Notables

Jason Kuznicki has a post worth reading on a recent Utah polygamy case. I agree with him that the law in question is utterly absurd, and for similar reasons: marriage springs from the people, not from the state. The most the state can do is decide what it will recognize as marriage for the purposes established by state interests (e.g., facilitating inheritances, encouraging care for children, protecting spouses from abuse, etc.). It has no say on whether something may be counted a marriage or not by those who are in it (at least none without usurping the privileges of the people).

* Some good posts on the atonement at Adrian Warnock's blog, 42, Connexions and verbum ipsum.

* Richard Chappell presents a Vellemanian view of life in Living as Storytelling.

* At "Evolutionblog" Jason Rosenhouse has an interesting post on Dembski's theodicy. As you may recall, Alejandro Satz had a post on the subject about a month ago. Both are worth reading. Some of the comments made by commenters on Jason's post, on the other hand, show just why people need to read up seriously on the subject before they start pulling things out of various dark places; because there are a lot of things said that show considerable ignorance of the arguments on both sides.

* G. K. Chesterton's birthday anniversary was May 29. Celebrate the occasion by visiting the American Chesterton Society webpage, or re-read Chesterton's exquisite The Man Who Was Thursday. From The Ballad of the White Horse:

"Out of the mouth of the Mother of God,
More than the doors of doom,
I call the muster of Wessex men
From grassy hamlet or ditch or den,
To break and be broken, God knows when,
But I have seen for whom.

Out of the mouth of the Mother of God
Like a little word come I;
For I go gathering Christian men
From sunken paving and ford and fen,
To die in a battle, God knows when,
By God, but I know why.

"And this is the word of Mary,
The word of the world's desire
`No more of comfort shall ye get,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.' "

* Since it's Justin Martyr's feast day, it seems appropriate to link to works of the the second-century philosopher-saint. From his Discourse to the Greeks:

These have conquered me--the divinity of the instruction, and the power of the Word: for as a skilled serpent-charmer lures the terrible reptile from his den and causes it to flee, so the Word drives the fearful passions of our sensual nature from the very recesses of the soul; first driving forth lust, through which every ill is begotten--hatreds, strife, envy, emulations, anger, and such like. Lust being once banished, the soul becomes calm and serene. And being set free from the ills in which it was sunk up to the neck, it returns to Him who made it. For it is fit that it be restored to that state whence it departed, whence every soul was or is.

* Part I of the History Carnival is up at Aqueduct, with the second to follow Monday. I especially recommend the discussion of Jews and Muslims in the Middle East at "Brian's Study Breaks" and So Who Was Our First President? at "American Presidents Blog".