http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/ Thoughts on religion, theology, science fiction and other issues offered by Dr. James F. McGrath, assistant professor of religion at Butler University. en-us Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:19:28 -0400 Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:19:28 -0400 http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/200706.html#e155 It's official: I'm now trying using Blogger for blog entries. Please visit the new site at http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/ and let me know what you think. If you prefer the old format or the new, let me know that - your opinion matters! And don't forget... http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/200706.html#e154 This will be the last entry in the current blog format, at least for the time being, while I try using other sites and software to see if I can make my blog more useful. http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/200706.html#e153 I've already said plenty, I imagine, on the problem of homogenizing the creation stories in Genesis 1-3. But what about "Pasteurizing" them? Before this is dismissed as nonsense, let me explain. Young-earth creationists regularly refer to Pasteur's work disproving... http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/200706.html#e152 This is just a brief question for those who mine scientific literature for quotes that appear to cast doubt on the soundness of the theory of evolution. Let me see if I get this straight. There is, you allege, a conspiracy to cover up the fact that evolution... http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/200706.html#e151 One major pitfall of inerrancy and related approaches to Scripture is that, in an effort to avoid any hint of possible contradictions, all symbols and images, all statements and views expressed by the Biblical get authors, all get forced into this harmonizing... http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/200706.html#e150 It has been said that they key idea in Christianity and in religion in general is that we, as human beings, are not God. However, I must confess to having had in my fundamentalist days, and to witnessing today among those of a similar mindset, delusions of... http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/200706.html#e149 I just finished reading David Ray Griffin's book Two Great Truths: A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith, which is a highly condensed presentation of a perspective on religion and science from the perspective of process theology, building... http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/200706.html#e148 Intelligent Design in the strict sense, as represented by Behe and Dembski, focuses a great deal of attention on the concept of "information". DNA has often been compared to an alphabet, and the instructions encoded in it to a language, and so that someone... http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/200706.html#e147 I had an interesting experience asking a question on Yahoo! Answers. I asked how creationism or intelligent design would account for the fact that moles have non-functional eyes. Moles with no eyes I could conceivably explain in terms of their being created... http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/200706.html#e146 The ending (or I should say the apparent lack of ending) of Mark's Gospel has long intrigued scholars. It provides great potential for a conspiracy theory, of course, and recently there have been attempts to suggest that the abrupt ending in our earliest manuscripts...