thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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?
It is good, every now and again, to reflect on what we believe and why, and to review if there is any reason to change our minds. I think it is good, too, for a blog author to remind their readers of what the blog is all about. So here’s my summary – what I […]
I was reading my favourite atheist blog recently when I saw a commenter make an argument against the resurrection that went something like this: There are natural explanations of the resurrection (e.g. “It is possible that grave robbers stole the body of Jesus [and] …. that the alleged post-death appearances of Jesus were simply vivid […]
I started my previous post with the observation that the internet is full of discussions between believers and unbelievers, and not all of them are civil, respectful and constructive.
Arguing about the existence of God seems to be a major part of the internet. But I wonder how much it achieves.
We all have different experiences of life and form different views about everything we think about. We bring these perspectives to different questions and challenges we are confronted with – our thinking is, the psychologists tell us, more subjective than we’d like to believe. These presuppositions and biases can’t help but affect our conclusions. Different […]
Andy Gosler is an ornithologist at Oxford University who specialises in bird ecology and ethno-ornithology (how people relate to birds). He is a christian, but didn’t start out life with any belief. An adult convert, it was, strangely, evolution and wildlife conservation that led him to faith. Here is how that happened.