If I understand my Catholic friends and scholars correctly, God created the cosmos, earth, and life. This God sparked the original organism and designed an evolutionary process that has resulted in endless forms most beautiful and wonderful. But of all these forms, one stands out and one was the goal from the beginning: humans. When [...]
Tags:adaptation·Catholic·Christian·creationism·design·evolutionary theism·Gobekli Tepe·God·intelligent design·John Haught·Klaus Schmidt·Matt Rossano·Michael Blume·Panglossian Paradigm·Simon Conway Morris·teleology·theology
Yesterday on NPR, Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan conducted a fascinating interview (Christians Divided Over Science of Human Origins) with Daniel Harlow, religion professor at Calvin College, and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The topic: Whether Genesis should be interpreted literally or metaphorically. NPR religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty [...]
Tags:Adam·Albert Mohler·Barbara Bradley Hagerty·bible·Calvin College·Christian·creationism·Daniel Harlow·DNA·evangelicals·Eve·evolution·fundamentalist·Garden of Eden·Genesis·genetics·Homo·literalism·Neal Conan·origins·progressives·Southern Baptist·theology
In polite American company, it is considered impolitic to declare that a presidential candidate should be disqualified by his or her religion. Perhaps this is why we have a British newsmagazine asking the tough questions about Michele Bachmann’s beliefs:
[Bachmann] recommends Christian books and films that suggest non-Christians are trouble, that the government may be poisoning [...]
Tags:Christian·creationism·evangelical·Fawn Brodie·Francis Schaeffer·Joseph Smith·Michele Bachmann·Mitt Romney·Mormon·Nancy Pearcey·politics·religion·Rick Perry
Over at the Guardian, Andrew Brown asks if we should clone Neanderthals (assuming it could be done). For me, the easy answer is no.
Brown then asks a series of nonsensical questions which imply that because Neanderthal brains were different from human brains (Neanderthals in fact had bigger brains than humans; the difference is in shape), [...]
Tags:acculturation·Andrew Brown·Anglican·Buddhist·Christian·cloned Neanderthal·cloning·culture·enculturation·heresy·heretics·Hindu·monotheism·Muslim·myth·Neandertal·religious exclusivism·religious pluralism·Richard Dawkins·ritual form·shamanic·shamanisms·social construction·Upper Paleolithic
There is a sense in which we are all cultural narcissists. By this, I mean that because all of us are acculturated at a particular time and in a particular place, we have a strong tendency to view other times and places through our own cultural lens. These lenses are prismatic and what we see [...]
Tags:Abrahamic·animal ceremonialism·animism·animistic·anthropomorphism·Christian·cultural evolution·cultural narcissism·Descartes·diffusion·E.B. Tylor·epistemology·essentializing·Ingela Bergman·intepretation·Jewish·Muslim·Nurit David-Bird·Primitive Culture·provincialism·Sami·social construction·translation
Martin Gaskell is by all accounts an accomplished astronomer. He applied for a job as the director of the University of Kentucky’s observatory. On its face, his application was deemed to be the best of the bunch. He was, however, denied the job and is now suing for religious discrimination.
By all accounts, Gaskell is a [...]
Tags:astronomy·Christian·Creation Museum·creationism·creationist·discrimination·evolution·Genesis·Martin Gaskell·Pharyngula·pseudoscience·PZ Myers·Shelly Steiner·University of Kentucky
There are many who believe that near death experiences (“NDE”) provide evidence of the existence of a spirit-soul and that those who have these close encounters with death have glimpsed another realm. Over at Brain Blogger, Jennifer Gibson discusses some recent studies of NDEs in a post titled “Light at the End of the Tunnel [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·American Indians·Asian Indians·Brain Blogger·Buddhist·carbon dioxide·Christian·consciousness·cultural imprinting·cultural patterning·Glenn Roberts·hallucinations·heaven·Hindu·Jennifer Gibson·Jesus·John Owen·Krishna·metaphysical realm·metaphysics·Muslim·NDE·near death experience·pan-human neurology·Siddhartha·soul·spirit·supernatural·The Near Death Experience·Vishnu·Wakan Tanka·Yamdoots·Yamraj
