The more one delves into the discussions around religion, the more one gets used to certain items of terminology being thrown around. Over time, all words take on a very specific, and often subtle meaning, depending on who uses them and how. This seems to be the case for the word “belief”, which since the [...]
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 [...]
In a previous post, “A bad omen”, I critiqued the theological start the “liberated” Libya is getting and noted we’d no way of telling what consequences the Tunisian elections shortly thereafter would have. We now know that outcome. While an Islamist party secured over 40% of votes (whether their government will be a coalition as [...]
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 [...]
I realise I’ve said a lot recently about anti–atheist bigotry, but there’s one other point I think it worth making about it. Association with atheism is so toxic in some regions attempts to avoid it enhance other forms of bigotry. In recent years a US high school refusing to allow same–sex couples to its prom [...]
I hereby announce two new series of posts I will be making in the near future. In one, “Faiths in the Firing Squad”, I will go through the world’s extant religions in descending order by size, explaining succinctly (but hopefully without unduly simplifying the issues) why there is more to be critically said about those [...]
In a previous post I explained ways in which those who seek to exemplify religious tolerance are often still guilty of anti–atheist bigotry. Therein I gave an example of a reason moderates may feel they have more in common with religious extremists than they do with atheists; at least the religious extremists are religious. Anyone [...]
For centuries people have held prejudices against and discriminated against those of other religions or other sects in the same religion. Extremists, fundamentalists, literalists – call them what you will (these terms are not quite synonymous) – are especially liable to do this. There are people who call themselves “religious moderates” who, for all their [...]
In the debate over the veracity or rationality of religious doctrines, the greatest thorn in the theists’ side is our asking what evidence supports their claims. As they can’t answer that challenge, they do all they can to excuse taking umbrage an evidential criteria. It has been said theology is not an effort to justify [...]
Before I launch into this post it is only right I acknowledge having Asperger Syndrome, as it makes me an example of the sort of correlation evidence is beginning to uncover (and at this stage could well be wrong about), and which some theists have already become crowing about. There has been an occasional suggestion [...]
Richard Dawkins has brought our attention in recent years to how wrong it is to automatically label young children with the religion of their parents. “That is/you are an X” are the two formulations this error takes. The problem is, just as there’s only so young one can be if one can form one’s own [...]
Nicolaus Steno, the only saint to also be a scientist, introduced to geography in the seventeenth century the principle of superposition, which says geological strata that look alike are equally old and those on top are younger than those underneath them. Taxonomy, the systematic classification of living things, began in the eighteenth century with Linnaeus, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
William Lane Craig’s request that Richard Dawkins debate him in Oxford was refused on a number of reasonable grounds. Dawkins has a prior engagement that same night in London, considers Craig insignificant and unsophisticated as a religious thinker compared with those Dawkins has debated and those he has had to decline purely on grounds of [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
It is becoming blindingly apparent that if the senior members of the older religions do not move to modernise their institutions’ standpoints, their institutions, and possibly religions, will die out. The major world religions are increasingly under siege from the fair-minded secular who dislike the conservative and sometimes tyrannical views. Religions are expected to keep [...]
