Monthly Archives: March 2011

I didn’t know it hurt till they put my head in a scanner

To be filed under the heading, “Neuroscience News Flash: Rejection Is Painful” The regions of the brain that respond to physical pain overlap with those that react to social rejection, according to a study that used brain imaging on people involved in romantic breakups. “These results give new meaning to the idea that rejection ‘hurts.’” …

March 31, 2011 – 1:03 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science | Tagged | Comments (5)

Contact Page Failure

If you’ve used the contact page to try to reach me in the last two weeks, please go there and try again. I just found out it hasn’t been working; I haven’t been receiving messages sent from there lately. The current configuration is fine.

March 31, 2011 – 7:38 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Unfiled | Comments Off

Funniest Phishing Scam Yet

I needed a laugh this morning. I got one by way of an email supposedly from Cox, our family’s Internet provider, but with a “Reply-to” address of …@qatar.io. The body of the message reads: Attention, We are bringing to your notice that our customer service will be damaging down some email users in our database, …

March 30, 2011 – 7:09 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Just For Fun | Tagged | Comments Off

“God’s Wife Edited Out of the Bible — Almost : Discovery News”

Okay, all you Old Testament scholars out there: is there at least one other possible explanation for this? I mean, besides the ridiculously impossible one suggested here? God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar…. “After years of …

March 29, 2011 – 4:15 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Bible | Tagged | Comments (5)

The Power of Science to Overturn Theism?

Recent combox discussion got me to re-reading a Barbara Forrest Paper on naturalism. It is at one and the same time an atheistic and a scientistic mess. For example, she quotes extensively from Arthur Strahler, “a geologist who has taken particular interest in the claims of supernaturalists to be able to supersede naturalistic explanations of …

March 29, 2011 – 3:42 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science, Thinking Christianly | Comments (10)

Earliest Christian Documents Discovered?

This just in by email from a friend: from BBC News – Jordan battles to regain ‘priceless’ Christian relics: A group of 70 or so “books”, each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007…. They …

March 29, 2011 – 10:56 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Evidences | Comments (6)

Methodological Naturalism and Regularism: A Postscript

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series Science Doesn't Need MN

I’ve finished this series; I’ve said what I intended to say about Methodological Naturalism, except for this: I’m regarding it as only a first draft. I plan to write it up as a unified article, removing redundancies, clarifying arguments, incorporating further research, especially from Robert Pennock, and including more ideas from comments. I appreciate any …

March 26, 2011 – 8:03 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science | Comments (1)

Regularism: A Better Alternative to Methodological Naturalism

This entry is part 5 of 6 in the series Science Doesn't Need MN

(Update 3/29: Please regard this series as a first draft with important revisions yet to come.) I have just completed an argument to the effect that “Methodological Naturalism” (MN) is a false and flawed requirement for the practice of natural science. MN’s assumptions are theological rather than scientific, as witnessed by the fact that there is …

March 25, 2011 – 2:16 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science | Tagged , , | Comments (118)