Two stories – choose one

February 29th, 2012

When we think about the question of “Is there a God?”, I guess we mostly think of arguments for and against. How did the universe get here if it wasn’t created? Does the suffering in the world prove there is no God? But there is another way to look at it.

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Enjoy your spam!

February 23rd, 2012

Spam is ubiquitous on the internet. Offer an email address or a comment box and a spambot will attempt to make use of it. If you can’t beat them, at least find some humour! Recent spam comments on this blog (which don’t make it through) have been on behalf of a bewildering variety of commercial […]

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Visions of Jesus?

February 22nd, 2012

I’m always interested in people’s stories, and I’m always on the lookout for ways in which God may make himself known to us. So I have done some research on people having visions of Jesus – whether there are credible stories, and what they tell us.

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“People who believe in God are happier.”

February 16th, 2012

We have known for years that, contrary to what our culture and advertising tell us, money and possessions do not make people happy (unless they are very poor), and real happiness and satisfaction in life come from good, loving relationships, meaningful work (voluntary is even better than paid) and living for a cause greater than […]

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A half truth about evidence

February 8th, 2012

I came across this the other day, on The official blog of University of Missouri Skeptics, Atheists, Secular Humanists, & Agnostics

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Richard Dawkins on who is an atheist

February 7th, 2012

In a recent talk, Richard Dawkins spoke about education, atheism and intelligence. His comments are interesting.

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God of the Gaps

February 2nd, 2012

Christians and other theists sometimes argue for God’s existence based on facts about the universe that science cannot explain, or has not yet explained. But non-believers sometimes accuse these arguments of being fallacious, because they use ‘God of the Gaps’ reasoning. Is this a problem?

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Jerry Coyne and free will

January 23rd, 2012

A week or two back I posted on scientist Jerry Coyne’s discussion of free will (Jerry Coyne: why we don’t have free will) I have just come across a discussion of Coyne’s views on former academic philosopher Bill Vallicella’s blog, Maverick Philosopher. It’s pretty strongly critical, but worth reading.

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Was the universe designed?

January 9th, 2012

One of the enjoyable things about writing a blog is the things you learn when researching a topic. I have read a little on the big bang and the fundamental laws that underpin our universe and I agree with the suggestion that the universe didn’t get the way it is by chance. But in preparing […]

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Jerry Coyne: why we don’t have free will

January 6th, 2012

Jerry Coyne is a Professor of biology at the University of Chicago, probably best known for his book Why evolution is true. In a recent column in USA Today, he presents the case for the unpalatable reality that our apparent ability to freely make choices is in fact an illusion. The column raises some interesting […]

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A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.