thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
December 26th, 2012
I’ve long thought that one of the reasons for believing in God is the fact that without God, it is hard to make sense of ethics and human freewill. But here’s an atheist (and a philosopher) who turns a lot of things on their head – he agrees it is hard to make sense of […]
December 19th, 2012
Materialism can be defined as the belief that everything that exists is material or physical. It implies that science, which observes and measures material things, is potentially able to explain all facets of existence. Thus materialism is closely associated with science. Materialism leaves no place for God or supernatural beings. But, some argue, it also […]
December 15th, 2012
When believers and unbelievers discuss, someone or other is likely to say something like: The one making the claim has the burden of proof! What is the burden of proof in this case, and who has it?
December 8th, 2012
A couple of weeks back I posted some information on the surviving documentation for a number of ancient texts including the New Testament (Revised dates for ancient documents). Now, in the comments to that post, I have been asked some more questions about the New Testament documents. So here’s the answers to those questions, as […]
December 1st, 2012
Disagreements between christians and atheists seem to have heated up in the last decade or two. Whether it is because atheists have become more convinced of the evils of religion, or there are just more of them these days, or whether it is because christians are feeling more under threat, I don’t know. Or perhaps […]
November 28th, 2012
A common theme in the discussion of the reliability of the New Testament documents is the number of copies we have and the dates of these copies, compared to other ancient writings. And of course, the details change as new discoveries are made. Here is an update.
November 18th, 2012
Akhenaten has been attacking statements I have made here, and on my other blog theWay?. The latest comment on Christians and cathedrals questions whether “there exists a scholarly consensus that a reasonable if modest amount of facts about Jesus can be known”. I decided this question required a longer answer … (and I apologise for […]
November 17th, 2012
Once upon a time, people trusted religion. They believed the Bible, they believed their priests, they believed in God. But slowly things changed, for many people at any rate.
November 14th, 2012
I think this deserves a separate post. A few weeks back I posted on the historical evidence for Jesus and how some sceptics refuse to accept the conclusions of the best scholars that Jesus existed and the gospels present some reliable historical information about him (Jesus – assessing the evidence). Akhenaten has been discussing the […]
November 8th, 2012
We know that forgiving people who have wronged us is an important part of restoring the relationship, and also important for our own wellbeing. Now a scientific study spells out some more of the details.
A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.