The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky displays his handiwork. Psalm19:1 See that? It’s a picture of a tiny patch of empty space taken by the Hubble Telescope. And all those things are galaxies. Galaxies! Not just one star, but bilions in each one. Can you imagine? I look at something like this and wonder,”what in the world is this all about?” What is God doing, creating so much? One galaxy would seem to be enough. Or 100 or 1000. But that’s tens of thousands of galaxi

Scriptures say that creation testifies to God. Science is simply the study of creation. It is the gathering and studying of the testimony of creation. Which is why I think that it is important for people of faith to be using science to deepen our understanding of God and his ways. We see Jesus doing this, for example, in his teachings about seeds dying and bearing much fruit. It’s not just that Jesus was using a process which people were familiar with in order to explain some

Did you know that animals engage in what appears to be ritualistic behaviors which appear to show some awareness of the luminous, if not the spiritual? It’s true. In particular, a variety of animals have death rituals: Magpies, gorillas, elephants, llamas, foxes, and wolves all use ritual to cope with the death of a companion. Magpies will peck the dead body and then lay blades of grass next to it. Gorillas hold something so similar to a “wake” that many zoos have formalized

BTW, the picture for this is a drop of sea water, magnified 25 times. My husband thinks it’s gross. My kids and I think it’s amazing. If you’d like a clear view of the picture, you can find it here. Pass It On! Tweet Email More Print Share on Tumblr WhatsApp #creation #meme #religiousmeme #science

Is the church dead? No. But plenty of people seem to be preparing the obituaries, going over which funeral plans are most suitable for everyone and making the funeral arrangements for that inevitable day. Inside Christian circles, the pessimism over the prospects for the church is palpable. There’s a real sense among many that some threshold has been crossed and that it’s all down hill from here. There are a few die hards who are still trying to “take the culture back for Chr

You know, y’all are an unusually quiet bunch of readers. I would bet money I don’t have that a freakishly high percentage of you are Introverted Intuitives on the Meyer’s Briggs Personality Test. Which isn’t a complaint, of course. I’m an Introverted Intuitive myself. But it does mean that I know far less about y’all than most writers with an audience my size. However, a few of you have been bold enough to reach out and make yourselves known to me. And I have to assume that t

I want to share my personal theory on the story of creation told in Genesis 1 today, but I of course first need to grab everyone’s attention with something interesting or clever so I figured I’d start with this joke: A minister, a priest and a rabbi went for a hike one day. It was very hot. They were sweating and exhausted when they came upon a small lake. Since it was fairly secluded, they took off all their clothes and jumped in the water. Feeling refreshed, the trio decide

Well, it’s been a slow week around here as you might have noticed. Next week will be different, but you’ll have to head down to the bottom of this week’s Bloggy Linky Goodness to find out more about that. In other news, I shaved my legs and pits for the first time in months. Most exciting thing to happen around here in a while, I tell ya! But I do have some good writing/reading for this week’s Bloggy Linky Goodness to share with y’all: Radical Practice Needs Deep Roots in Doc

Alex Botten on his podcast show Fundamentally Flawed regarding the perils and problems with teaching kids literal creationism.  We had fun.  And kind of ripped on advocates of literal creationism.  I hope you will head over and check it out. If you are unfamiliar with my ideas regarding evolution and Christianity, I have a page on the blog dedicated to the subject.  It’s under the “Hot Topics” menu and titled “Christianity & Evolution”.  Included on the page are posts like “W

I started to do these “Best of the Week” posts a few weeks ago and it seems that my week is consistently 8 days long.  Which I have no doubt that people who have to deal with me would agree is pretty much how I work!  But hey – it’s my blog and it’s free!  (Although you can make a donati0n to support the site using that tip jar over there.) So, here’s what I’ve found interesting in the past week: Seriously – why is any man in the USA so powerful that he can assign people to h

Interestingly, the set of details which religious people are most likely to insist aren’t there – evolution – points us to those spiritual truths which are pretty much completely lacking in most people’s theology as well.  Like growth.  Like getting down to tiny details.  Like knowing that survival relies on adapability and that life is moved forward by mutations, not preseved by purity. I love the elegance of evolution.  Have you ever looked closely at a blade of grass?  It’

. Illustration from The Upside Down World by my sister Cindy At the very end of my book The Upside Down World – A Book of Wisdom in Progress, I have a section which I called “Quantum Christianity”.  It consists of several pages of fairly random notes about a variety of subjects ranging from quantum physics to abortion.  I don’t usually makes notes, but I do usually think about a variety of odd things.  I like thought experiments.  I like logic puzzles.  I like looking for odd

Just let me say at the outset that I am not saying that people who hold a belief in what is called “biblical creationism” do not honor God.  They may or may not.  But the belief system itself does not honor God.  Why?  Because it denies the work of God’s own hands.  The creation is very important to God.  “It is good,” was his judgement on it.  Scriptures tell us that the created world speaks so clearly of the reality of God that even those who have never heard the name of Ch

I know that many people are very suspicious of bio-engineering, but what if they could make trees that glow like something out of a Tinkerbell movie?  Scientists are working on making glow-in-the-dark plants that could one day replace streetlights.  How awesome (and beautiful) would that be?  Unfortunately, since the process relies on the chlorophyl found in plants, I don’t suppose it would work very well here in the north where the trees are bare 6 months out of the year.  B

fascinating article in the Washington Post about the genetic code of the platypus.  Scientists just finished mapping the odd animal’s DNA and not too surprisingly, it’s odd.  What is particularly useful about this is that scientists have been able to map segments of the platypus’ genetic code which are similar to those found in birds, mammals and reptiles.  Over the ages, and at crucial times in the evolution of life, there were probably many transitional animals bearing the

“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”. It is called Expelled Exposed. I have to say that red flags were raised for me when I heard a podcast about the movie based on this premise: Have you ever noticed that Christians are fine with having God and science coexist? In fact, Christians see scientific discoveries as strengthening their faith precisely because they reveal the marvel of the world. So why is it that so many scientists seem to hate the idea of God so much?” Um, yeah.

I wrote a post on why parents who teach their children creation science or intelligent design in a way which elevates those teachings to a fundamental of the Christian faith are putting their children’s long term spiritual well being at risk.  In the comments on that post (which were remarkably civil for this topic BTW, thank you to all who commented!), someone asked how I teach my kids to be faithful Christians while also accepting the science of evolution and geology and su

story in the Chicago Tribune about scientists who have figured out how to get a computer to “read” brain scans to figure out which picture out of several choices a person has viewed.  This is considered one of the first steps towards eventually figuring out how the brain works, which I suppose if good.  However, it could also the be the first step towards creating machines able to mind read, which I think is creepy. What I find both worrying and fascinating about these sort o