Category: Belief

What people believe about God – a summary of religions and how we might choose if any of them are true.

Horus and Jesus – a case study in inventing and ignoring evidence?

I have spent many hours this past week reading up on the Egyptian god Horus and the claim that more than a hundred aspects of the life of Jesus recorded in the gospels were copied from the mythology of Horus – and hence that the Jesus stories must also be myth. What I have found […]

Bart Ehrman on Nazareth

I don’t think he read my recent post 🙂 but Bart Ehrman has also posted on the evidence for Nazareth existing at the time of Jesus. Bart has several advantages over me. Not only is he a professional working full time in this field, but he is able, because of his position, to have personal […]

Nazareth – the evidence mounts

I have written before about archaeological excavations in Nazareth and sceptics who claim Nazareth didn’t exist as a village at the time of Jesus (and hence the gospels must be wrong) – see Did Bethlehem and Nazareth exist in Jesus’ day? and Nazareth re-visited. I have just come across some new information that was first […]

Indigenous Australians, climate change and the New Testament gospels

How could indigenous Australians, climate change and the New Testament gospels possibly be connected? But there really is a connection. So please read on!

“The sun came up from the ocean, red with the cold sea mist”

I’ve been away on a short holiday for the last week, at a beautiful spot on the NSW coast. Our holiday unit is right on the beachfront, with views over the Pacific Ocean. We sleep just inside large glass doors, so we hear the sounds of the surf during the night, and wake as the […]

Bart Ehrman and the evidence for Jesus

Bart Ehrman is a respected New Testament scholar and an “atheist-leaning agnostic”. As well as academic publications, he has written a number of popular-level books about Jesus and the New Testament. Many of the books present a more sceptical view of the New Testament than many christians accept, but one of his more recent books, […]

Believing in Jesus in an age of scepticism

It’s Christmas Eve. At a time when there’s so much scepticism about Jesus, as I discussed in my last post, is it reasonable to still believe?

Shock! Horror! Turn off the Xmas lights! We shouldn’t be celebrating Christmas at all!
An atheist’s thoughts on Jesus and history

When considering a contentious question, it can be helpful to see how much thoughtful protagonists concede to the other side, for this is an indicator of the range of reasonable views. For example, if a thoughtful and knowledgable christian concedes an area of doubt about Jesus, there is a fair chance that doubt has some […]

Would you believe a miracle if it happened to you?

Sceptics sometimes say they would need more tangible evidence to believe – there’s insufficient evidence in the Bible and in the philosophical arguments for God, they say, so they need something incontrovertible. Yet at the same time, many say that no matter how much evidence there is for an action of God in the world, […]