Atheism and freewill – the elephant in the room?

April 2nd, 2013

I have had an interest in the question of free will ever since a long and friendly email discussion with an atheist and determinist almost a decade ago. He was a researcher in artificial intelligence, and strongly believed that human beings had no free will, and that the only way we could have it was […]

Read more .....

Religion statistics

March 28th, 2013

I am a bit of a statistics nerd, so when I came across some stats on the world’s major religions in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, I couldn’t resist playing around with them. Note (2023): For updated statistics, see World’s biggest religion?

Read more .....

Books: historical Jesus

March 26th, 2013

I have recently read two very different books about Jesus and history. One was long, one short; one was by a retired academic, the other by a rising star; one was a detailed analysis of all the things we can objectively know about Jesus’ life, the other a postmodern explanation of why our knowledge is […]

Read more .....

Moving naturalism forwards?

March 22nd, 2013

In October 2012, 14 eminent scientists, philosophers and other thinkers met for 3 days in a workshop entitled Moving Naturalism Forwards. Why did they meet and what were the outcomes?

Read more .....

How many early humans?

March 16th, 2013

I have been doing a little reading on DNA, evolution and human history, and the implications of the latest science for christian belief (see DNA, genes and human history). The questions of what do we class as “human”, when the first humans appeared, and how many there were, pose some interesting challenges.

Read more .....

The loneliness of the long distance atheist?

March 12th, 2013

The rise of a more assertive and public brand of atheism is a phenomenon of the last couple of decades. One feature of the so-called “new atheism” is its strong anti-religion stance. Not content to live and let live, many high profile atheists, and their internet followers, vehemently oppose religion, believing it is responsible for […]

Read more .....

People shouldn’t be bought and sold

March 6th, 2013

People trafficking is the coercive trade of human beings to provide cheap or free labour – effectively slavery. It is happening around the world, and leaves millions of powerless people in misery.

Read more .....

Josephus and Jesus

March 3rd, 2013

In a discussion on another post (on archaeology at Nazareth), a reader referred to first century Jewish historian, Josephus. He suggested that Josephus had not mentioned Jesus in his history, and that this was “telling”. I felt the comment merited a separate post. Did Josephus refer to Jesus? What is the current consensus of relevant […]

Read more .....

Christians vs science?

February 28th, 2013

It’s more or less a stereotype, especially in the US: christians are thought to be anti-science. Except the evidence apparently says something different.

Read more .....

Evolution vs God?

February 25th, 2013

I have never really worried much about evolution. I had decided the Genesis origins account was not literal history before I ever thought the scientific account of evolution was true, so the two were never really in conflict for me. But many christians, and a few atheists too, think God and evolution are incompatible. Why?

Read more .....

A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.