Philosopher William Alston died peacefully in his home in Jamestown New York on 13 September 2009 aged 87; he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just a week earlier. Many of my readers will not know but Alston was one of the leading contemporary Christian Philosophers of the last fifty years. I discovered his writings […]
Entries from September 16th, 2009
Auckland Bloggers Drinks Feat. David Farrar – This Thursday!
September 14th, 2009 4 Comments
This week a number of non-Auckland bloggers will be in Auckland for the Forum on the Family. So, Annie Fox and I have conspired to hold an impromptu Bloggers Bar Bash this Thursday and David Farrar has confirmed his appearance. What: A social gathering of bloggers and bloupies (those who read, comment on and hang […]
Tags: Bloggers Drinks · David Farrar
Sunday Study: Interpreting the Sixth Commandment Part II
September 13th, 2009 11 Comments
In a previous post, Sunday Study: Interpreting the Sixth Commandment Part I, I discussed some translations of the sixth commandment of the Decalogue. I began with the King James Version (KJV), “thou shall not kill.”[1] I looked at problems with this translation most famously raised by Augustine. The New International Version (NIV) and New Revised […]
Tags: Augustine · Ethics · Old Testament Ethics · Sunday Study · Ten Commandments · Theology
September 11
September 11th, 2009 15 Comments
Today I reflect, as do many, where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about the attacks on the World Trade Tower. Like my parents generation’s remembrance of where they were and what they were doing when Kennedy was assassinated and their parents remembrance of the news of V-Day this was […]
Goff on Labour’s Mistakes: What about Fixing a Few Phil?
September 11th, 2009 6 Comments
I have got to give it to Phil Goff, the more I hear from him the more I like. I grew up in a Social Credit family. I lived in Uncle Gary’s East Coast Bays electorate, my mum was even his electorate secretary at one point. I remember watching my father and uncle on the […]
Tags: Chris Flatt · Labour Party · Phil Goff
Darwinian Evolution, God and Ockham’s Razor
September 11th, 2009 31 Comments
In a previous post, Darwinian Evolution, Chance and Design, I argued that the contention that Darwinian evolution occurs by chance does not entail that it shows the world was not designed. Once one sees how the concept of chance is defined in evolutionary theory one can see that it does not rule out design. It […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Charles Darwin · Evolution · Faith and Reason · Ockham’s Razor · Philosophy of Religion · Science and Religion
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.
Christchurch Event: John Boscawen, David Garrett, Larry Baldock on s59
September 16th, 2009 4 Comments
Recently I attended a public meeting in support of John Boscawen’s Bill to restore the right of parents to use reasonable force for the purposes of correction in the course of parenting removed by the current s59 of the Crimes Act. This Bill will be voted on shortly and for those of us who voted […]
Tags: David Garrett · John Boscawen · John Key · Larry Baldock · Referenda · s59 · Smacking