Religious

Archive for Religious

God Can Only Help You If You Believe He’s Able?

The following passages from chapter 6 of the gospel of Mark explain what happened when Jesus had already begun His ministry but returned to Nazareth: 1 Then He went out from there and came to His own country, and His disciples followed Him. 2 And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in […]

Seeing Through Jonah’s Excuse

In church today we started the book of Jonah. I’m sure everybody, believer and skeptic alike, knows the basic plot of the story: God commands Jonah to go to the great city of Ninevah and tell the wicked people there that God is going to destroy them. Jonah runs away, is swallowed by a fish […]

Thoughts on Job

In my nightly Bible reading, I have hit the Book of Job. At first glance, this is a very troubling story for a Jew / Christian, because it apparently casts God in an unflattering light. Here’s the setup (Job 1:6-22): 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves […]

If the New Testament Merely Teaches Us Moral Lessons, Then Standard Christianity Collapses

Gene Callahan recently had an interesting post in Biblical inerrancy. (Loosely speaking, this is the claim that the Bible is literally true because it is the inspired Word of God. Go look at the Wikipedia entry if you want to see a subtler treatment, which contrasts Biblical inerrancy with infallibility, for example.) Here’s Gene: [T]he […]

So This Is What It Feels Like to Be a Square

All summer I have been dying to take my 8-year-old to a movie, but a bunch of obvious ones (Superman, Wolverine, etc.) were PG-13. So I was happy that I was able to take him to see Percy Jackson today–a series of which I knew nothing. I was a little concerned when I looked up […]

Interesting Narrative on the Heliocentric Theory vs. the Church

In a recent offhand remark, George Selgin criticized certain Austrians’ thinking on banking as being akin to “theologians bungling their cosmology” six centuries ago. I asked if George actually had particular theologians in mind. George sent me this link, which does indeed have quotes from heavy-hitting theologians (including Martin Luther and John Calvin) that are […]

A Story Illustrating Intelligent Design (ID) Theory

[UPDATE: In this post, Steve Landsburg and I take the argument to depths that only Marvel superheroes could withstand.] I have known for quite some time that atheist critics didn’t even understand the actual position of ID theorists such as William Dembski, but (per Tom Woods’ suggestion that I check it out) I am sad […]

Forgive Others as You Would Want to Be Forgiven

Here’s a quick one for you: Think through all the really obnoxious things you’ve done in your past. If you’re like me, most of them were because you were trying to impress people and/or compensate for some insecurity you had. Looking at your behavior objectively, you now could say, “Yes, I agree that that guy […]