thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
October 22nd, 2016
Last post (I’m beginning to see a pattern here) I looked at a number of scientific and historical facts where a bunch of non-experts challenge the consensus of the real experts. These areas were: evolution vs creationism; whether Jesus was a historical person and Nazareth was where he lived; climate change; the medieval church vs […]
October 15th, 2016
I seem to have had this feeling of deja vu before! 🙂 Conversations on the internet where the topics were very different, but the discussions seem to go in the same direction. The other person might be an atheist or they might be a christian, but I seem to end up saying the same things.
September 29th, 2016
I am currently reading Hugh Mackay’s book, Beyond Belief, which addresses the question of how people find meaning in life with or without religion. Hugh is probably Australia’s leading social researcher and commentator, regularly appearing on talk shows and in newspaper article. He is neither a christian nor an atheist, probably best described as having […]
September 22nd, 2016
We live in a physical world and most things we know are through our senses. Certainly we relate to each other through all the senses. So if God’s really there, why can’t we know him through our senses too? If God loves us, why wouldn’t he make himself more obvious, so we can all receive […]
September 7th, 2016
Australians have had a polarised and sometimes ambivalent attitude to the threats to this planet, and to our comfortable Aussie way of life, from climate change. Most people, most of the time, want to make positive changes, but a sizeable minority follow the shock jocks and the Murdoch press in mocking climate change. Governments have […]
August 25th, 2016
Before we read a book, we will often want to know who wrote it and whether we can trust them to give us accurate information. It is therefore understandable that people might wonder who wrote the 27 books of the New Testament. Last post I discussed the writings of New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. One […]
August 14th, 2016
Bart Ehrman is an eminent New Testament scholar, a successful writer and a thorn in the side of conservative christians. I have been reading a few more of his books lately (those shown in the picture above), to see what makes him simultaneously so popular and unpopular. Some clear themes emerge, and I think they […]
August 7th, 2016
Definitions of words can be boring stuff, but sometimes they are important. Sometimes people get quite excited, perhaps even angry, over them. The words atheist and agnostic have been examples of this in recent years.
July 28th, 2016
This page in brief For years I had a self-coded HTML website with a blog attached. Late last year I made the decision to make it entirely built on WordPress, which necessitated converting about a hundred HTML pages to WordPress pages, and solving quite a few problems along the way. I am not a professional […]
July 19th, 2016
Mark Bauerlein is Professor of English at Emory College. He has written books on modern culture, and written articles for several popular American magazines. He has been called one of the Independent Women’s Forum’s “favorite intellectuals”. And five years ago, after more than three decades as a comfortable atheist, Mark converted to christianity. What happened?
A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.