Off topic, but...

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Topical nonetheless. Just a few days ago I finally got around to ditching the landline. Unimaginable just a few short years back. A couple of years ago I got the shock of my life to see the plastic boxes with rotary dials on display as part of a communications exhibit at MOTAT (Museum Of Transport And Technology). I was shepherding a class of ten-year-olds through, and they were totally fascinated ("how do these things work?") Good grief, I remember the sacred black box that sat on its own dedicated "telephone table" as a kid, and how thoroughly modern I felt when I picked up my first push-button model for the flat in the nineteen mumble-mumbles.

Apart from that, the maths was compelling; paying hundreds extra each year for advertisers to interrupt evening downtime to solicit business was increasingly stupid. No more real estate agents at 7.00, hallelujah.

The mourning period lasted all of 5 minutes.

Galileo, the Bible and Science

There are those that maintain literalism and fundamentalism are modern importations into Christian belief.

That's a hard argument to validate. In a pre-modern world there were few other ways to view the Bible. Propositional truth was the default position outside a cloistered cadre of intellectuals who whispered amongst themselves. Hector Avalos reminds us what it was like for our forebears back in the 17th century.

Hector Avalos: Galileo, the Bible and Science

Francesca Stavrakopoulou on the Bible, no holds barred

Here's some direct talking from a major British biblical scholar. Doesn't look like a biblical scholar, doesn't sound like a biblical scholar, but be ye not deceived, she's the real McCoy.

The interview is from a recent ABC Australia talk show.