thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
I am a bit of a maths nerd – I enjoy using spreadsheets and graphs to analyse and illustrate. But I can’t claim much expertise – I did once obtain a Distinction in Statistics at Uni, but I’ve forgotten all of that now. So while writing up some material on healing miracles (see Healing miracles […]
A few days ago I looked at the number of christian denominations with different beliefs, as a first step to examining the argument that 40,000 denominations (as some said) showed that God couldn’t exist, or couldn’t get his act together. I concluded that there were not nearly so many differences in beliefs as that figure […]
It’s another common statistic and argument by critics of christianity: there are 30,000 to 40,000 christian denominations in the world, which shows that the christian God doesn’t exist, because he would communicate better. How good is the argument, and the statistics?
Atheists and christians alike often feel that not only is their belief true, but it is “nicer”. One argument, which has been made to me several times by atheists recently, is over who is more generous in giving to charity. It has little to do with the truth of belief, but are there any facts […]
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 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?
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 […]
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.
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?
For many people it is virtually an unquestioned assumption – science and christian belief are incompatible. But this book by eminent philosopher Alvin Plantinga turns that on its head – he argues that science and theism are very compatible while it is science and atheism/naturalism that are incompatible. Does he succeed?