Science

Becky Garrison 1-22-2010

In Jacob Needleman's newest book What Is God?, he examines some new ways of approaching one of the critical questions asked by humanity.

Jarrod McKenna 12-08-2009

091208-cap-and-trade

This is analogous to the indulgences that the Catholic Church sold in the middle ages. The bishops collected lots of money and the sinners got redemption. Both parties liked that arrangement despite its absurdity. That is exactly what's happening...

Aaron Taylor 11-03-2009
Every three years, young evangelists from around the world gather in Portland Oregon to attend a conference put on by the Next Generation Alliance, an organization dedicated to mentoring the next g
Molly Marsh 11-01-2009
Science and religion books explore the "seen and the unseen."
Brian McLaren 10-27-2009
Tim Costello of World Vision Australia and I have been working behind the scenes to compose a prayer that could be used by individuals and groups leading up to the Copenhagen gathering on cli
Ernesto Tinajero 10-20-2009
Imagine trying to figure out the earth, while living on a grain of sand on a small island in the middle of the Pacific. What could be known of snow, of plants, of wolves? Not much.
Randy Woodley 10-12-2009
Gurgen Bakhshetsyan / Shutterstock.com

Photo via Gurgen Bakhshetsyan / Shutterstock.com

As an explorer, Columbus was not the first to reach the Western Hemisphere. Native Americans had been here for 10,000-20,000 years, and Vikings and Chinese are among those others who hold prior claims. Even after four attempts, Columbus never realized his goal of finding a western ocean route to Asia. As a “founding father type figure” he never set foot in what is now considered America but landed in the present day Bahamas, Cuba, and Haiti. 

As a Christian example he enacted terrible cruelties to friendly natives: assuming unlawful rights of authority; robbing and subjugating whole nations of their freedom and entire capital; allowing his men to rape, murder and pillage at will; and deliberately leading the way for the genocide of millions, considered by many to be the worst demographic catastrophe in recorded history.

So why do Americans celebrate Columbus Day?

Randy Woodley 10-09-2009
There's a joke that re-surfaces in Indian country every so often.
Ernesto Tinajero 8-24-2009
I remember playing WWII as a boy. We would pick sides of American and Nazis. Of course, everyone wanted be the Americans, the good guys.
Cesar Baldelomar 8-19-2009
As debates rage over the proposed health-care reform (which I strongly support), I believe many politicians, activists, religious leaders, and ideologues are missing an essential point.
Despite the rhetoric, science and faith get along just fine.
A journalist explores the science of spirituality.

When I began writing this column back in 1985, my page could hold up to 1,000 words. Over the years that number has shrunk, first to 800, then 700.

Elizabeth Palmberg 11-01-2008

Some—okay, a lot—of science fiction treats religion, and even spirituality, as pre-rational claptrap or dangerous authoritarianism. But jostling on the same shelves as the neo-imperialist space wars and the vampire-themed soft porn, there’s a universe of spiritually relevant good writing. Some examples from the last decade:

Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn

When a starship full of insectoid aliens crash-lands in a German village just before the advent of the Black Plague, the author gives credit and care to the parish priest’s training in logic, to Christian caritas, to the 14th-century European political and intellectual landscape, and to how they might interact with giant grasshoppers from space. (Tor, 2006)

Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, by Octavia Butler

In response to a near-future U.S. wracked by environmental and social breakdown, young Lauren Olamina starts her own religion, Earthseed, whose scriptures proclaim that “God is change” and that humanity’s destiny is to reach the stars. Her vision leads her into deep family complications, somewhat manipulative behavior, and multiple run-ins with the nasty Church of Christian America. (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993; Seven Stories Press, 1998)

The difficulty - and necessity - of finding a middle ground on stem cells.
Chap Clark 4-01-2007
What does it mean to use life to give life?
Wayne C. Wolsey 9-01-2006

Helen Caldicott has gotten her facts mixed up and relies on invalid assumptions in her commentary (“Our Friend the Atom?” July 2006).

Daniel Charles 8-01-2006

The pursuit of knowledge was his true faith. And in many ways, it remains ours today.