Healthvsmedicine

Acts 10 is an elaborate story with a lot of irrelevant detail likely entirely fictional, obviously, but it was written to make a single point: that Christianity is a universal religion, not just a sect of Judaism, and it will now be preached to non-Jews and throughout the known world. This has been a gradual development, beginning with outreach to the Samaritans, th...

From Academy Health (the academic society for health services researchers) comes a very depressing post. We already know that the Dump administration has rescinded research grants to study health care and health risks for gay people, women, racial and ethnic minorities, and other subhumans. But now they're making it official that they will only fund science that conforms to t...

Acts 9 tells the story, well-known to Christians, of the conversion of Saul. It doesn't happen in this chapter, but he ends up changing his name to Paul and he goes on to become the founder of the Christian church. Yes, that was Paul, not Jesus. Christian theology is based largely on the writings of Paul. 

While Paul unquestionably existed, there's no way of knowin...

There are a few interesting points to be made about Acts 8. It introduces Saul, who is a major persecutor of Christians. If you went to Christian Sunday school, you already know what will happen to him, but I'll put a pin in that for now. 

I believe I mentioned last time that this chapter has the apostles taking evangelism beyond the Jewish community i...

The poem Memorial Rain, by Archibald MacLeish. He wrote this about his brother Kenneth who died in WWI. Most readers will not know that Archibald also served in combat in that war, as it happens alongside my grandfather Francis H. McCloskey, who went on to become an English professor and ultimately dean of the undergraduate college at NYU. Because of their friendship, I was i...