In this podcast we look at some articles from the past week or so, covering atheism, the problem with tax and the welfare state, the Church of England and the women’s world cup, the war in Ukraine, and the case of Lucy Letby. We finish with a reflection from Mark 5, about Jesus restoring a […]
Tag: atheism
Review: The Atheist Who Didn't Exist
I’ve just finished reading “The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist” by Andy Bannister. The book is subtitled “or the dreadful consequences of bad arguments”, and that’s a pretty good summary of the book: examining various arguments made by writers such as Richard Dawkins (who else?) and the like to see whether they stand up. The point […]
Evil and the problem of Stephen Fry
… or do I mean, Stephen Fry and the problem of evil? Either way, one of the links which has been doing the rounds on Twitter today is that of Stephen Fry talking to Gay Byrne about God, and more specifically, about what he would say to God if Fry died and found out he was wrong […]
Atheism, Values and Sociopaths
I’ve read a couple of interesting articles over the last week or so, and both of them deal with atheism and values (as in the sense of morality). The first article was entitled “Famous atheists… reveal where they get their values from“. I found this absolutely fascinating: too often, atheists criticise religion without offering an […]
God’s Existence and Kalam
This academic year, I’ve been taking a class on the Doctrine of God. Last week we were studying God’s eternity, and as part of that we looked at the Kalam Cosmological Argument (William Lane Craig’s formulation of it – that link goes through to his website, where you can watch a short video on the Kalam which […]
Is Atheism Rational?
… or indeed, irrational? Last week I read a very interesting interview with the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga called Is Atheism Irrational? I’d recommend reading it – particularly the last section at the end, which I found fascinating. It’s to do with the belief in naturalism or materialism – i.e. the belief that the natural world […]
Is Atheism enough to sustain a ‘church’?
According to the news today, the “Sunday Assembly” has split. For those of you who don’t know, the Sunday Assembly is a church-style service, only it’s run by atheists. This is the vision from their website*: The Sunday Assembly is a godless congregation that celebrate life. Our motto: live better, help often, wonder more. Our mission: to help […]
Is Atheism a replacement for Religion?
I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest “storm in a Twitter-cup”, but Richard Dawkins has hit the news once again. You can read more about it here and here. Suffice it to say, he’s not made himself a popular man! Earlier today, I tweeted this: The controversies surrounding @RichardDawkins recently make me wonder if […]
Is Secularism ‘neutral’, ‘godless’ – or even possible?
After writing my previous post, I read Gillan’s excellent post over at the God and Politics blog, which I do commend to you. At the bottom of the article, he linked through to an article on the Theos Think Tank website, written by a Christian barrister, entitled “Is Secular Law possible?” I would encourage anyone […]
Toynbee Strikes Again
I don’t usually write about such things on this blog, but this article by Polly Toynbee has got me quite annoyed. Her article is full of misinformation and slightly odd logic (something she’s been guilty of before, but we’ll leave that for the time being). It baffles me how someone who is so vitriolic can […]