The human measure of divine characteristics has always been interesting. Earthly expressions of damnation and wrath know no bounds. You’ll not struggle to find believers who will judge a person worthy of hell without equivocation if a particular sin goes without repentance or is committed too many times. No matter what the extenuation in circumstance, [...]
There are two ways to appraise James McGrath’s The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context, a treatise on the theology proper of Judaism and primitive Christianity: its scholarship and its writing. Writing a popular work brings special challenges not faced when writing only to the academy, and McGrath struggles to write [...]
I want to discuss the scientific status of Intelligent Design, but please note the specificity of my purpose. This is not about whether or not it should be taught in public school, or academic discrimination, or the origin of bacterial flagella. And when I say “Intelligent Design,” or ID, I don’t mean the Discovery Institute, [...]
Mainstream Christianity could do well to re-establish a greater claim over this virtue.
I feel like mainstream Christianity missed a trick when it came to the financial crisis. Imagine the chord that might have been struck with the greater public had there been someone front and centre in visible televangelism ranting about keeping the lamps trim [...]
Numbers don’t lie, we’re told, but they lie all the time. Ok, in and of themselves they may be innocent, but numbers are open to such variegated interpretation that they shouldn’t be completely trusted. I’m somewhat suspicious of the widely reported article in Reproductive Health, a peer-reviewed medical journal, last month. What the press reported, [...]
Philosopher of science Michael Ruse is quoted on the cover of Alister McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion as saying that Richard Dawkins’ eponymous book made him “embarrassed to be an atheist.” I was reminded of this when I heard of a more recent book ‘answering’ the current secular movement, The Last Superstition, where Dawkins is again [...]
How do we balance honouring our mothers, fathers, and other elders against the upbringing of others whose relationships with their elders were fundamentally different?
Many religious and cultural traditions have a variation on this principle. There is a practical and social benefit to according the guardians of our youth proper respect. Ideally, bonds are sown in [...]
Karen Armstrong has a new book out, A Case for God. No, I haven’t read the book. But I’m going to critique it anyway, justified by the fact that I’m familiar with her thinking, I heard her interviewed about it on NPR, and I read an excerpt of it. But that doesn’t really matter. I’ve [...]
