From the category archives:

Religion

Faith based atheism

March 1, 2010

Yesterday Andrew Brown tried an interesting idea of the sort that often becomes a blog meme:

I was prompted by an exchange in comments to wonder whether it was really true, as A. N. Whitehead claimed, that everyone thinks their own beliefs are the summit of western philosophy. So the challenge is a simple one. Name [...]

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Stoking Popophobia with dodgy figures?

February 3, 2010

For some reason the National Sanderson Society have costed Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain at £20 million. This figure has now been picked up elsewhere. It is cited not only by their fellow-travellers, but Terry Secular’s figure seems to be quoted in various press reports without any sense it might be dubious.
The trouble is, I [...]

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Richard Dawkins: “Oh, the cleverness of me”

January 29, 2010

“Oh, the cleverness of me” is, of course, a quotation from that exemplar of immature arrogance, Peter Pan, who really can’t quite cope with emotions, and endlessly defers the complexity of growing up. It struck me looking at this extraordinary piece in the (London) Times, that it’s remarkably appropriate as a summary of so much [...]

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Enjoying Eagleton’s delicious dismemberment of Ditchkins

January 25, 2010

I’m currently reading Terry Eagleton’s Reason, Faith and Revolution and finding its acid acuity and delightfully phrased polemics a sheer joy. Here are just a couple of quotations from what I’ve read so far. In the first (pp37-38) you can hear the scornful hauteur of the unrepentant Marxist for the bourgeosie.

The trouble with the Dawkinses [...]

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Nutritious religion? Creation and C4’s Bible: a History

January 24, 2010

I’ve just finished watching the first of the new Channel 4 series The Bible: a History. Tonight’s episode was presented by the novelist Howard Jacobsen – a non-religious Jew – on Creation. It will be interesting to see how different each episode is; if tonight’s is any guide, they will be quite individual, for rather [...]

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Against unity: doing the evangelical splits

January 21, 2010

Mike Bird offers what I would characterise as a thoughtful conservative response to yet another trumpet blast against the monstrous work of Tom Wright, his co-belligerents and his minions.
In the article bemoaning the ways in which IVP / IVF is lapsing from purity, Mack Stiles argues that there is a four generational process he’s seen [...]

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Hey philosopher, repeat after me, “shit happens”

January 19, 2010

The BBC – sometimes fairly, and sometimes unfairly accused of anti-Christian bias – gives some more ammunition to those who think it is biased against Christians. It commissions a non-religious philosopher to write a piece on “Why does God allow natural disasters?” Unsurprisingly he wraps his rhetoric by asking:
But, as for those who believe in [...]

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Dawkins playing irreligious politics with Haiti

January 18, 2010

Daniel McClellan reports an email he’s received:

It is widely imagined that, in times of crisis, religious people render aid in disproportion to their numbers. Richard Dawkins has now created an opportunity for non-believers to put the lie to this myth

It’s worth reading the whole of Daniel’s post for his analysis.
According to Dawkins’ site:

When donating via [...]

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When Jesus is not the answer

January 16, 2010

A wonderful take on how not to take your faith to work, from the Fast Show.

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Representation, politics, religion and statistics

January 15, 2010

Yet again today Matt Wardman reminds us that the National Secular Society – despite its claims to advocate on behalf of a silent secular majority in Britain – fails to publish its membership figures, reasonably presumed to be rather small and insignificant.
The horizon against which he makes that point is influence regarding the general election [...]

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