the climate of climate control

Science magazine is running an article on a collaborative effort of evangelical Christians and scientists (many of whom are Christians themselves) to mandate restrictions on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. the work is celebrated as a paragon of successful collaboration for the betterment of society: "the successful coalition around global warming could point the way toward finding common ground on other issues, such as fetal health and mercury contamination, on which the public is divided."

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Armageddonites

a new article by Jon Utley at antiwar.com addresses the problem of fundamentalist, dispensationalist Americans too self-righteous to recognize the blatant errors in their pro-war stances, which are (at best) based on bad eschatological interpretations of the Book of Revelations or (at worst) on the musings of LaHaye and Jenkins in their Left Behind series (links to these books are omitted for the edification of the reader). fortunately, dispensationalism, especially in its most virulent forms, represents the views of only a fraction of American Christians (though an admittedly dangerous fraction). unfortunately, Utley gives short shrift to a large segment of informed American Christians whose convictions about Christ's teachings lead them to a progressive, anti-war stance (see, for example, Sojourner's magazine), and prompt social action and reform that is anything but vengeful. (nod to Sam Wang for pointing out this article)

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Intellectualism and the Academy: Princeton U's Revisions Journal

starting last year, some Princeton students started Revisions: A Journal of Christian Perspective. its second issue recently went online, and it's worth a read.

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Apologetics at UCSD

a new group has started in the past few months at UC San Diego called Apologetics and Right Reason. they've already taken up several opportunities to address issues of concern to scientists and to Christians, as well as more general questions in apologetics. see the site for regular updates.

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new book: Dennett's Breaking the Spell

a recent review from NY Times Book Reviews on Daniel Dennett's new one Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. still touting strict physicalism, Dennett tries to explain away religion by describing its evolutionary-psychological origins. according to the review, written by Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, he fails miserably. A powerful excerpt from the review: "You cannot disprove a belief unless you disprove its content. If you believe that you can disprove it any other way, by describing its origins or by describing its consequences, then you do not believe in reason."

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origins

no, not of life. but of this blog. this'll be a feable attempt to organize some useful links and brief responses to some current (and some older) ideas at the intersection of science and Christianity. it'll serve more as a pointer to other resources than as anything else. Also, it'll avoid (pretty strictly) the all-too-pervasive intelligent design debate...there are other, bigger issues.

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