Archive for Christianity

A Business in Charity Clothing

Jun 21, 2012 1 Comment by

It has been frequently remarked that churches show strong similarities to businesses. The evolution of such schemes is obvious: the church is set up so that people can gain better lines of communication to the core of their religion, but the church must be built and renovated, and its many services maintained, so it must [...]

Articles, Christianity, Philosophy, Religions and other Belief Systems, Statements and Analysis Read more

Consider Easter

Apr 08, 2012 1 Comment by

Critics of Christianity are often well-aware some of its festivals are stolen. The most famous example is that the Northern Hemisphere’s celebrations of the December Solstice, in which days finally get longer again, began as an agricultural festival. The Ancient Egyptians, recognizing the role of the Sun in this occasion, quickly co-opted it for their [...]

Articles, Catholicism, Christianity, Humanities, Humour, News, Religions and other Belief Systems, Sciences, Statements and Analysis, World Read more

Monopoly on Marriage

Apr 03, 2012 Comments Off by

Sometimes people wonder why atheists, homosexual or not, take an interest in the equal marriage debate. The response is simple: the opposition to equal marriage frequently originates from religious beliefs. The argument which presently seems to dominate the debate is over who has the right to define marriage. This word ‘define’ is not one we [...]

Anglicanism, Articles, Campaigns and Activism, Catholicism, Christianity, Politics, Statements and Analysis, UK Read more

The Bible Is Not The World’s Best-Selling Book

Dec 20, 2011 4 Comments by

Whenever religious debates near the topic of the bible, often when considering it as a piece of literature, some advocates are quick to announce that the bible is the best-selling book in the world, of all time. Whilst it is not explicitly said, the insinuation with this is that because so many people have purchased [...]

Articles, Christianity, Religions and other Belief Systems, Statements and Analysis Read more

He’s Dead. It’s Been Two-Thousand Years. Haven’t We Improved?

Nov 28, 2011 Comments Off

It is staggering that after two thousand years since his messages first emanated into the world, millions of people still consider the teachings of Jesus to be some of the most relevent and sublime that can be found. In the last two thousand years the human race has seen greater objective advancement than any other time [...]

Read more

On miracles: how religious people don’t understand their own concept

Nov 22, 2011 Comments Off

In September 2011 neutrinos were apparently spotted exceeding the speed of light. This week we received confirmation a second experiment had apparently spotted the same thing. We’re far from having enough evidence to confidently say whether or not neutrinos really have broken the light speed limit, though physicists highly doubt they have because so much [...]

Read more

Religion and morality, and why we need to seriously rethink it

Nov 06, 2011 Comments Off

For centuries British monarchs have been required to be Church of England members and have been barred from marrying Catholics and, in particular, those married to Catholics have been barred from the throne. Needless to say, this was unethical. Recently a Commonwealth Summit in Perth led to the repeal of this rule, as well as [...]

Read more

“Spiritual health” (whatever that is)

Nov 03, 2011 Comments Off

Archbishop Sentamu has suggested in the House of Lords the NHS cater to “spiritual health”. This concept does not originate with Sentamu, and has been brought up in American and British medical and military contexts frequently in recent years. While one would hope the NHS would limit its treatments and list of properties considered unhealthy [...]

Read more

A bad omen

Oct 30, 2011 Comments Off

As I said in a previous post, I’ve been writing while in Spain. Our room had one English channel, BBC News. I turned it on at 5 PM BST on Monday and saw three main stories: the announcement of the liberation of Libya, a Turkish earthquake and Tunisian elections. Libya and Tunisia are both examples [...]

Read more

By their fruits you shall know them

Oct 30, 2011 Comments Off

This is my first article here written while on a holiday in Spain (where limited internet access forced me to take a break from publishing). When in a foreign country I try to know something about its culture, e.g. the role of religion therein. A recent news story quantified the number of Spanish newborns the [...]

Read more

Novelty in the new atheism … or theism

Oct 22, 2011 Comments Off

Post–9/11 atheist works have been characterised as the New Atheism. Many atheists have objected that atheism doesn’t come in strains; you either lack a belief in a god or gods, or you have one. They add that the arguments on both sides haven’t changed much historically either. They concede only one new aspect of atheism, [...]

Read more

My dinner with Richard Swinburne

Oct 20, 2011 Comments Off

Richard Swinburne is one of the world’s most famous theologians and, amongst those who find any theology at all convincing, one of the world’s most respected to boot, right up there with Alvin Plantinga. The University of Oxford has a student society for atheists, secularists and humanists that has had many atheist and theist speakers, [...]

Read more

Sophisticated my foot

Oct 20, 2011 Comments Off

Certain schools of nonsense – perhaps all of them – have “sophisticated” advocates their critics are told must be countered for said criticisms to count for anything. Religion is a classic example of this at the time of writing. “Sophisticated theologians”, we are told, are the ones we must refute. One point I think needs [...]

Read more

Religion-defending arguments as scientifically bad as religion

Oct 20, 2011 Comments Off

One thing I don’t recall hearing critics of religion ever saying, but which I think should be said, is that the effort by scientifically literate theists, including religious scientists, to render their religious views compatible with science often requires them to adopt views at least as empirically ridiculous as their religious views. (I will in [...]

Read more