29 October 2009
06 September 2008
10 July 2008
The Jefferson Bible
Thomas Jefferson created his own version of the Bible, editing it down to just the moral codes and laws.
06 February 2008
Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday falling on February 6 today is the earliest it’s been since 1913. The earliest it can be is February 4, which hasn’t happened since 1818, says Wikipedia.
02 December 2007
How Hollywood Saved God
One more Golden Compass link. The Atlantic’s How Hollywood Saved God goes into how the studio scrubbed out the more controversial themes from the novel. Pullman famously said My books are about killing God, a quote which gets reprinted in almost every article about the film, making it hard for the studio to glance over that fact when trying to get potential viewers to focus on talking polar bears.
All things being equal, Pullman told me, New Line would prefer he were, well, the late author of The Golden Compass. Dead? Yes! Absolutely! If something happened to him, there would be expressions of the most heartfelt regrets, yet privately they would be saying, Thank God.
Lots more in the article (including major spoilers for the trilogy).
Do be on the lookout as the pre-release talk of the film heats up this week for anyone who actually uses this as an opportunity to discuss religion in our lives. Lots of people will spend their time condemning the film instead of engaging audiences at the precise time their interest is focused on matters such as free will and original sin.
25 July 2007
30 May 2007
On the Marionette Theatre by Heinrich von Kleist
On the Marionette Theatre by Heinrich von Kleist
This story was, I’ve just learned via Wikipedia, a strong inspiration of Philip Pullman in writing His Dark Materials, along with Paradise Lost.
17 October 2006
HerbEly: Intercessions at Our Son's Wedding
HerbEly: Intercessions at Our Son’s Wedding
This is the reading my dad did at my wedding.
20 September 2006
Super Priest Can Turn Anything Into Body, Blood Of Christ | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
Super Priest Can Turn Anything Into Body, Blood Of Christ | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source
When preparing for a Catholic wedding, one tends to find extra joy in Catholic humor.
12 July 2006
The Superman Code
Recent readings paint Superman as Jesus, though he should probably be looked at as a Moses figure instead.
25 May 2006
Answers
Yahoo! News today picks up a story called Philosopher, scientist, farmer crack chicken-egg question. According to University of Nottingham Professor John Brookfield, the answer of the “what came first: the chicken or the egg?” question lies in simple evolutionary theory. At some point there was an animal that was just one mutation from being what we now call a chicken. This animal laid an egg. In that egg was the first generation of the first chicken, therefor the egg came first.
Of course, as my dad, appropriately amused, retorts, from a creation science/intelligent design point of view, the chicken came first. Genesis speaks of God creating animals, not eggs.
But that’s not so bad, is it? Now we don’t have to worry about chickens or eggs, just about religion and science. Science says it was an egg, religion says it was a chicken. Choose your outlook and you have your answer.
06 May 2006
Mothers expect Damien on 6/6/06 - Sunday Times - Times Online
Mothers expect Damien on 6/6/06 - Sunday Times - Times Online
Man, having 6/6/06 as your birthday would be the coolest.
04 May 2006
The unicorn
Jesus rode a unicorn to battle. (Okay, that’s not what this article is about, but it’s a hell of a lead.)
08 April 2006
DC Comics and the Hand of Creation
Comic books don’t always like to talk about religion in a direct way. Even in the DC universe, where God explicitly exists and where there are characters who are literal angels, God is rarely talked about and never intervenes, even when villains are trying to undo Creation. It was thus surprising to me when I discovered that DC has had its own creation imagery for forty years. It’s possible that I’m the only one who didn’t know this, but it was mentioned in a recent review of Infinite Crisis 4, so I did a little research, appealed to Yahoo! Answers, and found my answer.
Green Lantern (vol. 4) 40, published in 1965, tells the story of Krona, a being who wanted to learn the secret of creation and, in so doing, released entropy into the universe. Krona builds a machine that lets him peer back to the creation of the universe, and sees a giant hand clutching a cluster of stars. The issue was drawn by Gil Kane, and Kane’s “hand of creation” motif was repeated when the story was expanded upon in later issues dealing with Green Lantern and the Guardians of the Universe.
George Pérez reused the image of cosmic hands in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Pérez, it seems, has become the go-to guy in the DC universe whenever creation needs to be redone or undone. JLA/Avengers tells another story of Krona in which he fuses the DC and Marvel universes, illustrated by Pérez as a pair of hands forcing two Earths together:
The current series Infinite Crisis features a villain whose plot involves playing God by recreating the world in his own vision. Pérez again draws a pair of hands, this time creating and destroying hundreds of alternate versions of Earth, trying to craft the perfect one:
The imagery hasn’t always been used in every DC story that shows the creation or destruction of the universe. Zero Hour, for exampe, did not depict the hand/s of creation, but its use in the crisis and the new crisis, I think solidifies the imagery as the official depiction of Creation in DC comics. Now, clearly the concept of a Godly hand bringing life did not originate with Gil Kane in Green Lantern, and I’m sure an art historian could draw it back long before the Sistine Chapel, but its use in the DC shows that, even though evolution is a proven fact on DC Earth, God still had a hand in it all.
07 April 2006
Yahoo! Answers - I read recently that DC Comics' creation imagery has always involved a cosmic pair of hands. Evidence?
I’m putting this question out there for anyone who knows the answer: I’m looking for creation myths in the DC Comics universe.
31 March 2006
18 January 2006
30 November 2005
Religion of Comic Book Characters
Religion of Comic Book Characters
You never know what knowledge might save your life one day.