When expert historians examine the life of Jesus as recorded in the four gospels, the stories they question most are those of his birth. (Christian scholar Craig Keener didn’t even discuss Jesus’ birth in his monumental The Historical Jesus of the Gospels.) So how critical should we be when looking at these familiar stories? How […]

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This page in brief The internet is an amazing source of information – we can find out almost anything we want to know with a quick visit to Google. But trust is involved – we have to trust websites to speak honestly about things they actually know. But what happens when that trust is misplaced? […]

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The biological theory of evolution has been the subject of argument ever since it was first proposed, especially from those christians who believe that the Bible teaches that animals haven’t evolved from simple life forms, and thus evolutionary science must not only be wrong, but also evil. But their arguments are often naive and misleading. […]

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Today is Thanksgiving in the US. Thanksgiving can have different meanings for different people, but probably the two main emphases are a day for family to get together, and a day to thank God for his many blessings to us. So what does a conscientious atheist do? Should she just shut up and join in? […]

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Internet discussions between believers and non-believers often get into the matter of evidence. Is there any evidence for God? Trouble is, we cannot always agree on what type and amount of evidence for God is enough to believe. And of course we all have our own viewpoints to defend. But perhaps looking at evidence a […]

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Jesus is believed by christians to have been divine, the son of God. Many christians believe he very clearly made that claim during his life, and his disciples just kept on believing it after he died. However non-believers generally believe Jesus was not divine, but rather a small time prophetic teacher and healer, but legends […]

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Last post (I’m beginning to see a pattern here) I looked at a number of scientific and historical facts where a bunch of non-experts challenge the consensus of the real experts. These areas were: evolution vs creationism; whether Jesus was a historical person and Nazareth was where he lived; climate change; the medieval church vs […]

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I seem to have had this feeling of deja vu before! 🙂 Conversations on the internet where the topics were very different, but the discussions seem to go in the same direction. The other person might be an atheist or they might be a christian, but I seem to end up saying the same things.

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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 […]

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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 […]

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