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About Nick Knisely

Episcopal priest, Cathedral Dean, dad, astronomer, erstwhile dancer...

Wiring error apparently explains away FTL neutrino observations

So, this is a rather boring bit of news about the announcement earlier this year regarding observations of neutrinos that seemed to be going faster than the speed of light: “According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds … Continue reading

Posted in SOSc | 1 Comment

Speaking of going mobile… Wayfarer is here

So Monday I posted a note calling on Episcopalians to start thinking how we ought to be moving ourselves toward providing content on mobile platforms, since all the projections look like mobile internet use is going to soon eclipse traditional … Continue reading

Posted in Religion, Web/Tech | 1 Comment

Preparing the *Church* for a mobile-first world

There are very few Episcopal churches right now that have their own phone application. We don’t. I’m not sure that’s the right place to spend money for what it’s worth. But I do think we need to be intentional about thinking through how people will use their mobile devices on a Sunday morning. Continue reading

Posted in Religion, Web/Tech | 4 Comments

Quick take on polity

How effective can a church based on a Constantian understanding of the relationship between faith and State be in a nation founded by people who were forced to leave their homes because they rejected that understanding? Seems to me that … Continue reading

Posted in Religion | 3 Comments

Epiphany 5B 2012: God expects us to search for the Truth

There's often a sense in American circles that important things ought to reduce to simple, easily learned maxims. We want to know the three things we must do to be saved. We want to know the four spiritual laws. We … Continue reading

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Expressing the inexpressible

There are times when we have our words fail us, and we find ourselves using metaphor to express that which we can’t express. We talked a bit about that use of metaphor on the retreat I attended in Tucson last week. Science as well as theology often strays into metaphorical language. We seek to explain the things which cannot be easily explained. It’s not unlike the task of a poet I suppose. And so at our retreat, focusing on the fusion of Science and Theology we read a lot of poetry. I imagine if we’d held the retreat here at the Cathedral, we would have used the artwork presently on exhibit. Continue reading

Posted in SOSc | 2 Comments

Robert Sheldrake: The Science Delusion

Following up on my post yesterday about the need to move Scientific paradigms away from a materialism centered view toward a potentiality view, I want to draw your attention to this review of Sheldrake’s new book (which was at the … Continue reading

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Moving Science away from materialism

It’s striking to me how many of the major culture war battlefields of our present day are ultimately based on the perceived conflict between Science and Religion. The irony though is that most of the conflict seems to be based on using an older interpretation of Science (materialism) or Theology (Biblical atomism) and not on the current broadly accepted scholarly paradigms. Continue reading

Posted in SOSc | 4 Comments

Fairy tales are more than true

This past week I’ve been on retreat with an extraordinary group of people. After much reluctance on my part, which I now look back upon with some shame, I have become a member of the Society of Ordained Scientists. The … Continue reading

Posted in SOSc | 2 Comments

“Peak oil” is here. Now what?

The amount of oil produced world-wide has not increased significantly since 2005. Sure we’ve found major new reserves, but they’re harder to access and more expensive to produce. The cheap oil of that drove the hyper-progress of the 20th century … Continue reading

Posted in Peak Oil, Religion | 3 Comments