Science and religion - friends?

One of the students in my Science and Religion class posted this excerpt from an episode of Friends. It's classic!

PHOEBE: You know, there're a lot of things that I don't believe in, but that doesn't mean they're not true.

JOEY: Such as?

PHOEBE: Like crop circles, or the Bermuda triangle, or evolution?

ROSS: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, you don't, uh, you don't believe in evolution?

PHOEBE: Nah. Not really.

ROSS: You don't believe in evolution?

PHOEBE: I don't know, it's just, you know...monkeys, Darwin, you know, it's a, it's a nice story, I just think it's a little too easy.

ROSS: Too easy? Too...The process of every living thing on this planet evolving over millions of years from single-celled organisms, too easy?

PHOEBE: Yeah, I just don't buy it.

ROSS: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact, like, like, like the air we breathe, like gravity.

PHOEBE: Ok, don't get me started on gravity.

ROSS: You uh, you don't believe in gravity?

PHOEBE: Well, it's not so much that you know, like I don't believe in it, you know, it's just...I don't know, lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down as I am being pushed.

ROSS: How can you not believe in evolution?

PHOEBE: Just don't. Look at this funky shirt!

ROSS: Pheebs, I have studied evolution my entire adult life. Ok, I can tell you, we have collected fossils from all over the world that actually show the evolution of different species, ok? You can literally see them evolving through time.

PHOEBE: Really? You can actually see it?

ROSS: You bet. In the U.S., China, Africa, all over.

PHOEBE: See, I didn't know that.

ROSS: Well, there you go.

PHOEBE: Huh. So now, the real question is, who put those fossils there, and why?

ROSS: Ok, Pheebs. See how I'm making these little toys move? Opposable thumbs. Without evolution, how do you explain opposable thumbs?

PHOEBE: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts.

ROSS: Please tell me you're joking.

PHOEBE: Look, can't we just say that you believe in something, and I don't.

ROSS: No, no, Pheebs, we can't, ok, because--

PHOEBE: What is this obsessive need you have to make everyone agree with you? No, what's that all about? I think, I think maybe it's time you put Ross under the microscope.

ROSS: Ok, Phoebe, this is it. In this briefcase I carry actual scientific facts. A briefcase of facts, if you will. Some of these fossils are over 200 million years old.

PHOEBE: Ok, look, before you even start, I'm not denying evolution, ok, I'm just saying that it's one of the possibilities.

ROSS: It's the only possibility, Phoebe.

PHOEBE: Ok, Ross, could you just open your mind like this much, ok? Wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the world was flat? And, up until like what, 50 years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess of crap came out. Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?

ROSS: There might be, a teeny, tiny, possibility.

PHOEBE: I can't believe you caved.

ROSS: What?

PHOEBE: You just abandoned your whole belief system. I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. How, how, how are you going to go into work tomorrow? How, how are you going to face the other science guys? How, how are you going to face yourself? Oh! That was fun. So who's hungry?

75 days to go!

I had a friend tell me I couldn't count down by the day until there were only 30 days to go - she simply wouldn't allow it. Good thing I don't care what does and does not allow!

I think I'll post every five days now. It's getting close, but not close enough! I just can't wait to be married!

Matt and I are going to count down the rest of the days until our wedding by reading through the Psalms, two a day. I'll try to post some thoughts on here, if I get a chance.

Wedding preparations are going quite well (though I can't say the same for my thesis...) The main thing at the moment is finding somewhere to live. We've had two applications to rent units knocked back so far, and we're waiting to hear about another. I'm going to check out a few places in Miranda and Caringbah tomorrow. It's good that I have flexible working hours so I can do these things during the day! It must be so hard for couples who both work 9-5.

Revelation - A Preview

A preview of my church's upcoming series on Revelation.



The main guy speaking is Tim MacBride, our associate pastor. The one who comes in to tell him to clean up the car park is Ange, the senior pastor. Christian, who Tim calls on the phone with a "ministry opportunity" is our (relatively) new student pastor. The girl who comes in at the end is Hayley, who works in the office one day a week.

80 days to go!

Very exciting indeed!

CPX

The Centre for Public Christianity website has launched.

Check it out!

5 songs I'm loving at the moment

1. Sweet About Me, by Gabriella Cilmi
2. Mercy, by Duffy
3. Saving my Face, by KT Tunstall
4. Untouched, by the Veronicas
5. Hot, by Avril Lavigne


Go ahead. Mock my taste!

For geeks with money?

Click here.

The Hermeneutics Quiz

Click here.

I scored 54, which makes me a moderate, albeit on the conservative end of the scale.

Oops

I missed the "90 days to go" milestone. That was yesterday. Now it's only 89 days to go!

I'm in a bad mood today. I got an email from my supervisor yesterday with comments on my draft of chapter 5 and the news that I have to rethink a lot of the way the second half of my thesis is structured and rationalised. Not good. At the moment, I'm feeling completely defeated by my thesis.

Why can't we just elope now and I'll finish the thesis later?!

The Seven Habits of Highly Testy Philosophers

Click here.

Three months to go!

OK, now this is just getting scary! I can't wait to get married to my wonderful fiance, but when I think about all the stuff that I have to get done by then, I freak out a little. OK, I freak out a lot. Pulling my hair out and moaning is usually involved. Here's a snapshot of what needs to be done:

• Finish PhD (by June 1, otherwise Matt says the wedding is off!)
• It's hard to estimate the percentage completed, but I've got one chapter in nearly final form, two chapters getting close to that, and three chapters that still need a lot of work. Plus the conclusion and introduction. And formatting and referencing.
• 11 weeks of teaching
• I'm teaching three subjects this session. I've got three face-to-face hours of teaching per week (two for history of medicine, one for the scientific revolution) and two online groups for science and religion
• Beyond preparing for and facilitating tutorial discussions, there's all the marking. I get out of the take-home exam for one subject because it's due while I'm on the honeymoon (!), and fortunately I have a whole week to mark all the science and religion journals before the wedding.
• Wedding planning
• Wedding cars
• Hair and make-up (i.e. find someone to do it on the day)
• Dress fittings for me and the bridesmaids
  
• Decide on vows, sermon, readings etc.
• Finalise music and ask musicians
• Decide on stuff for the reception - will there be dancing, what kind of music etc.
• Make and send invitations
• Order bonbonniere, make place cards
• Decide on flowers - I went to see the florist on Monday night, but I had a migraine, so it was a bit difficult to make decisions
• Gift registry
• Probably other things that I can't think of right now
  
• We still need to find somewhere to live.
  
• We put in an application yesterday for a unit that would have been perfect, but we missed out. Oh well. That would have been just too easy! Now it's back to the drawing board...
  

Overall, we're doing quite well with the wedding stuff. We've finished our marriage preparation course with Matt's minister, and that was very interesting and helpful. A lot of things have been done, and I know we'll get there in the end. Actually, it's probably the PhD that's stressing me out the most at the moment.

Still, only three months until I get to marry the most wonderful man in the world! Hurrah!

An interesting discussion thread

Interesting.

What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Neo orthodox 64% Emergent/Postmodern 61% Reformed Evangelical 50% Classical Liberal 25% Roman Catholic 25% Fundamentalist 21% Charismatic/Pentecostal 14% Modern Liberal 4%

Overloaded

I think I have taken on way too much teaching this session. One of my subjects is an online Science and Religion course. I've tutored it a number of times now, and once again I seem to have been stuck with the hyperactive students who post more than all the other groups put together!

OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but last session both my groups posted twice as many times as the next most prolific group. And they weren't just short, nonsense posts either - they had some really good things to say! So I guess I can't complain too much...

One really amazing thing: for the first time someone has suggested rules/guidelines for making sure the discussion doesn't get out of hand. A brilliant idea - it's a controversial topic, people are passionate about their own views, and being online, people seem to feel that they have more freedom to be rude than they would be in person, and comments are open to much more misinterpretation. I've seen some nasty exchanges in the past - I hope this session is different.

Happy International Women's Day!

Click here for more information.

Getting my hopes up

Received this email this morning:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Cambridge Platonist Spirituality (Classics of Western Spirituality) by Charles Taliaferro have also purchased The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées) by G.A. Rogers. For this reason, you might like to know that The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées) is now available. You can order yours for just $230.00 by following the link below.

The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées)
G.A. Rogers
Price: $230.00

Just $230? And I was getting all excited when I saw "Cambridge Platonists" in the subject line of an email from Amazon...

100 days to go!

WOOHOO!

You might have noticed the countdown timer to the right - courtesy of my pet nerd!