Tag Archives: science

As someone who follows the creation-evolution debate quite closely I take advantage of lots of free newsletter links that organizations make available, from Science magazine to local creationist organizations like Chuck Missler’s Koinonia House over in Coeur D’Alene, to that Mount Olympus of Intelligent Design, Seattle’s Discovery Institute.

It was a unanimous decision. Whatever their religious backgrounds, they were all united. The Supreme Court ruled that Myriad Genetics cannot copyright a human gene. "A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.

“I am beautiful; I’m exceptional; and I’m powerful; all because love is inside me calling me to be a daughter of destiny.”

These lyrics from “Daughter of Destiny” on the latest Ginny Owens album sum up the views of many religions.

Who is the “you” in this famous passage of Psalm 139? Why, Apple computer, of course! No? Maybe it’s Google? Microsoft? OK, maybe the more appropriate question is who is “me”?

The late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould coined the phrase “non-overlapping magisteria” in 1997 to convey the idea that science and religion essentially have nothing to say about each other; that religion can’t contribute to or detract from science and vice versa. Recent collaboration between psychologists and Buddhist monks, however, seem to indicate that Gould may have been wrong, and that perhaps religion can have something to say about science.

John Bunyan’s famous work "The Pilgrim’s Progress" pictures a man raking filth while an angel tries to crown him with eternal glory. The angel repeatedly calls him to “Look up,” but the man is so intent on muck that he doesn’t see the angel or the crown. Bunyan’s originally intended to impress upon his readers the hope of their salvation rather than the cares of this world, but the image has been reused many times since then, often referring to writers who work in the journalistic mud.