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About Nick Knisely

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

Online degrees from bricks and mortar places. Seminaries?

Posted on April 2, 2012

I just came across an announcement on Twitter that an online education company (2tor – “tutor”) has announced partnerships with institutions like Georgetown University and USC to provide for credit graduate degrees through online work. Can this work for seminaries? Continue reading →

Posted in Web/Tech | 5 Comments

Why did Jesus have to die?

Posted on March 30, 2012

“That historical reality affords us some latitude to consider the major ways that Christians have understood the atonement over the years, and to ponder some minority opinions as well. In each, the crucifixion is the solution. Where they differ is the problem. In other words, what is the problem that the crucifixion solves? Continue reading →

Posted in Religion, Sermons and audio | 9 Comments

The new religion of space exploration

Posted on March 29, 2012

There’s an interesting essay in the Atlantic. It’s about how people who no longer believe in the major faiths are creating a new one based in a belief that technology has God-like powers to bestow blessings upon us. Space exploration, the pinnacle of the technological enterprise is the acme of human expression. Belief in space exploration is the primary expression of the new “faith”. Continue reading →

Posted in SOSc | 1 Comment

New Scientist: “The God issue: New science of religion”

Posted on March 24, 2012

Couldn’t really pass this one up, could I? New Scientist, a well respected more technical version of Scientific American has devoted an entire issue to the question of how Science and Religion can speak with one another Continue reading →

Posted in SOSc | 1 Comment

YDS ISM flash mob

Posted on March 21, 2012

For those of you familiar with the Institute of Sacred Music program at Yale Divinity School, this is a flash mob done right. Love the kettle drums above the ticket windows. And the kid singing off a score on his … Continue reading →

Posted in Religion | Leave a comment

What happened to Episcopal Café?

Posted on March 21, 2012

UPDATED BELOW: Those of you who read the Lead or Daily Episcopalian on the Episcopal Café site have probably noticed that we haven’t updated the site since Saturday evening. It’s a server error. The Café was migrated to another server … Continue reading →

Posted in Web/Tech | Leave a comment

Lucas Mix on Time and Eternity (and souls and vampires)

Posted on March 16, 2012

Lucas Mix, a friend of mine here in Arizona and so brilliant he makes my head hurt (heh) has taken up a lenten discipline of daily blogging. (Lucas btw is one of the people who finally convinced me that I might actually be accepted a member of the SOSc.) He’s been writing for the past week on the ways we can think about concepts in a scientific worldview and about how we can think through the same things in a theological view. Today’s post on “time” goes a step beyond that. And discusses vampire curses at the end… Continue reading →

Posted in SOSc | Leave a comment

“King Jesus Gospel”

Posted on March 10, 2012

Ever since the rise of the Englightenment groups of Christians have tended to equate the Gospel with saving people. You’ve probably heard the script. The claim is that the Gospel is about personal salvation and it’s deeply connected to Paul’s writing in some of his letters (not all). McKnight even points out there are serious people asking whether or not Jesus actually knew what the Gospel was during the time of his incarnation… or did that not become revealed until Paul’s writing? (Shudder) Continue reading →

Posted in Religion | 7 Comments

Photon heralds extend entanglement

Posted on March 6, 2012

Quantum Entanglement should be an incredibly useful tool for communications. Though it won’t ever become an ansible, or even the basis for subspace radio, the ability to communicate through entangled pairs of quantum particles would, in theory, create a situation … Continue reading →

Posted in Science, Web/Tech | 3 Comments

Dark matter blob misbehaving

Posted on March 3, 2012

Well, this is interesting… Just when cosmologists were starting to arrive at a consensus about the reality of Dark Matter and a sense of how it drives cosmic evolution, observations of Abell 520 completely contradict what people expect. The Dark Matter seems to be having no gravitation effect on galactic trajectories at all. Continue reading →

Posted in Science, SOSc | 2 Comments