Perhaps the most perplexing issue facing Christan believers is a series of jarring texts in the Old Testament. After liberating Israel from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites arrived on the edge of the promised land. The book of Deuteronomy records that God then commanded Israel to “destroy totally” the people occupying these regions (the Canaanites); […]
Entries Tagged as 'Investigate Magazine'
Contra Mundum: Did God Command Genocide in the Old Testament?
August 1st, 2010 147 Comments
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · James K. Hoffmeier · K Lawson Younger · Kenneth Kitchen · Old Testament Ethics
Contra Mundum: Secularism and Public Life
June 1st, 2010 63 Comments
Legal scholar Stephen Carter stated, One good way to end a conversation – or start an argument – is to tell a group of well educated professionals that you hold a political position (preferably a controversial one such as being against abortion or pornography) because it is required by your understanding of God’s will. In […]
Tags: Christopher Eberle · Contra Mundum · Doctrine of Religious Restraint · Investigate Magazine · Michael Tooley · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Philip Quinn · Religion in Public Life · Richard Rorty · Robert Audi · Stephen Carter · Terence Cuneo
Contra Mundum: Richard Dawkins and Open Mindedness
May 6th, 2010 146 Comments
The bold statement “Richard Dawkins opens minds” leaped out at me from the newsletter sitting on the University of Auckland’s Law Library counter. The article went on to sing the praises of Richard Dawkins and mentioned his book The God Delusion. On reading the piece one could be forgiven for concluding that Dawkins’ works are […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Atheism · Contra Mundum · Faith and Reason · Investigate Magazine · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Peter Van Inwagen · Richard Dawkins · Richard Swinburne · Science and Religion · The God Delusion · William Alston · William Lane Craig
Contra Mundum: Slavery and the Old Testament
April 3rd, 2010 33 Comments
“Why didn’t the Christian God ever explicitly and clearly condemn slavery?” This was John Loftus’ question in his book, Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity. He posed it after sharing the following chilling account of slavery as practiced in the antebellum American south, He took her into the kitchen, and stripped […]
Tags: Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · John Loftus · Old Testament Ethics · Slavery · Theology
Contra Mundum: Secular Smoke Screens and Plato’s Euthyphro
March 2nd, 2010 35 Comments
In “Religion: A Barrier to Clear Thinking,” the final article in the award winning series of lay philosophy articles published in the Christchurch Press, Canterbury based Philosopher Simon Clarke addressed the question, “what is the biggest obstacle to thinking clearly about social and political issues?” Predictably he answered “Several answers suggested themselves but time and […]
Tags: Contra Mundum · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · Investigate Magazine · Peter Geach · Plato · Simon Clarke · William Lane Craig
Contra Mundum: The Judgmental Jesus
January 29th, 2010 22 Comments
Few things are thought to be more morally pernicious than the practice of judging others. Sometimes this is given a theological spin with people citing the Sermon on the Mount “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure […]
Tags: Contra Mundum · Ethics · Hermeneutics · Investigate Magazine · Judging
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.
