thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
June 24th, 2012
Almost one billion people, an eighth of the world’s population, are hungry as you read this. Why?
June 19th, 2012
Most people believe some things are right (e.g. helping others or being honest) and other things are wrong (e.g. rape, genocide or pedophilia). And if you tried to defend any of those “wrong” behaviours, most people would think you had lost your humanity. They think those things really are wrong. But what makes them wrong? […]
June 11th, 2012
In a previous post (7 things I ‘know’ about God) I said I was convinced of the following as truths about God and the universe: Science tells us truths about our universe Only God can explain the universe I trust Jesus Reason and ethics give true insights The world is not always a safe place […]
June 7th, 2012
You have probably noticed that the appearance of my blog has changed, and possibly keeps changing. I wanted to have a different design, and I wanted the blog, and eventually the entire site, to be easily read on mobile devices with smaller screens. The easiest way to achieve these two aims was to buy a […]
June 6th, 2012
I’ve been a christian discussing belief with atheists and agnostics on the internet for about 7 years now. Many times I’ve been asked why I believe, what possible evidence could I have? These discussions have led me to re-examine many things that I believe, and while I haven’t changed all that much, I have certainly […]
June 1st, 2012
I have previously reported on the ethical dilemmas posed by eating chocolate, due to the trafficking and exploitation of children in growing cocoa in West Africa (see My pleasure, their misery? and Easter eggs and slavery), and on the responses to my letters to chocolate manufacturers (see Fair Trade chocolate – report 1). I have […]
May 28th, 2012
Not so very long ago, many internet critics of christianity were pointing out that there was no archaeological evidence of settlements at Bethlehem and Nazareth in the first century. This demonstrates, they said, despite the fact that few scholars agreed with them, that these towns didn’t exist, and that therefore the Bible accounts are not […]
May 24th, 2012
In the nineteenth century, some writers (not generally qualified historians) argued that Jesus didn’t actually exist, and the gospels stories are legends. These views were generally discredited in the twentieth century as historians developed better methods of analysing ancient historical information. But the movement began a resurgence in the latter part of the twentieth century, […]
May 17th, 2012
Michael Ruse is a philosopher specialising in the philosophy of science, especially biology and evolution. He is an atheist, but one with more respect for religious belief than many prominent atheists today. Ruse has some interesting things to say about science, belief in God and his more militant atheist colleagues.
May 9th, 2012
I’ve been discussing with atheists and other non-believers on the internet for about 6 years now, and patterns start to emerge. One pattern relates to the evidence required to believe in God. Generally, atheists say that beliefs should be based on evidence, and nothing else. Yet I see approaches to evidence that don’t conform to […]
A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.