Zeitgeist – The Movie is an internet phenomenon that has taken a lot of people in. I know several people who have seen it and have either been convinced by it or it has heavily rocked them. We’ve had commenters on this blog raising issues and asking questions which clearly have their roots in Zeitgeist. […]
Entries from December 31st, 2010
What Sex is Not
December 26th, 2010 67 Comments
Matt shows us that by reasoning from how we treat sex when it comes to children we can see what options cannot consistently be held when it comes to sex with adults.
Tags: Sexual Morality
Contra Mundum: In Defence of Santa
December 25th, 2010 37 Comments
I grasped the sponge, water dripped down my wrist as I took aim. The man from the McGillicuddy Serious Party raised his voice and said “now throw!” The sponge flew through the air from my hand and struck Santa solidly on the chest soaking his red costume. Santa laughed and said “throw another one!” It […]
Tags: Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · McGillicuddy Serious Party · Nicholas of Myra · Santa
Oprah Winfrey, Religious Pluralism and Woolly Thinking
December 24th, 2010 19 Comments
I once caught 5 minutes of Oprah discussing religion. She made the comment, in a very sage-sounding tone, that she believed all religions are true. The audience immediately interrupted her with resounding applause; camera shots caught audience members nodding in approval, clearly impressed with the wisdom of the claim just made. This commonly heard platitude […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Oprah Winfrey · Pluralism
The New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists and the Privileging of Secularism
December 20th, 2010 189 Comments
The New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists (“NZARH”) has a statement of aspirational ideals for the New Zealand state on their website. Entitled “The Tolerant Secular State” it is anything but. The first two sentences of the document exhibit a confusion which is inherent throughout (and commonly found in discussions of church and state): “The […]
Tags: Doctrine of Religious Restraint · Free Exercise · Freedom of Religion · Harry Potter · Jurisprudence · Lord Voldemort · NZARH · Paul Rishworth · Religion in Public Life · Rights and Freedoms · Secularism · Steven Smith
The Separation of Church and Self: Rethinking Separationism
December 16th, 2010 119 Comments
Is it just for a pluralistic society to ground its public policy on religious premises? What role should religion play in such a society? Debate over questions like these has figured in theology, philosophy, political science, jurisprudence and popular culture for centuries. In contemporary Western pluralistic society the debate continues. Even for those unfamiliar with […]
Tags: Christopher Eberle · Coercion Test · Doctrine of Religious Restraint · Endorsement Test · Freedom of Religion · Gerald Gaus · James Madison · John Rawls · Jürgen Habermas · Justice Scalia · Law Studies · Lee v Weisman · Lemon Test · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Philip Devine · Philip Quinn · Philosophy of Religion · Political Philosophy · Religion in Public Life · Richard Rorty · Robert Audi · Separationism · Stephen Carter · Terence Cuneo · Vincent Phillip Muñoz
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.
William Lane Craig, Original Sin and Original Guilt
December 31st, 2010 74 Comments
A lot of people are up in arms at the moment about a paragraph in William Lane Craig’s answer to Question 193 “Overweening Ignorance.” Facebook, blogs, twitter and message boards are abuzz with Christians angrily attacking Craig with the charge that this paragraph shows he either does not hold to the doctrine of original sin or […]
Tags: Original Guilt · Original Sin · Richard Swinburne · Steve Hays · William Lane Craig