A quick round-up of posts I think you might enjoy.
Chris Heard continues his useful service of unmasking the idiocies of Expelled, and Tim Ricchuiti criticises some Christian reporting on the film. One of the most important features of posts like these is the implicit collusion between campaigning atheists and creationists to establish in the public mind the idea that Christianity and Science are opposed. This collusion is far too influential in the media, and the voice of Christian reason needs to shout down the rabid rants of the believing and disbelieving fundamentalists alike. (What do I mean by a disbelieving fundamentalist? I mean an atheist who very particularly doesn’t believe in God because he or she doesn’t believe in the fundamentalist God, and has mistaken that for the real one.)
Mark Goodacre (belatedly) continues his review of the new Doctor Who. He doesn’t seem at all bovvered that Donna sometimes sounds like another of Catherine Tate’s characters. I’m still making up my mind. I hope he keeps this constructive and interesting blog review going. I’m sure his next post will be very Ood.
There’s quite a good but still challenging / provocative post on learning biblical languages from Eric Sowell on learning Greek and Hebrew. It’s rather more substantial than the latest edition of Jim’s regular rant on the topic. I would simply make two observations. (a) There seem to be a great many people out there who know some or more Greek and Hebrew, and then confidently tell their flock what the text really says. They very often don’t have a clue, it seems to me. (b) Most of the mainstream translations are made by teams of people who really, really know the original languages. Yes, those translations will inevitably fail to capture every nuance; they do, however stand as good or better a chance of accuracy in the main-line of thought as someone working on their own. Knowing a language and being able to use a dictionary seem to get confused with each other when people enter a pulpit.
Some people say they haven’t got time to write because they’re blogging. Others say they don’t blog because they’re writing something productive. These statements are now officially disproved.
Finally, in the face of what seems to me somewhat excessive coverage of the papal visit to the US, I rather loved the flying pontiff story on the ever enjoyable Newsbiscuit.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I wouldn’t have to keep making the point if you intransigent, pig headed, thick necked lot would accept the truth. Till then, it evidently has to be beaten into you.
April 19th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
As evidenced by the fact that Richard Dawkins was allowed into the preview of Expelled! Cock-up or conspiracy? Who knows?
April 20th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
[...] like to throw my two cents in on the second post. Doug Chaplin’s comments on the topic are also [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 4:52 am
[...] of MetaCatholic, wrote a short piece on Eric posts in a “quick round-up of posts.” - Though brief, his thoughts are also nuances on what “knowing” a language [...]