THE DAILY LOGOS
BATTLE OF THE SHAMANS: JESUS VERSUS THE PHARISEES
In his book, The Evolution of God, Robert Wright identifies a number of motivations of the shaman (from the language of the Tungus, “one who knows”). For starters, social status: “Whenever people sense the presence of a puzzling and momentous force, they want to believe there is a way to comprehend it. If you can convince them that you’re... [Read more of this article]
THE WORD: BILL MOYERS INTERVIEWS W.S MERWIN
To understand the concept of the Word and perhaps get an inkling of how to approach the Bible, read Bill Moyers’ interview with Pulitzer Prize winner W. S. Merwin (From Bill Moyers’ Journal): BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal. To persuade a poet to depart from paradise, even if only briefly, requires a special kind of enticement. The acclaimed... [Read more of this article]
THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF JESUS CHRIST: THE PHARISEES ACCUSE HIM OF FALSE WITNESS
When Jesus proclaimed that He was the Light of the World, the Pharisees accused him of not only making claims about himself, but making false claims about himself, that is, bearing false witness, or breaking the ninth commandment. This sets up a discussion of epistemology – how do we know? What is truth and how can we know what the truth is? To... [Read more of this article]
PROBLEMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT POSED BY HISTORICAL CRITICISM
The following summary is based on Kenton Sparks’ review in God’s Word in Human Words: The Pentateuch Was Not Written By Moses The Pentateuch account is written from the third-person. Numbers 12:3 states that “Moses was very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth.” Genesis 36:31 reports that certain Edomite rulers... [Read more of this article]
JOHN THE BAPTIST ENCOUNTERS THE PHARISEE (THE LITERALIST AND THE RATIONALIST)
When John the Baptist saw the crowds coming to him for baptism – many of which were Pharisees and Sadducees – he said to them, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham to our father,’ for I say unto... [Read more of this article]
Read More of This Week's PostsGOTHIC FILM AND LITERATURE
ON THE SHORES OF LAKE GENEVA: THE STORIES OF BYRON, SHELLEY AND POLIDORI
In The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories, editor Alan Ryan describes the European party that produced Frankenstein, The Vampyre, and Lord Byron’s Fragment of a Novel: “George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), the great English romantic, did not confine his dark and often gloomy imaginings to his poetry. In 1816 Byron planned a trip across... [Read more of this article]
DRACULA (1931 FILM)
It doesn’t hold up as well as the Frankenstein films, which are more fluid. The 1931 Dracula is a bit slow; it’s more like a stage production that must linger longer on a particular set than it should, even though in this case, cinematographer Karl Freund was one of the greatest. The criticism must fall into the lap of the director - Todd Browning... [Read more of this article]
PREFACE TO FRANKENSTEIN
Following is Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s preface to her work, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus . It’s interesting because it provides insight on how the story came to be and on the values of Romanticism. Note that Shelley considers her work to be based on the possibilities of science; science run amok and inhuman is one of the... [Read more of this article]
ON DIRECTOR ROGER CORMAN
Roger Corman might be known to some for movies like Swamp Women (his first movie), Hot Mamas in Chains and The Wild Angels, as he practically invented the exploitation movie, and quite a number of films –masterpieces, really –were based on the works of Poe, and other horror films, such as The Little Shop of Horrors. As a matter of fact, a few... [Read more of this article]
THE RAVEN (THE POEM, 1845)
The story begins late, late into a bleak December night, which has endured the melancholy of the fall of autumn leaves and the bareness of the trees, but has not yet entered into the hope of a new year, It begins in the midst of a midnight not only in darkness but in dreariness – the roots of which are not sad, but also bloody and gory. The embers... [Read more of this article]
Read More of This Week's PostsNEWS FOR THE PHILOSOPHER
IMMUNE CELLS IMPROVE BREAST CANCER PROGNOSIS
Dateline: July 2, 2009 Patients with certain breast tumors have a better prognosis when more immune cells are present in the tumor. Image from oncotargets.com/Inflammation.html Read More →
ON GOD AND LIFE: HOW CELLS RECONCILE MIXED MESSAGES IN GROWTH DECISIONS
An epithelial cell might be exposed to one signal telling it to divide and, simultaneously, another telling it to stop dividing. The tug-of-war between these two sets of influences, and the effects they have on tissue growth, are explained and explored in a recently published paper. I believe that the news has metaphysical implications. Image from... [Read more of this article]
CALCIUM IS KEY TO HONEYBEE MEMORY
Long-term memory formation in honeybees is instigated by a calcium ion cascade. Researchers have shown that calcium acts as a switch between short- and long-term storage of learned information. Image from http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_xs9T-jlzwhA/Rqwy3IHBQbI/AAAAAAAAAv4/-PWiwdEOPKg/s320/honeybee_sm.jpg Read More →
IMMUNE SYSTEM STRUCTURES REVEAL FIGHT MECHANISM
Two structures, both involving a central component of an enzyme important to the complement system of the immune response, reveal how this system fights invading microbes while avoiding problems of the body attacking itself. In order to avoid self-attack, regulatory proteins such as factor H bind with C3b, a central component of C3, to help the immune... [Read more of this article]
NEW DOUBTS ABOUT DINOSAUR-BIRD LINK
Researchers have made a fundamental new discovery about how birds breathe and have a lung capacity that allows for flight – and the finding means it’s unlikely that birds descended from any known theropod dinosaurs. Read More →
Read More of This Week's PostsMARS
FIRST DIRECT EVIDENCE OF LIGHTNING ON MARS DETECTED
Dateline: July 1, 2009 For the first time, direct evidence of lightning...
DEFINITIVE EVIDENCE FOR LAKE ON MARS FOUND
A University of Colorado at Boulder research team has discovered the first definitive...
MARS: VICTORIA CRATER - WINDY AND WET
Rover Opportunity’s two-year exploration of Victoria Crater has yielded information...
Read More Posts From This CategoryPREHISTORIC MAN
YET ANOTHER “COMMON ANCESTOR” FOUND
Dateline: July 2, 2009 A new fossil primate from Myanmar suggests that the...
LARGER POPULATIONS TRIGGERED STONE AGE LEARNING
The flowering of intelligence that brought sophisticated tools, better weapons and...
OLDEST KNOWN POTTERY FOUND IN CHINESE CAVE
The pieces - dated late Paleolithic, 14,000 to 21,000 years old, were most likely...
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