thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
Christians believe Jesus existed, the gospels record his words and deeds with reasonable accuracy (at least), and that the best way to understand Jesus is that he was divine, God’s son establishing God’s kingdom. Non-believers contest some, sometimes all, of these claims. Sometimes scholars give definitive answers to these questions, sometimes they don’t.
Not so very long ago, many internet critics of christianity were pointing out that there was no archaeological evidence of settlements at Bethlehem and Nazareth in the first century. This demonstrates, they said, despite the fact that few scholars agreed with them, that these towns didn’t exist, and that therefore the Bible accounts are not […]
In the nineteenth century, some writers (not generally qualified historians) argued that Jesus didn’t actually exist, and the gospels stories are legends. These views were generally discredited in the twentieth century as historians developed better methods of analysing ancient historical information. But the movement began a resurgence in the latter part of the twentieth century, […]
From time to time I hear people say that the New Testament has been significantly changed since it was first written, so we cannot have any confidence in we are reading. Who knows if it is an accurate reflection of what the original authors wrote? Eminent scholar Bart Ehrman’s 2005 book Misquoting Jesus suggests “how […]
Over the past two centuries, historical scholars have argued over what we can know about Jesus. Virtually all scholars (regardless of religion) now agree Jesus was a real person whose life followed the general outline in the gospels. However enthusiastic amateurs are still promoting the idea that Jesus didn’t exist. Books have been published and […]
Former atheist Anthony Flew called it “the best attested miracle claim in history”. But can we really believe Jesus was raised from death? Is the evidence strong enough to support this belief? What was actually going on in Jerusalem back then?
There is an old argument, used for example by CS Lewis, that Jesus claimed to be divine, something a good and sane person would not do. Therefore Jesus must either have not been good, or not sane, or he was indeed divine. But the argument depends on Jesus actually claiming to be divine, which critics […]
Are christians more likely to be socially and politically conservative or liberal/progressive? If you asked most people’s opinion, I reckon they would think christians are generally conservative. But some new surveys suggest this isn’t the full story.
A constant problem in searching for information on the internet is judging the value of the information you find and the expertise and bias of the writers. One site which appears to be authoritative and neutral is The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. Its aims look good: Disseminating accurate religious information, Exposing religious fraud, hatred […]
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, […]