Everyone knows that Columbus proved that the earth was not flat, as the church held.

Everyone knows that Copernicus was persecuted for theorizing that the earth revolves around the Sun, contrary to the Bible.

Everyone knows that Galileo valiantly defended scientific truth against the oppressive obscurantism of a despotic Catholic Church.

Everyone knows that Darwin’s theory of evolution was condemned by Christians, who fought it tooth and nail.

Right?

Wrong.

In an important new book, Flat Earths and Fake Footnotes: The Strange Tale of How the Conflict Between Science and Christianity Was Written into History (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2021; xii-359pp)…

I suppose this article would be shocking to certain fundamentalists. If that is your intent, well and good. Otherwise, it is too simple.

Screeds are not good philosophy. Repeating the myth of the war between science and Christinaity doesn't help. You can do a much better job of attacking Christianity, Benjamin, than this.

One detail, often overlooked, in Romans 1:24f is that Paul is quoting someone else. Romans 2:1 is in the second person singular: to whom is he talking?

Having been a starving artist, I think you have an overly romanticized view of artistic creation. As for Christian utopia, what you describe is not the new creation but the old, not perfected but gutted.

Most theologians these days are content with some randomness, e.g., Lonergan, Peacocke, Polkinghorne... But God the baker? Wow.

To unpack this title, let us mull over the meaning of I John 4:7–16, which is love.

“Love” appears some 111 times in the New Testament, as a noun (ἡ ἀγάπη). As a verb (ἀγαπάω), it appears 128 times, including as “beloved” (Ἀγαπητοί). The word famously distinguishes itself from other Greek words for love, storge(affection, such as mother and child), philia (friendship: “no greater love than this…”), and eros (romantic love).[1] Agape (or caritas) is how God loves — it is the divine nature.

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is…

I am glad to have learned about this very interesting text, and you tell its story well. However, the nonsense about Christians being afraid of this or many other variant manuscripts is tendentious. Did you even read Deshowitz's paper, which clearly describes Christians' differing opinions about Deuteronomy and its compositions. Not to mention the role in the New Testament of the hypothetical document known as "Q". "Inerrancy" or the hypothesis that the original manuscripts are perfect in every way is a minority opinion and doesn't rest on tradition.

You can do better than this, Jonathan.

Good article! I too enjoyed The Good Place, where even demons can be redeemed (technically known as "apokatastasis"), and people work out their issues, albeit not without strife — you didn't mention that. The end is yes very Buddhist, but not unChristian either, if we are talking about the Beatific Vision. Which according to some of the Desert Fathers, is like having a permanent orgasm...

Resurrection however is not resuscitation, but a re-creation in a new universe — a "new heavens and a new earth", in a new body. …