This post combines two of my interests – the statistics of belief and people’s stories. Are there many adult converts to christianity? Why do they convert? Were they really unbelievers beforehand?
thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
April 23rd, 2015
The resurrection is obviously a central part of christian belief – some say it is the amazing event that explains everything else, others that it is an impossible to believe event. So is it something that makes christianity harder to believe, or easier?
April 16th, 2015
This post combines two of my interests – the statistics of belief and people’s stories. Are there many adult converts to christianity? Why do they convert? Were they really unbelievers beforehand?
April 8th, 2015
I came across it yesterday, not for the first time, but maybe the 21st. Quoted as if it was significant and telling. You have almost certainly seen it too. I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other […]
March 31st, 2015
U2 on the Rattle and Hum tour way back in 1987, sang their old song Sunday Bloody Sunday, in response to an IRA bombing. It’s long been one of my favourite pieces of concert footage as Bono, outraged by the killing, emotes on stage, while the Edge, ever the steady rock around which the band […]
March 25th, 2015
Let’s say at the start that this isn’t the most important question in the world! But I think it is interesting. The background is this. The New Testament (Acts 1:15) records there were 120 disciples in Jerusalem a few weeks after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Three centuries later, historians estimate that there were somewhere between […]
March 18th, 2015
In my previous post I made the following comment: “Religious believers, overall and with many exceptions, have better health and wellbeing, are more prosocial and less antisocial than non-believers.” A reader questioned this statement, in two ways: “I see that despite my previous prompting about the silly “religion is good for your health” surveys. You […]
March 14th, 2015
It is commonly stated that science and religion are irreconcilably opposed. A recent article by atheist author Sam Harris cranks the argument up a notch by declaring Science Must Destroy Religion. To be fair, I think he means “science will inevitably destroy religion”, not the rather more alarming “science has a moral duty to destroy […]
March 8th, 2015
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 […]
March 6th, 2015
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 […]
February 23rd, 2015
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 […]
A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.