thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
September 28th, 2011
We often hear that religion “poisons everything“, and that it is a delusion that causes people to do evil things (Physicist Stephen Weinberg once said: “for good people to do evil — that takes religion”.) Some people claim that religion is responsible for many of the evils in history – the crusades, witch-burning, war, genocide, […]
September 27th, 2011
Last weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald carried two opinion pieces on greed, ethics and a “broken” western society that presented a disturbing picture.
September 18th, 2011
I don’t get mad all that often these days – perhaps I’m getting too old and tired for that – but some of the climate change sceptics are really getting my goat. It’s not that I think believing in human-induced global warming is the only conclusion we can come to – there are, after all, […]
September 9th, 2011
It is probably the most devastating argument against belief in God. If there is a good and powerful God, why would he allow so much suffering and evil in the world. Surely he would stop it? Doesn’t this prove beyond doubt that there is no God?
September 4th, 2011
But what is certain is …. that humans believe only the irrational tales of their own culture, not those of others Adele Mercier I hear it a lot these days. “People only believe in christianity because they were born into a christian culture.” “If you were born in Mecca, you’d be a Muslim.” “No religion […]
August 30th, 2011
In many people’s minds, there is no argument. Science is based on evidence and can give us close to certainty; faith is not based on anything and is a delusion – believers may say they are certain but they cannot be. But there is a problem for this view – what do we make of […]
August 29th, 2011
Archaeology can tell us a lot about the world of first century Palestine, where Jesus lived, and this is a great help in understanding the New Testament. But can it tell us much about one of the most basic questions of all: are the New Testament gospels accurate accounts of Jesus’ life, based on eyewitnesses? […]
August 25th, 2011
In what ways does belief in God change the way people think and respond to situations? Some recent university research studies are shedding some light on this question.
August 18th, 2011
Last post I referenced a newspaper editorial that suggested that the recent civil unrest in England was symptomatic of a much larger malaise – a lack of ethics in public life generally. Now a leading UK thinktank (and not a conservative one as far as I can gather) has come out arguing that English society […]
August 13th, 2011
In my last post, Why try to be good?, I discussed ethics in our secular postmodern western societies, and ended up with ethicist Peter Singer’s reflection that faith in a good God is the only way to provide a complete answer to the question, Why act morally? Today’s editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald, Britain […]
A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.