thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
I have long had an interest in the effectiveness of prayer for healing. My initial reaction to healing claims tends to be mild scepticism (I believe healing can occur but I don’t believe all claims of divine healing are credible), but I try to find cases where there is good evidence. So I am interested […]
How could indigenous Australians, climate change and the New Testament gospels possibly be connected? But there really is a connection. So please read on!
Bart Ehrman is a respected New Testament scholar and an “atheist-leaning agnostic”. As well as academic publications, he has written a number of popular-level books about Jesus and the New Testament. Many of the books present a more sceptical view of the New Testament than many christians accept, but one of his more recent books, […]
I suppose most of us have looked up at the night sky and wondered at some time – is there any other life out there? Another way of framing the question is to ask – is the earth unusual in supporting (supposedly) intelligent life? I have investigated this question in the past (see A rare […]
Last post I offered some thoughts on faith, based on Peter Boghossian’s idea that faith is “pretending to know things you don’t know”. I suggested that he was mistaken in what many christians think about faith. So, do atheists think very differently to christians on this?
Last post I discussed philosopher and educator Peter Boghossian’s ‘crusade’ to help atheists wean christians off their dependence on faith. But is Boghossian’s understanding of faith correct? What do christians mean when they use this word?
You may not have heard of Peter Boghossian. But one thoughtful christian blogger (Tom Gilson at Thinking Christian) thinks he’s a “dangerous man” and wonders whether his 2013 book (A Manual for Creating Atheists) might be seen as “a turning point in the decline of Christianity in the West”. Perhaps Tom has been a bit […]
We all like to think that we base our views on evidence, but sometimes evidence gets in the way of a good argument. Here are 8 good ways to avoid evidence (with examples).
Benjamin Corey’s Formerly Fundie blog is one I read regularly. Benjamin mostly writes, from a slightly radical perspective, about christianity and church in America. But his latest blog (Why I Just Couldn’t Be An Atheist, Even If I Wanted To) discussed how he and an atheist friend sometimes discuss their respective beliefs.