Melissa Cain Travis

The Woodlands

Host at Theology on Air

Cosmology; Philosophy; Discovery CSC Fellow; DiscoveryU Instructor; Author; https://t.co/ruGTJCxBUk

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Articles

What did the Magi see? Decoding the mystery of the star of Bethlehem

Dec 15, 2024 | conservativereview.com | Melissa Cain Travis
What did the Magi see? Decoding the mystery of the star of Bethlehem

Dec 15, 2024 | theblaze.com | Melissa Cain Travis

Four years ago, in December 2020, a great conjunction occurred in the evening sky. From the perspective of earthbound observers, this planetary event appeared as a close rendezvous of Jupiter and Saturn, the “gas giants” that are visible to the naked eye. It had been almost four centuries since the two planets had aligned so closely and almost eight centuries since this occurred at night.
Finding Beauty and Harmony in the Sciences

Jul 31, 2024 | idthefuture.com | Melissa Cain Travis

Episode 1935 With Andrew McDiarmid Guest(s) Melissa Travis Duration 00:43:05 Download Audio File (59.2 mb) Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Flipboard Print https://chrt.fm/track/G42895/idthefuture.com/podcast-player/42396/1935.mp3 Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:43:05 | Materialist philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote that “only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation…be safely built.” But is this worldview of scientific materialism in line...
science and faith

May 21, 2024 | discovery.org | Guillermo Gonzalez |Jonathan Witt |Melissa Cain Travis |Andrew McDiarmid

farm-at-the-center-cover-scaled Faith & Science, Intelligent Design The Farm at the Center of the Universe Faith & Science, Intelligent Design Why did Isaac’s father have to die so young? Isaac’s older cousin Charlie — a science teacher — says he knows why. Nature is pitiless. There’s no God. No afterlife. Just atoms in the void and the struggle for survival. Charlie says a week at their grandparents’ farm, seeing animals get killed and eaten, will prove it.
Why Then, Why There? The Christian West and the Scientific Revolution, Part 1

May 19, 2024 | worldviewbulletin.substack.com | Melissa Cain Travis |Chris Reese

Prior to what we regard as the birth of modern science in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe, various types of quantitative astronomy had been practiced in multiple cultures since early Antiquity. Surviving cuneiform tablets from ancient Mesopotamia containing star catalogs and celestial observations date back to the second millennium BCE.
The Ultimate Eucatastrophe: How Fairy Tales Illuminate the Resurrection of Christ

Apr 1, 2024 | shadowlandsdispatch.substack.com | Melissa Cain Travis

“…and they lived happily ever after.
Stealing Past the Watchful Dragons: The Imaginative Apologetics of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis

Mar 13, 2024 | shadowlandsdispatch.substack.com | Melissa Cain Travis

It has been more than twenty years since my first reading of The Lord of the Rings. I’d never even heard of the book until the first film of Peter Jackson’s trilogy made its grand debut in December of 2001, and I purchased a copy of the book immediately after seeingit. Since then, I’ve read the book numerous times, and watching the extended versions of the films has become a central tradition of the holiday season in the Travis household.
Christianity and the So-Called “Dark Ages”

Mar 9, 2024 | worldviewbulletin.substack.com | Melissa Cain Travis |Chris Reese

In his famous essay, “The Age of Reason,” American Founding Father and deist, Thomas Paine, sharply critiqued organized religion in general, and Christian theology in particular.
1700 Years of Lent: One Protestant’s Perspective on the Value of Lenten Observance

Feb 8, 2024 | worldviewbulletin.substack.com | Melissa Cain Travis |Chris Reese

My family and I entered the Anglican church in the winter of 2016. It was still Christmastide (the twelve days that stretch from December 25th to January 5th), a celebratory season of feasting and merry making. During our first several weeks in this new (for us) tradition, as we learned more about liturgical worship and the church calendar, Lent loomed large on the horizon.
Penitence and Human Flourishing in Dante and Dostoevsky

Jan 19, 2024 | shadowlandsdispatch.substack.com | Melissa Cain Travis

Many great thinkers of the Western Tradition have emphasized the inverse correlation between human sin (non-virtuous living) and human happiness. They did not define happiness as maximal pleasure and minimal pain; rather, they understood it as a state of flourishing, what the ancient Greeks (notably, Aristotle) called eudaimonia. The path to eudaimonia, they argued, is a life of virtue, the pursuit of The Good.