Tag: Justice

Forgiveness & pardon

Forgiveness is a core part of the christian faith, and I thought I understood it. But I found it was slightly more complicated than I thought.

Race riots in the sixties drew a supportive response from young whites. Will it happen again? Will christians stand on the side of compassion and justice? Will it make a difference? The answer is blowing in the wind.

12. It works (mostly!)

This page in brief …. In the previous eleven posts in this series, we have seen that many different aspects of life (the universe, human life, the history of Jesus and human experience) all seem to make more sense if there is a creator God, than if there is not. In this final post, we […]

5. Are some things really right and wrong?

Almost everyone has a sense of right and wrong, however warped it may be, but where does it come from? Are some things really right and wrong, or are ethics just arbitrary?

The evolution of hell

This scene from the Egyptian Book of the Dead (c 1275 BCE), shows the dead scribe Hunefer’s heart being weighed by the canine-headed Anubis on the scale of Maat. The ibis-headed Thoth, scribe of the gods, records the result. If his heart is lighter than the feather of truth, Hunefer is allowed to pass into […]

Do we live in a moral universe? How do human rights fit in?

When Martin Luther King said “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”1, most of us like to believe he was expressing a deep truth. We want to see justice done, at least for causes we believe in. But do we live in a moral universe? What does that even […]

Science vs religion – who believes and who doesn’t?

Is there a conflict between science and religion? Do religious people and scientists think in different ways? In the next few posts I’m going examine the perceived conflict between science and religion. First, a quick look at some statistics of who believes and who doesn’t.

Is God genocidal?

I remember being concerned about it more than 40 years ago. How could God command his people to murder everyone living in each Canaanite city that they captured? And I am not the only one to feel revolted by these commands in the book of Deuteronomy and the accounts in the book of Joshua. Critics […]

Atheists, christians, the alt-right, white supremacy, patriotism, gender, fake news …. and more!

Recently I came across two articles that came from very different viewpoints, but raised some similar issues. It certainly made me think about how religious and anti-religious movements and ideas can have a lot more in common than you might think.

Bart Campolo and the attraction of moderate religion …. and humanism

Tony Campolo has been a significant figure in christianity over the past few decades. As a sociologist, teacher, speaker, writer and social justice activist, he championed a form of christianity which balanced spirituality and social concern. So when several years ago his son Bart moved from supporting his father’s form of christianity to being a […]