Video of my Higgs boson talk

A few months ago I have a talk
The Higgs boson: scientific reality vs. the media hype 
for the Centre for Science, Religion, and Culture at Emmanuel College UQ.

Here is the video and the Powerpoint slides.

Exploring Science and Christianity in Sri Lanka

On monday I start teaching a one-week intensive M.Div course on Science, Christianity, and Philosophy at Lanka Bible College Centre for Graduate Studies in Colombo.

I am very happy that local experts Professor Priyan Dias and Dr. Vinoth Ramachandra are going to join me in teaching the course.

In some of the course I will be making use of material from the Test of Faith video series.

A Christian view of climate change III

Thomas Ackerman is a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington.
On his website he has several articles he has written about climate change from a Christian point of view.

John Grisham rediscovers his form

I was a great fan of John Grisham's earlier legal thrillers such as The Firm. I think The Testament was his best, particularly because of the Christian themes. However, I have been disappointed with his last few legal thrillers. They have been quite predictable and at times depressing and preachy. I have not cared at all for Grisham's foray into other genres.

But, I was delighted to read The Racketeer. It is has several quite unpredictable turns.

Is Dawkins a fundamentalist?

There is an interesting article in the Guardian Peter Higgs criticises Richard Dawkins over anti-religious 'fundamentalism'

Higgs [of Higgs boson fame] is an atheist, which he attributes to his upbringing. It is interesting that at Oxford Higgs was a Ph.D student of Charles Coulson, who I imagine would have been a great role model of a Christian intellectual.

I thank Matt Cardier for bringing the article to my attention.

Falling off the compromise cliff

This morning I read a New York Times opinion piece Liberalism's $400,00 problem. I don't think it offers much significant insight. But, what it did not say was significant, and highlights how serious the problem is. People have completely lost perspective.

The  USA [and the rest of the world] is in limbo because of a bitter ideological debate about whether someone who earns $400,000 is "rich" and should be taxed at a particular rate [35% versus 39.6%]. Or should the threshold be $250,000? or one million?

I have three concerns.

1. Tax rates for a very small percentage of the population has become a central issue. This shows how increasingly politics, particularly in the USA, is completely controlled by the rich [or the wannabe rich] and their concerns.

2. Politics is the messy "art" of government and getting things done. This requires compromise. Rigid ideology, no matter how well meaning and well thought out, can be destructive of the broader longer term interests of society.

3. Grow up! Get some perspective! Does it really matter? $250K or 400K? Just make a decision and stick to it! A mark of an immature individual [whether a teenager or an insubordinate employee] is they get fixated on small insignificant and imperfect decisions that they don't like. They want to keep revisiting the issue, debating it, and trying to overturn it. Time and energy is then wasted that could have been spent on weightier matters.

Significant insignificance

This is a nice talk with stunning visuals which captures some of the grandeur and immensity of the universe.
It amplifies the paradox: We humans are minute in length scale but immensely significant in God's eyes.