bridge of dim stars connecting the two galaxies, almost like two dancers holding hands while performing a [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
