You are invited to a Thinking Matters Auckland, God, Morality and Society, DVD screening: What: William Lane Craig v Christopher Hitchens debating Does God Exist? When: Tuesday 21 July – 7:00pm Where: Lecture Room 2, Laidlaw College, 80 Central Park Drive, Henderson, West Auckland Format: DVD followed by discussion. Cost: Free – donations appreciated. If [...]
Entries from July 14th, 2009
See William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens debate: Does God Exist?
July 14th, 2009 3 Comments
Tags: Apologetics · Events · Thinking Matters
Living Philosophers of Religion
July 13th, 2009 2 Comments
Over at Common Sense Atheism, Lukeprog has compiled an impressively comprehensive list of 100+ Living Philosophers of Religion and Their Best Work. Lukeprog identifies his list of philosophers of religion as those who have “published at least one influential work in the field” offering “analytic arguments over the truth of theism vs. atheism.” What I [...]
Tags: Philosophy of Religion
Sunday Study: Christ on The Prohibition on Homicide Part I
July 12th, 2009 No Comments
This morning I preached a sermon at Riverhead Presbyterian Church on Christ’s exposition of the 6th Commandment, the prohibition on homicide, contained in the Sermon on the Mount. This Sunday Study series is essentially a transcript of today’s sermon. Christ states, You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not [...]
Tags: Homicide · Riverhead Presbyterian Church · Sermon on the Mount · Sunday Study
Published: Boonin’s Defense of the Sentience Criteria – A Critique
July 12th, 2009 5 Comments
We just discovered that if you go to Ethics and Medicine – An International Journal of Bioethics and click on “current issue” (VOLUME 25:2 SUMMER 2009) you will see that my article “Boonin’s Defense of the Sentience Criteria – A Critique” is now in print. It is always nice to finally see a publication in [...]
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Christian Blog Ranking Report for May 09 – Tumeke
July 11th, 2009 2 Comments
Here are the top 10 NZ Christian blogs based on Tumeke’s NZ blog stats for May; these stats are used in the calculations for the MandM top 10 NZ Christian Blog rankings for May 09: NZ Conservative 22 Something Should Go Here, Maybe Later (HalfDone) 31 Being Frank 33 MandM 35 Keeping Stock 36 Say [...]
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Fisking Ian Hassall: The Arbitrary Ethical Reasoning on the Smacking Referendum
July 10th, 2009 41 Comments
Recently Dr Ian Hassall gave a presentation, on the upcoming referendum on section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, entitled: How did we come to have a law that supported hitting children? This presentation defends the thesis that mild physical punishment (smacking) is wrong and should remain illegal in New Zealand. In this post I [...]
Tags: David Benatar · Defences · Ethics · Ian Hassall · Moral Discourse · Referendum · s59 · Smacking
Mount Maunganui Adventures
July 9th, 2009 1 Comment
Yesterday I took my youngest two kids for a walk around The Mount (as Mt Maunganui is referred to by locals) as we are staying about a 2 minute walk from it at the moment. As we left I told them that when I was younger and I had done this walk with my parents [...]
Tags: Holiday
Weight Watchers and the Historical Atrocities Argument
July 8th, 2009 6 Comments
We’ve all heard the slogan that atheism is superior to theism because of all the atrocities committed in the name of religion. If you flick through the pages of the new-atheist publications by the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, Loftus, Harris, et al you’ll probably find some version of this assertion in each. Setting aside the [...]
Tags: Atheism · Christian History · Historical Atrocities · Religious History · Thinking Matters · Weight Watchers
BOP Bloggers Drinks – Tonight!
July 8th, 2009 No Comments
Ozy Mandias, Matt and I will be meeting up at Latitude 37, in Mount Maunganui tonight at 7.30pm. Any other Bay of Plenty bloggers or readers are most welcome.
Tags: Announcements · Events
Fisking Margaret Mayman: The Flawed Moral Theology on the Smacking Referendum
July 7th, 2009 7 Comments
In “A Christian Perspective on the Child Discipline Referendum,” Rev Dr Margaret Mayman presents a theological justification for retaining the amended section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, which has criminalised force used against a child for the purposes of parental correction. Mayman began by offering three standard arguments for repealing the old section 59, [...]
Tags: Crimes Act · David Benatar · Hermeneutics · Margaret Mayman · Referendum · s59 · Smacking · Theology
