thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
The story so far We have been looking at different aspects of our common experience as human beings that are hard, if not impossible, to explain if our universe is no more than physical. Most neuroscientists find it hard to see why our consciousness, our unique sense of ourselves, would evolve in a purely physical […]
Almost everyone has a sense of right and wrong, however warped it may be, but where does it come from? Are some things really right and wrong, or are ethics just arbitrary?
The story so far ….. We have seen that it is hard to explain the fact that the universe exists without some sort of cause and hard to explain its apparent design apart from a designer. Then we saw that it is also difficult to explain human consciousness on purely naturalistic terms. This post, we […]
People tend to take a lot for granted. The sun keeps shining, the earth is full of useful minerals and gravity keeps us from flying off into space. We don’t think about it much, but what if things were different? What if gravity repulsed rather than attracted? What if we couldn’t sit on a chair […]
When thinking about possible evidence for the existence of God, it seems logical to start with the big picture, and work our way down to the more personal. So we start by considering the universe and the explanation of its existence. What is the universe? This may sound like the dumbest of questions, for we […]
It’s an age-old question. Is there really a God? What can we reasonably believe? But it’s also a modern question. Most cultures have evolved with a religion. For those living in that culture, believing in that religion was part of life. Not really to be questioned all that much. But in modern western cultures at […]
It’s not uncommon to come across stories of people being miraculously healed. They are some of the most popular pages on this site, and there’s no shortage of them on the internet. I’m not sure why, but I’m guessing that some people want to feel re-assured God is really there, and some are perhaps looking […]
Human beings are curious creatures, and most of us think about ‘big’ questions, such as “What is life all about?”, or “How did everything get here?” or “Could there be a God?”. How can a human being possibly answer these questions with any assurance? But how can we ignore these questions either? So what is […]
I sometimes get asked for the reasons why I believe. Sometimes it is curiosity, sometimes people are desperate to know why they should believe. Occasionally people ask what sort of reasons are good, with the implication that some reasons are somehow inappropriate. So here’s the results of many years of thought and reading …..
Do human beings have free will? Can we choose among different possible actions and beliefs? Or are we controlled by our genetics, or by blind physical processes in our brains? And if we couldn’t make genuine choices, would that diminish us? Would we be any different from animals, except a little smarter … perhaps? And […]