Chicken Soup
When our daughters were little we found lots of great kids’ music at the library. Joe Scruggs, Charlotte Diamond, Fred Penner, and Alan Root were some of our favourites. We spent many hours listening to and singing along with these great songs. Many of them were quite educational and certainly contributed to our girls’ present…
Continue readingPhilosophy Is Dead
Stephen Hawking says that philosophy is dead. In his new book, The Grand Design*, he asks questions like, “How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves?” “How does the universe behave?” Where did all this come from?” “Did the universe need a creator?” Then he states, “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy,…
Continue readingScience vs Religion
The Cardus website is featuring a review of the book Science vs Religion: What Do Scientist Really Believe? In this book Elaine Ecklund encourages us “to cross the picket lines separating science and religion” and join in appreciative discussion. The book presents several findings of Ecklunds research: 1.Despite stereotypes, scientists are not entirely irreligious or…
Continue readingVirtue
In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky sets up two antagonistic theories of the way in which mankind seeks virtue and social order. The first is related by Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov (a wealthy landowner) as he explains that Ivan Karamazov gave an address in which he stated that there exists no law of nature that man…
Continue readingScripture and Reason
Augustine (354 – 430 AD) had this to say regarding truth and our understanding of the Bible. If it happens that the authority of Sacred Scripture is set in opposition to clear and certain reasoning, this must mean that the person who interprets Scripture does not understand it correctly. It is not the meaning of…
Continue readingScience and Reason
As someone who holds a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology and a Bachelor of Religious Education as well as several years of seminary training, I appreciate people who recognize the importance of both fields of study. I like this quote from Karol Jozef Wojtyla (also known as Pope John Paul II). It is a…
Continue readingFilled With Love
I have again been reading from Walsh and Keesmaat’s excellent book: Colossians Remixed. Here is a quote. As we sat on a dock with a group of students late one night, the conversation turned to the question of why God made the world. We listened as the students went around and around on this one.…
Continue readingScience-Spirit
Margaret Somerville is one of our best ethical thinkers. In a speech she delivered at the Sydney Institute in 2007 she went head to head with Richard Dawkins and James Watson in presenting this way-forward in the discipline of ethics. Her “science-spirit” view is also a valuable descriptor for a way of integrating science and…
Continue readingScience and Evolution
Having a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology and a Bachelor of Religious Education, I am always interested in the relationship between science and faith. Thus I found these words by Mark Noll interesting and worth our consideration. Some evangelical Christians have trouble reconciling evolution and a traditional belief in God as creator and sustainer…
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