thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
Phil Hemsley has a blog, Thoughts from a Minimalist Christian. Since I have discovered it, I have enjoyed reading Phil’s thoughts, but I wondered how a 40 year old atheist (as he once was) came to convert to christian belief. So I asked him.
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.
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 […]
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.
It has been long established by research that religious observance provides a number of health and wellbeing benefits, including a higher level of happiness. But why is this so?
We all know that the number of committed religious people is dropping in most western countries (see, e.g. Who believes in God?). And it’s not too hard to find stories on the internet of people who were brought up religious, but now disbelieve. It may be less well known that, at the same time, a […]
We know that forgiving people who have wronged us is an important part of restoring the relationship, and also important for our own wellbeing. Now a scientific study spells out some more of the details.
About 30 years ago, I believe God intervened to save me from serious harm. Let me tell you about it.
Many non-believers argue that the only things we can know are what can be proved by science. Yet many believers say that one of the main reasons they believe is because of their experience of God, something science cannot easily examine. So how can we approach this question reasonably?
I don’t like to take things on faith, without evidence. I like to research things, gather facts, or alleged facts, sort and sift and mull over them – and then come to a conclusion. And over the past year or so I have been looking at the evidence for miraculous healings.