On 1 May 2011 the world received the news that Osama Bin Laden was dead; gunned down in Pakistan by an elite team of US Navy Seals. Even before his death Bin Laden had become a legendary persona. Not only was he a terrorist leader responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents but he […]
Entries Tagged as 'Investigate Magazine'
Contra Mundum: Religion and Violence
June 1st, 2011 41 Comments
Tags: 9/11 · Alister McGrath · Christian History · Christopher Eberle · Contra Mundum · David Lindberg · Glenn Peoples · Historical Atrocities · Investigate Magazine · Jim Peron · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Osama Bin Laden · Regine Pernoud · Religion in Public Life · Religious History · Richard Wurmbrand · Ronald Numbers · Sam Harris · Terence Cuneo
Contra Mundum: Stoning Adulterers
May 2nd, 2011 92 Comments
Back in 2005 there was a minor furore when Labour MP Ashraf Choudhary stated he agreed with the Koran’s teaching that people who engaged in homosexual conduct or who committed adultery should be stoned to death. In the media spiral that followed, some commentators pointed out that it was not just Islam that held this […]
Tags: Adultery · Ashraf Choudhary · Capital Punishment · Contra Mundum · Gordon Wenham · Investigate Magazine · J J Finkelstein · John Goldingay · Old Testament Ethics · Raymond Westbrook · Walter Kaiser
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
Contra Mundum: The Number of the Beast
December 1st, 2010 29 Comments
Recently TV3 screened The Omen. This classic horror is a about a boy called Damian who is the predicted anti-Christ and appropriately has the number 666 on his head. This film epitomises how the book of Revelation is understood in contemporary culture; apparently it predicts a future person, the beast or the anti-Christ who will […]
Tags: 616 · 666 · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Nero · Number of the Beast · Revelation · The Omen
Contra Mundum: Pluralism and Being Right
November 5th, 2010 8 Comments
Recently I attended a lecture on science and religion at the University of Auckland. As is normal after such talks students stayed and discussed issues raised by the presentation. One student brought up a fairly common chestnut, he objected to the claim made by some Christians that their religion was true and that other religions […]
Tags: Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Pluralism
Contra Mundum: Abraham and Isaac and the Killing of Innocents
October 3rd, 2010 124 Comments
Since 9/11 a choir of commentators have claimed that the willingness to murder innocent people in the name of God stems from the progenator of the Abrahamic faiths. Abraham, the father of Christianity, Judaism and Islam is commended for attempting to kill his own son. The account of this episode is arguable the most infamous […]
Tags: Abraham · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Isaac · John Hare · Killing Innocents
Contra Mundum: Selling Atheism
September 2nd, 2010 133 Comments
New Zealand motorists will have noticed a new genre of advertising billboards, those attempting to sell the concept that there is probably no God. These billboards are the collective efforts of the New Zealand Atheist Campaign, The Humanist Society and the New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists. Like all advertising campaigns, these billboards offer clever-sounding […]
Tags: Atheism · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · NZ Atheist Campaign · NZARH · The Humanist Society
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.
