Baker now has God or Godless up on their website with the following write up: Perhaps the most persistent question in human history is whether or not there is a God. Intelligent people on both sides of the issue have argued, sometimes with deep rancor and bitterness, for generations. The issue can’t be decided by […]
Archives for June 2012
When is doxology theology? A response to Jerry Shepherd
In December-January I had some rather spirited exchanges in the blog with my colleague, Old Testament professor Jerry Shepherd. Then Jerry fell silent as the business of the semester took over once again. But now he’s back with some spirited comments in response to my article “What is the atonement at least? Lessons from the ascension“. […]
Allowing a genocide is not commanding a genocide
John asks: If a genocide that is allowed is moral, can it’s being commanded also be considered moral? I mean, of course there is a difference between allowing and commanding, but if it is moral to allow X, then does that make it moral to command X? If not why not? Let’s consider an example […]
Allowing is not commanding
Over the last week I have heard on at least three different occasions claims made to the moral equivalency of God allowing x and God commanding x. The argument has been made by Christians to demonstrate that if I accept that God providentially allows evils like genocide and infant sacrifice, I should have no problem […]
What is the atonement at least? Lessons from the ascension
It is no secret that atonement theories abound, each one vying to be the account for how God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. In this discussion it seems to be de rigueur these days to explain the abundance of atonement theories in terms of the fact that there is an abundance of metaphors of […]
Things Christians say to explain away biblical moral atrocities
First off, what’s a moral atrocity? It is the kind of event perpetrated by moral agents such that, if you read about it in the newspaper, you’d naturally exclaim “That’s a moral atrocity!” And by saying that you’d be meaning (among other things) that the event in question is an egregious moral evil which could not plausibly […]
Cannibalizing infants as punishment?
The conversation began when I raised some problems with calling God the perfect Father based on particular depictions in the Bible. I gave as a test case the text of Lamentations 4 where God judges Israel for her unfaithfulness by orchestrating conditions that will include women eating their infant children. The Israelites understood those conditions […]
Is God a perfect heavenly Father? The Lamentations discussion continues
In “God as Father on Father’s Day” I pointed out the incongruity between calling God the most perfect Father and ascribing to God punishing actions such as are described in Lamentations. Chris offered an interesting and fairly standard response: present that which is described as an intentional punishment as if it were in fact merely […]
God as Father on Father’s Day
There is no metaphor for God in scripture that is more powerful than that of “Father”. Thus, it is little surprise that the theme of God as Father dominates sermons every year on Father’s Day (especially for low church Protestants that eschew the liturgical calendar). This year the sermon our pastor preached was based on the prodigal […]
Bacon: the single greatest challenge for vegans
An exchange in the blog this morning on the morality of hunting brought me back to the problems with veganism and vegetarianism. Those problems can be summarized in one word: bacon. This comedy bit from my favorite comedian Jim Gaffigan illustrates the problem quite handily: I love Gaffigan’s work for three reasons. First, it is […]
Judges that are complete idiots (and other hasty judgments)
This morning I was reading through the news when I came across a story about to be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. According to the case, a woman in Nova Scotia had solicited the services of a hit man to kill her husband. (The hit man was in fact a police officer.) The […]
The new books are on their way (however slowly)
I just received the proofs for my new apologetics book (The Swedish Atheist) back from copy-editing today. This can sure get to be a tedious process (writing, reading, re-reading, tweaking, correcting and perfecting a 280 page manuscript) but at least the end is in sight and the work will be worth it. (It’s no fun publishing a […]
Squeezing David Hume’s big toe (and other ironic ways to honor the naive skeptical tradition)
As you probably know, the idea of “tradition” has not received great press in the modern age. In particular the appeal to a grand tradition as the legitimation (or partial legitimation) for a specific knowledge discourse is categorically rejected as naive and question-begging. Undoubtedly one of the most pivotal quotes expressing this skepticism comes from […]
