thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
May 8th, 2014
Last post I looked at one aspect of the historical evidence for the life of Jesus – Were the gospels written a long time after the event? Another question often asked, or a claim often made, relates to how much evidence there is for the events and teachings outlined in the gospels, and how much […]
April 30th, 2014
I was asked recently, in the comments section of another blog, about how long the gospels were written after the time of Jesus’ death. I said it wasn’t long by ancient standards, so I thought it might be worth outlining the facts on this matter.
April 25th, 2014
I came across another story of an apparent healing miracle recently, so I investigated it.
April 21st, 2014
This comment was made on a blog I was visiting recently: “None of us are born with any smattering of whether or not there is a god, or for that matter, even what a god is (or is not) – we have to be taught that” I was interested, for I knew of some scientific […]
April 16th, 2014
I’ve seen it many times. A confident statement by a committed atheist that religion is dying out. It is inevitable. Modernisation, especially science, has made it impossible for the virus of faith to survive much longer. Scandinavia is a peaceful paradise and almost godless, and shows that once society rides itself of God, prosperity and […]
April 5th, 2014
Over the years I’ve met many people, in ‘real life’ and on the internet, who have changed their beliefs about God. Some have moved from unbelief to belief in Jesus, others have moved from belief to atheism. And I have come across a few who have changed their belief twice – from faith to unbelief […]
March 27th, 2014
I didn’t have high expectations of this book. I’m not that much interested in the so-called new atheists, nor in those who argue against them. And I think the world probably has quite enough books about CS Lewis. But I am interested in the philosophical arguuments generally. And I am a great fan of Lewis […]
March 21st, 2014
The trial of Giordano Bruno by the Roman Inquisition, by Ettore Ferrari. Picture: Wikipedia. Recently the TV series Cosmos: a Spacetime Odyssey hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, was launched on TV screens around the world. I didn’t watch it (we don’t have pay TV) but the first episode generated some controversy, with critics arguing […]
March 14th, 2014
My friend Howie has a blog, Truth is Elusive, and his latest post discusses the philosophical arguments for the existence of God, and whether they are effective or even useful. His broad conclusion is “not very” – that is not for him, not for many people, only for a few. I mostly agree with Howie […]
March 9th, 2014
Most of us like to think we are reasonable people. Most of us think we have good reasons why we believe in God, or disbelieve. But we all probably know people who think quite differently to us, and yet they think their reasons are reasonable and ours are not. How can we understand what’s going […]
A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.