When I was teaching the history of early modern philosophy at Otago last year, one of my students told me I reminded them of Dr Jim Flynn. This was supposed to be a compliment. Flynn was highly regarded at Otago even those who considered themselves conservatives had good things to say about Flynn. I knew […]
Entries from July 13th, 2007
Jim Flynn’s suggestion: Contraception and Religious Freedom
July 12th, 2007 3 Comments
Tags: Contraception · Ethics · Eugenics · Freedom of Religion
Kiwisaver or why I am not a centrist
July 9th, 2007 1 Comment
A little while ago a friend and I were discussing New Zealand politics with an American associate. My friend spoke of how he was an economic centrist and I informed him I was not. The topic got to kiwisaver, a policy with which he agreed. I thought his comments were interesting. Basically he cited anecdotal […]
Things They Don’t Teach you in Public Schools…
July 4th, 2007 2 Comments
Tonight I watched an ad on TV which has a man congratulating New Zealanders for being the first to give women the vote. This ad reminded me of the following picture which I discovered in Alvin Schmidt’s book “How Christianity Changed the World.” The picture on this page shows women voting at the polls in […]
Tags: Christian History · Historical Ignorance · Urban Myths · Voting
Poisoning peoples minds
July 3rd, 2007 Comments Off on Poisoning peoples minds
I hate the new anti smoking ads. I am not a smoker, I do not advise that anyone smoke nor do I approve of smoking. As I see it we have a duty to respect not only other people but ourselves, as beings made in the image of God. For this reason we should look […]
Tags: Advertising · Bad Reasoning · Smoking
The Meta-Ethical Argument for Christian Theism: A Response to Richard Chappell
July 3rd, 2007 15 Comments
if we ask what God would have commanded in counterfactual situations we will get contradictory answers.
Tags: Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Richard Chappell · Robert Adams · Thomas Carson
When Rationalists Implode
July 2nd, 2007 7 Comments
In 2002 I (Matt) publicly debated Dr Bill Cooke from the New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists (NZARH). I enjoyed the debate immensely and am confident that I won it. No one whom I know who has watched the debate disagrees with me on this. I was surprised at the time how weakly the arguments […]
Tags: Atheism · Bill Cooke · Craig Young · NZARH · Paul Litterick · Rationalists
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
Why Do Feminists not seem to Care?
July 13th, 2007 2 Comments
I found this excellent article on Iranpressnews. It asks the insightful question why does the fate of Muslim women suffering under oppressive regimes not appear to matter to western feminists? And offers an insightful critique of the banalities and trivialities of western feminism.
Tags: Feminism · Islam