MSI Press Blog

  STEP #3. ACCEPT THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE STUDENT: Dr. Brink? BRINK: Yes, oh come on in for our weekly conversation. STUDENT: I don't think I'll come in. I just stopped by to say thank you for all the time you have given me, but I don't think I'll be coming bac k. BRINK: I have enjoyed our conversations. But I thought that we would have a few more before I was done giving you my complete answer. STUDENT: I am sure that you have more to say, but I think that I got enough. I don't really disagree with anything you have said so far. I really thought about what we said last time about the limits of reason, and I do agree with that, and that it all comes down to making a decision, a commitment, and I have made my decision. I am going to stay with science, not just for my major and career, but my view of the world, evolution and all. BRINK: Well do come in and grant me a conversation about science. STUDENT: OK, I guess that I do have the time. BRINK: Tell me w

  Excerpt: THE WOMAN WHO TOUCHED JESUS (Gospel account in Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:24-34: Luke 9:43-48)   A large crowd was following Jesus, pressing around him. A woman crept up quietly, trying to touch him. This dear lady had an internal bleeding disorder. For twelve years, she’d suffered under the care of many doctors and spent all her money to pay them. But, instead of getting better, she grew worse. She’d heard of Jesus. So, she pressed through the crowd and slipped up behind him, thinking, “If I only touch his clothes, I’ll be healed.” As soon as she touched his cloak, she felt the bleeding stop. Background This brave lady risked public humiliation by approaching Jesus unbidden. Women of her day were often not treated with dignity. She knew she would likely be ridiculed, but she was enough desperate to choose to face the consequences. The disciples would not be sympathetic. They fancied themselves to be Jesus’ palace guards, shooing the riffraff away, especially women and childre

(Easter 2022 at Old Mission San Juan Bautista ) Excerpt from the beginning chapter of Blest Atheist (a repeat and more from Easter 2017 , never loses its significance...) Siberia on Easter Morning  “ Khristos voskres ” (Christ is risen). One person after another greeted me with these words as I climbed the stairs of the little, wooden church in Akademgorodok, a tiny town at the end of the man-made Ob Sea, bejeweling the Siberian steppe 45 minutes south of the city of Novosibirsk. The intertwining snow-covered birch and kedr (Siberian pine) trees created an illusion of a land of fantasy, made more so in the late evenings by the moon reflecting off the naked silver-white birch bark onto the dark red-brown trunks and evergreen branches of the pines. This was not yet the inhospitable taiga ; it was somewhat south for that, but nonetheless the birch and kedr trees stood closely side-by-side like brothers-in-arms against a hostile white and cold universe.             “ V istinu voskres ” (