Chapter 1 of the Gospel of John begins in a way that echoes Genesis 1:

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.

I am indebted to Wesley J. Smith at Second Hand Smoke for a link to a recent article by Peter Singer, noted Utilitarian philosopher at Stanford, "Peter Singer: Germ of a new debate on the ethics of life."

To give you some idea of how Professor Singer thinks about us humans, consider the following extended discourse from the article.

Scientific American, in "Getting a Rational Grip on Religion -- Is religion a fit subject for scientific scrutiny," poses a legitimate, in my humble opinion, question. I think the short answer is, yes religion is a fit subject for scientific inquiry. There is no reason not to use the scientific method to study religion or religious phenomena. The problem, when there is one, comes when scientists fail in the proper use of their own methods.

Scientific American has a short piece on the use of the Internet by jihadists. "Scientific American: Virtual Jihad" discusses ways of combatting the phenomenon, including using so-called data mining techniques in intelligence gathering, setting up phoney sites to confuse recruits and entering chat rooms armed with a positive message.

If you saw the 48 Hours special on the Nativity this past week, you may recall Prof. Crossan's difficulty harmonizing the Gospel stories. For example, he says

As I meditated on the differences between the Matthaean and Lukan accounts of the genealogy of Jesus, I came across this rather intriguing analysis, "Who was Jesus' Grandfather?", on what looks to be an Evangelical web site. Although the details are highly dubious, the theorizing is highly intriguing.

There are lots of articles on the web these days about shortages of hot ticket toys and procrastinating shoppers, some of whom just might sit this Christmas shopping season out. An article in the Rochester "Democrat and Chronicle", "Shoppers beginning to see 'sold out'" is as good as any.

This phenomenon is worth the trouble of social scientists to try and understand. There are at least two underlying trends of some note.

This really should come as no surprise, at least to the technically literate among us. The rest may need to read up on what they've been missing in this Fox News report, "Domestic Spying Had Wide Coverage."

Between 1997 and 2003 I was in the seminary, being formed for the priesthood. Before that I was a high paid engineer (at least by some accounts). I was not particularly concerned about escalating inefficiencies in schools back in the mid 90s, so I generally voted in favor of school levies whenever they showed up on a ballot. While in the seminary I was more concerned about finishing the assigned reading. Thus, I felt like a rube when I first got clued in to the gap between public and parochial school costs.

The recent Barbara Walters special on "Heaven" referred to the so-called "God gene," as a possible explanation for the near-universal belief in an afterlife. It turns out the fellow who came up with this research is the same guy who claims to have discovered a "gay gene." My advice is to continue to monitor this, but take it with a grain of salt. Nothing is proven yet. The article in the Telegraph of London was submitted by Elizabeth Day, a staff writer.