All posts filed under: Religion

Are chatbots our new gurus?

May 27, 2025
by Nicholas Knisely
Artificial Intelligence / Religion

AI Chatbots Offer Spiritual Answers. Religious Scholars Explain Why: There is something irresistible about hearing that you alone have a connection to something secret or even divine. “AI can infer the preferences and beliefs of the person interacting with it, encouraging a person to go down rabbit trails and embracing self-aggrandizement they didn’t know they wanted in the first place,” explains Yii-Jan Lin, a professor at Yale Divinity School who has written about the apocalyptic […]

Science: Feeling down? Turn things around quick. Do something kind for someone else.

November 29, 2024
by Nicholas Knisely
Religion / Science

Altruism improves happiness and well-being, research finds – The Washington Post: “Finding joy in helping others is fundamental to who we are as a species,” said Elizabeth Dunn, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. American volunteering and charitable giving have been on the decline in recent years. But helping others may set up a positive feedback loop: Because doing good feels good, altruism can beget more altruism and better well-being. “If […]

At Bible Study for the Homeless, a Search for Meaning – The New York Times

November 24, 2024
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs / Religion

At Bible Study for the Homeless, a Search for Meaning – The New York Times: Religion is often overlooked as a source of resilience among the poor, but the Lamb Center’s Bible study is in its 33rd year, and seats can be hard to find. Some people come to listen, some to vent, some to mull the parables through fogs of addiction or mental illness. They seek hope, but even when hope proves elusive the […]

An elegant reason why entanglement must exist

July 30, 2024
by Nicholas Knisely
Religion / Science / SOSc

Lovely bit of reasoning at the end of this long, well presented article: Quantum information theorists are shedding light on entanglement, one of the spooky mysteries of quantum mechanics: What my colleagues and I proposed is that this quantum [entanglement] results from the relativity principle, which (again) states the laws of physics are the same for all observers with different orientations in space. If the electron with a vertical spin in the up direction were […]

Marking the Anniversary of the Ordination of the 11 Women in Philadelphia 50 years ago today.

July 29, 2024
by Nicholas Knisely
Religion / Rhode Island

Check it out here: Women’s Oral History Project – Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island: To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the ordination of women to the Episcopal priesthood, the Diocese of Rhode Island undertook an oral history project that features interviews with five history-making women with deep connections to the diocese. Rather than issuing statements, we decided that it was better to hear directly from the women connected to Rhode Island who were in the […]

The quality of holiness

April 30, 2024
by Nicholas Knisely
Religion

This surfaced in my daily review of highlights from books I’ve read over the past couple of decades. I hope we still have space in our common life in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion for the irrational holiness of the numinous.

What’s your absolute favorite Bible verse?

February 19, 2024
by Nicholas Knisely
Blogging / Religion

Maple Anglican (@mapleanglican.bsky.social) over on BlueSky posted a question this afternoon asking people to share their favorite verse in the entire Bible. What a great question.  Mine is “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14). I can barely read that without tearing up at Christmas each year. What’s yours? Is there a […]

Rewilding the church yards

February 11, 2024
by Nicholas Knisely
Climate Change / Religion / Science

‘Places of the living’: bishop of Norwich calls for churchyards to be rewilded | Anglicanism | The Guardian: Graham Usher, the Bishop of Norwich: “My dream is that churchyards will be places of the living, not just the dead.” A paper submitted to the synod meeting in London says there is “noticeable biodiversity potential” within churchyards. However, it adds, “these places carry significance for the communities that surround them … Their significance and primary role […]

Simple Biblical Truth?

February 1, 2024
by Nicholas Knisely
Religion / Science

Over the years, as I’ve studied the conversation between Science and Theology, it’s been clear that whatever perceived divide there is between the two, the width of that divide varies regionally. And in my experience one form of Applied Philosophy (either Science or Theology) is privileged in the US over the other depending which side the region was on during the Civil War. Essentially one region, the South insisted on a particular hemenuetic (method of […]