Yesterday I took my youngest two kids for a walk around The Mount (as Mt Maunganui is referred to by locals) as we are staying about a 2 minute walk from it at the moment. As we left I told them that when I was younger and I had done this walk with my parents […]
Entries from July 9th, 2009
Weight Watchers and the Historical Atrocities Argument
July 8th, 2009 6 Comments
We’ve all heard the slogan that atheism is superior to theism because of all the atrocities committed in the name of religion. If you flick through the pages of the new-atheist publications by the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, Loftus, Harris, et al you’ll probably find some version of this assertion in each. Setting aside the […]
Tags: Atheism · Christian History · Historical Atrocities · Religious History · Thinking Matters · Weight Watchers
BOP Bloggers Drinks – Tonight!
July 8th, 2009 Comments Off on BOP Bloggers Drinks – Tonight!
Ozy Mandias, Matt and I will be meeting up at Latitude 37, in Mount Maunganui tonight at 7.30pm. Any other Bay of Plenty bloggers or readers are most welcome.
Tags: Announcements · Events
Fisking Margaret Mayman: The Flawed Moral Theology on the Smacking Referendum
July 7th, 2009 7 Comments
In “A Christian Perspective on the Child Discipline Referendum,” Rev Dr Margaret Mayman presents a theological justification for retaining the amended section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, which has criminalised force used against a child for the purposes of parental correction. Mayman began by offering three standard arguments for repealing the old section 59, […]
Tags: Crimes Act · David Benatar · Hermeneutics · Margaret Mayman · Referendum · s59 · Smacking · Theology
Live Blogging from the Mount
July 6th, 2009 6 Comments
We are off to Mount Maunganui for a few days so we’ll be blogging from there instead of Auckland this week! We’ll have to have a Bay of Plenty bloggers drinks.
Tags: Announcements
Sunday Study: Does the Bible Teach that a Rape Victim has to Marry her Rapist?
July 5th, 2009 53 Comments
In our recent discussion on the Bible’s teachings on slavery John Loftus asked Madeleine, “if you were raped you should marry your rapist? Get real. … Would you want to be treated the way the Bible says women and slaves should be treated?” Loftus then dedicated a post on Debunking Christianity to Madeleine’s “stupidity” for […]
Tags: John Loftus · Michael Martin · Old Testament Ethics · Sexual Morality · Sunday Study · Theology
Guest Post: Why doesn’t the Bible address X?
July 3rd, 2009 3 Comments
The following is authored by Bethyada of True Paradigm, it is particularly apt given recent comments left on this blog. Bethyada writes: A not infrequent complaint raised by theism sceptics is that the Bible does not address many issues the sceptics think it should address; if indeed the Bible is a divine book and not […]
Tags: Guest Post · Theology
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
