My blog covers a range of topics, in particular ones related to the intersection of religion and contemporary life, culture and society. One particular focus is on religion and science fiction (blogging about LOST, Battlestar Galactica, and muc more). Another is the topic of evolution and creationism. There are also posts about my research (I’m a New Testament scholar).

I am associate professor of religion at Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana, in the United States. My blog Exploring Our Matrix began as a venue for expressing myself about subjects that I wouldn’t normally talk about in the classroom. It remains a hobby.

I started because I was interested in the intersection of two interests of mine, religion and science fiction. I once taught a course on religion and sci-fi, and hope to teach it again, but at the time I began the blog I wasn’t teaching on the subject.

Since then, Exploring Our Matrix has become even more of an outlet for me to bring the things I think about as a religion scholar, as a sci-fi fan, and as a Christian into a public setting. A lot of discussions on the internet about religion are, shall we say, lacking a grounding in essential knowledge about key aspects of the topic, whether the Bible, biology, or something else.

In 2003 I began the blog hosted on my web server at work. The old blog is still there at http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/blog/

In 2007 I moved to Blogger, and that has made an enormous difference to the blog’s visibility and traffic.

On a typical day there are around 700. Some days there are fewer, and when a more popular site has linked to mine, I have gotten as many as a few thousand hits in a single day.

There is no income per se, although if you go to Amazon.com through my blog and then buy something, I do get credit for it.

Science fiction fans, people generally interested in religion, those interested in contemporary debates about creationism and evolution. In particular, anyone who thinks that there are people who “believe the whole Bible” and “take it all literally” are encouraged to visit!

Too much. I usually write something in the morning if I have something on my mind, perhaps for an hour, often less than that but on occasion even more. But I’m often doing other things simultaneously, so I’ll start a post, leave it open, finish it later. Sometimes I’ll also post several short items over the course of the day.

You should subscribe to Exploring Our Matrix because there is something on it for everyone. Even if you are not personally interested in religion, the interest in religion that other people have can impact your life. Issues of science education affect us all, affect our children, affect the economy. Debates about law, torture, the economy, human rights, marriage and various other subjects are participated in by people who are motivated by religious conviction. Usually there are people on all sides of these debates who are part of the same broad religious tradition but understand the implications of that in different ways.

Subscribe because it is both relevant and fun!

Blog about things that interest you. Do a little from time to time to draw your posts to the attention of others that might be interested, but don’t become a spammer. If may bring you a little traffic, but it won’t bring you actual readers.

This blog can be visited at http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com