Methodology

Nov52018 by Donna PierceNo Comments

Mindful Monday: The fruit of meditation

awareness, Buddhism, meditation, Methodology, mindfulness

The fruit of meditation is not the absence of thoughts, but the fact that thoughts cease to harm us. Once enemies, they become friends. — Bokar Rinpoche What are you noticing about thoughts and the harm they can do you? ... for Mindful Monday ... Photo credit: "Meditation workshop for students...," World Peace Initiative, 2017.

Mar292018 by jrcowlesNo Comments

You Will Get A Real “Keck” Out Of This!

Abrahamic Traditions, Astronomy, autonomy, Biology, Change, Christianity, conservatism, Cosmology, Creation, critical judgment, culture, curiosity, Einstein, epistemology, Evidence, Evolution, final cause, Fundamentalism, God, Goedel's Theorem, Methodology, Milky Way Galaxy, Paleontology, physics, quantum physics, Relativity, teleology, Theology, Uncategorized

I write this the morning (13 February) after Diane and I had a wonderful, long, and calorie-filled dinner with two very senior people associated with the Keck Telescopes and the other telescopes atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. It was a memorable evening that still resonates with me. One reason that conversation sticks with me -- aside from having discussed dark energy, blue-sky (black-sky?) projects for exploring the Proxima Centauri system, gamma-ray bursts, gravity waves, black holes, etc., etc. – is that one of the subjects we touched on banged down pretty hard on one of my hot-button issues: scientific illiteracy in general in the US and the western world, and the need for informed, literate teaching of science to non-scientists. I mean science per se, not just astrono

Mar82018 by jrcowlesNo Comments

Two Cheers For The Reformation … Well … Sorta … Kinda … Part I

Abrahamic Traditions, autonomy, awareness, Challenge, Change, Christian Church, Christianity/Catholicism, Church, conflict, conservatism, covenant, critical judgment, culture, Episcopacy, epistemology, faith, God, Ideology, Methodology, monotheism, Politics, predestination, Rationality, reconciliation, reflection, Religion, Religious War, Sacred Writing, Scripture, self-serving, Supreme Court, The Divine, theocracy, Theodicy, Theology, Thinking, Tolerance

Well, it looks like I missed the Party! I knew about the Party, all right. But notwithstanding, I missed the Party, anyway. I missed the Party because – quite candidly, and despite being aware of the Party – I honestly didn’t know, still don’t know, what we were supposed to celebrate, rather like being expected to celebrate when your doctor tells you that you need four consecutive colonoscopies on four consecutive days. How happy duzzat make ya?! OK … not to be obtuse ... the Party I missed was the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. For convenience, many church historians – with quite good reason -- date the Protestant Reformation as having “officially” begun on 31 October, 1517, the date when an Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, nailed his legendary “95