First there was the news, back in September, that an award winning British film about the British Unitarian, Charles Darwin, was not going to get U.S. distribution rights because it offended people on the religious right.

Why would it offend? Because it suggested Darwin might have moved from his Unitarian Christian theology to more of an agnostic one. According to a British newspaper the film’s producers say the American religious right waged a campaign against its distribution.

Too bad, because I think the movie looks pretty interesting.

Not all religious denominations have trouble with Darwin. The Roman Catholic church finds nothing incompatible with Darwin’s contributions to science and religion. The title of the story called “Vatican Gives Darwin a Big Birthday Hug, Leaving Creationists on the Fringes,” almost sums it up.

Protestant fundamentalists on the other hand, have an entirely different take. But theirs is a minority position according to…

Concordia Seminary’s 20th annual Theological Symposium is September 22-23, and this is the issue at hand. “Science and theology” isn’t necessarily anything new, although the dialogue between the two has often been tenuous at best. But the “new questions and new conversations” certainly is. The symposium will walk the cutting edge of where science and theology intersect today, as well as the ethical implications that these intersections leave us with.

Behind all this is the attempt to get beyond the stereotypically American preoccupation between evolution and creationism. There are simply too many interesting questions out there on which both science and theology can provide answers that are mutually beneficial and enriching. And it is on those questions that we will be focused September 22-23.

To do that, the primary plenary speakers will be leading scientists from diverse backgrounds:

Benjamin Schumacher on “Elusive Reality: Quantum Physics and Theology.” Dr. Schumacher is a physics professor at…

A very odd story in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch Friday committed the journalistic sin of “burying the lede.”

The story was - ostensibly - about the investigation of John Freshwater, a public school teacher who was teaching creationism and disparaging evolution in the classroom.

But in the seventh - yes seventh - paragraph, the reader comes across this:

The report confirmed that Freshwater burned crosses onto students’ arms, using an electrostatic device, in December.

According to the investigators hired by the school district, eighth graders taught by Freshwater frequently had to re-take classes to unlearn what they’d learned about biology. The investigation began after Freshwater refused to remove a Bible from his desk after being ordered to do so by school district authorities.

The Dispatch story says “all of the students” interviewed by investigators reported being branded with crosses. Freshwater told the investigators that the brands were not crosses, but X’s, according to the story.

While Freshwater…

(Disclaimer: I caught one of the nasty colds going around, so if this is less than coherent, apologies.)

In the comments to my first post on Religious Humanism, the question came up, Where do morals and ethical values come from?

Most of us have had our moral ideals shaped in part by our religious communities, but in perhaps a less straightforward way than we think. I’ve read that most people don’t actually know the moral principles of their own religions—they can’t name more than half the Ten Commandments, for example, and I’d bet that most members of the Ethical Society couldn’t tell you our 8 Commitments of Ethical Culture off the top of their head, nor do most humanists know the details of the latest Humanist Manifesto.

Yet it’s been my experience that most people, whatever their religion or life philosophy, share basic moral instincts, such as not to harm or use others, and to…