Just as long as you don’t want to sit down.

ReadWriteWeb reported today that the U.S. government has awarded VoloMedia a patent (U.S. Patent 7,568,213) on a “method for providing episodic media content.” Basically, if you’re using any technology that allows you to publish episodic media content over the Internet, you’re using technology to which VoloMedia now holds a patent—even if you’ve never, ever heard of VoloMedia before.

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A long opinion piece by K.L. Noll, published yesterday on the Chronicle of Higher Education web site, pits religious studies against theology. Noll complains that

Most people do not understand what religious study really is. Professors of religion are often confused with, or assumed to be allies of, professors of theology.

Placing himself firmly on the side of religious studies over against theology, Noll goes on to claim that while religious studies—a historical, religious discipline—advances knowledge, theology does not. Indeed, theology cannot advance knowledge, Noll claims, because

religion does not do what apologists for religion usually say it does. It does not reveal a god to us or enable us to achieve something referred to vaguely as enlightenment. One does not need to be an atheist to realize that each claim of divine revelation exists for some purpose not stated (or, in some cases, not even known) by the one who claims the revelation. A religious truth-claim can be advanced for any number of reasons. It might be a cynical political ploy or a sincere interpretation of genuine experiences that neurobiologists can help us to understand. Likewise, one need not affirm atheism to understand that sacred traditions, like any combination of cultural artifacts and human ideas, survive and replicate for reasons that have little to do with the truth-claims associated with those traditions.

To my mind, this paragraph belies the distinction Noll wishes to enforce. The claim that “religion … does not reveal a god to us”—besides being ridiculously vague, as one can hardly speak about “religion” in the abstract rather than specific religions—is a bald-faced theological claim, not an empirically demonstrable claim about “why and how humans are religious, what religion actually does, and how religion has evolved historically” (Noll’s description of religious studies a paragraph earlier).

Noll further explains his proposed distinction by dehumanizing theologians:

In sum, the religion researcher is related to the theologian as the biologist is related to the frog in her lab. Theologians try to invigorate their own religion, perpetuate it, expound it, defend it, or explain its relationship to other religions. Religion researchers select sample religions, slice them open, and poke around inside, which tends to “kill” the religion, or at least to kill the romantic or magical aspects of the religion and focus instead on how that religion actually works.

Noll then proposes a ridiculous test for how to tell a theologian from a religious researcher:

If you are uncertain with whom you are speaking, just inject the name of Richard Dawkins into the conversation. The theologian will be dismissive of him; the religion researcher will not.

I propose a test of Noll’s test: compare the number of theologians who have actually taken Dawkins’s arguments seriously, as measured by attempts to respond to his arguments as if they mattered, with the number of religious researchers who have chosen not to follow Dawkins in attributing the origins and development of religion to “memes” and by-products of otherwise useful evolutionary adaptations.

As the end of the piece approaches, Noll attempts to claim the ethical high ground for “knowledge-advancing” religion researchers over against “truth-advocacy” theologians:

The distinction that I have drawn between theology and religious study is not merely academic but ethical. In my view, the presence of a discipline within academe that does not attempt to advance knowledge but tries to defend a set of truth-claims for which empirical data are, by definition, unavailable requires of theologians greater ethical responsibility than most of us in academe already acknowledge.

And yet Noll’s article itself is peppered with “truth-claims for which empirical data are, by definition, unavailable,” such as:

• [Religion] does not reveal a god to us or enable us to achieve something referred to vaguely as enlightenment.
• [S]acred traditions, like any combination of cultural artifacts and human ideas, survive and replicate for reasons that have little to do with the truth-claims associated with those traditions.
• [T]alk about a god is, necessarily, talk that never advances knowledge.
• The god of the Bible is the sum total of the words in the text and has no independent existence. It would be reasonable to begin every theological discussion with the disclaimer “the god described in this sacred text is fictional, and any resemblance to an actual god is purely coincidental.”

With the possible exception of the second bullet, these are metaphysical—one might say theological—claims, not scientific, empirical ones.

At any rate, I invite you to read Noll’s article for yourself (a Chronicle subscription may be required, however) and discuss it there, or here.

Just after the Chronicle of Higher Education noted a Canadian professor’s use of extra credit to bribe his students away from Twitter, ReadWriteWeb noted a German, Austrian, and British team’s report on the use of Twitter at academic conferences:

As to what the conference goers shared, it was discovered that nearly half the tweets were simple plain text messages while tweets with links to web sites only accounted for 10% of the messages. In other words, the Twitterers were using the medium to share the information they were learning at the present moment as opposed to posting links to information already available on the web.

The participants were also asked open-ended questions like “Why do you think Twitter encouraged the discussion about topics?” and what the added value of Twitter at conferences was. In response, the survey participants answered that Twitter gave conference goers a greater sense of community and encouraged discussion in the backchannel, often allowing them to discuss things in more detail than the “guys on the stage.” Other participants noted that Twitter helps you connect with people who have similar interests, provides networking potential, and allows those who could not attend to gain value from your experience.

The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s Wired Campus blog reported a few days ago that Harvard University Press has “already posted hundreds of works for download” through Scribd, and would soon have Scribd offerings amounting to 1,000 or more volumes. You can download those works, that is, if you pay for them—at the full price of the printed book. This post offers more content »

Every writer, present company very much included, makes simple typing mistakes from time to time. However, I found the following advertising copy (which arrived in an e-mail Thursday) just too egregious not to call out.

We are pleased to announce a release of the new digital edition of Hebrew Bible. This edition is an important milestone in the work of Varda Books as it allows us to continue our innovative publishing in this area.

Because it is our own Hebrew Bible, we’re free to allow it to be sold in UNENCRYPTED mode. What it means to you, is that now you can use it not only on any PC, Mac, or Linux, but also on Sony, Kindle and other specialized book-readers, as well as smartphone, like iPhone, and any computing device that supports Adobe PDF files.

Once you download it, there no need to be connected to the Internet or even register with us your computer: place a copy of this Tanakh on as many platforms as you personally own. We rely on you to observe our copyright and not to transfer your copy to those who haven’t purchased it.

Unlike many versions available on the Internet which are often full of errors, ours is well proofread edition where many mistakes have been corrected even vis-à-vis the previous edition which we have prepared for another publisher.

I copied and pasted the above text to ensure that my own typing errors would not mar the text in any way. Let’s hope the skill of the Tanakh‘s proofreader exceeded the skill of the e-mail’s proofreader.

By “this guy” I mean Robert P. Doede, who teaches philosophy at Trinity Western University in British Columbia. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Doede

offers students extra credit if they don’t use social and traditional media while taking his course. That includes social-networking sites, television, movies, and video games, which they give up in exchange for an extra five percent on their overall grade.

Doede’s “invitation” goes precisely against the grain of my current “Religion 101 for the 21st Century” initiative, which practically requires students to use Twitter and iTunes U, and encourages the use of blogs, wiki media, and other types of social networking and new media. I imagine students would find it awkward to take both classes the same semester!

And computers don’t improve or detract from teaching; the way people use technology improves or detracts from student learning and engagement. A headline in today’s Wired Campus newsletter from the Chronicle of Higher Education asks, “Can Removing Computers from Classrooms Improve Teaching?” From the headline, you might expect a(nother) tired old tirade about students using technology to distract themselves in class—but you’d find something different.

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Mark Goodacre has recently begun a New Testament podcast. What kind of content would you want to hear in a Tanakh/Old Testament podcast, if some enterprising individual were to begin such a thing?

Loren Rosson tagged me with a meme that he didn’t bother to name (how inconsiderate of the man):

How about the five biblical studies books or essays you think have made extremely important and necessary contributions to the field, yet heavily disagree with in spite of this? I have in mind scholarship you find yourself burning to agree with, or a closet fan of, envying the author’s critical acumen, applauding the fact that all the right (and perhaps long-overdue) questions are being asked, but regretfully finding most of the conclusions just plain unpersuasive.

Loren thinks he’s come up with a “helpful exercise,” and because I agree with that assessment, I’ll participate. Let me warn you, though, that I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about my list, and it could easily change as this boat tosses up and down on the ever-shifting sea that is my memory.

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