New Zealand, along with all nations, is acutely religious. But, more than most Western countries, the dominant religion is now the Established Religion. We are using “established” in the historical sense of a religion prescribed and protected, so that all citizens must respect and honour that particular religion’s beliefs and practices. Established religion is the [...]
Entries from January 31st, 2011
Maori Animism: New Zealand’s Established Religion
January 30th, 2011 256 Comments
Tags: Maori Animism · Phil Mohi · Religion in Public Life · State Religion
Fallacy Friday: Assessing Arguments
January 28th, 2011 9 Comments
In last week’s post, Fallacy Friday: What is an Argument?, we established that an argument is a set of reasons (or premises) offered in support of a conclusion. We noted that arguments always have two components: premises and conclusions. We also observed that premises sometimes can be implicit or unstated. Of course knowing what an argument [...]
Tags: Aristotle · Fallacy Friday
Auckland Bloggers Drinks – Thursday
January 27th, 2011 7 Comments
The first Thursday of the month means Bloggers Drinks! The event for bloggers, blog trolls, blog groupies (bloupies) and blog readers who happen to be in Auckland. Past blogging celebrities in attendance include bloggers and blog readers from: 21st Century Renaissance, And All These Things, Annie Fox, As Yourself Hermitage, Barnsley Bill, Beretta, Blondie, Bowalley Road, The Fairfacts [...]
Tags: Bloggers Drinks · Horse and Trap
Gone Camping
January 26th, 2011 9 Comments
Matt and I have gone camping with no internet access. We’ll be back Friday. Please try to play nicely without us. Any urgent blog or moderation issues should be referred to our host churchWEB.
Tags: Announcements
Nietzsche on Over-Compensating
January 25th, 2011 61 Comments
They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality. They must rehabilitate themselves after ever little emancipation from religion by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring way what moral fanatics they are. That is their penance. Friedrich Nietzsche
Tags: Friedrich Nietzsche · God and Morality
Abraham, Isaac, Virginity, Rape and Child Killing (Another Old Testament Ethics Post)
January 23rd, 2011 88 Comments
Randal Rauser has published a blog post touching on Old Testament ethics called “An update in the wake of Atlanta (plus a bit on rape and child killing)“. His post gives an update on his thoughts following his interaction with Paul Copan, Richard Hess and myself in the Evangelical Philosophical Society’s break-out panel discussion “Is Yahweh [...]
Tags: Abraham and Isaac · David Boonin · Don Marquis · Evangelical Philosophical Society · Homicide · John Hare · Michael Tooley · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan · Peter Singer · Randal Rauser · Richard Hess · Society of Biblical Literature
Once Upon an A Priori…
January 22nd, 2011 15 Comments
To formulate a statement that reduces a universal domain that includes myself and my thoughts or statements, to one or more factors that affect truth-value domain-wide, I must nevertheless transcend that universal domain so that I can make that factor-exempt statement itself, as well as any factor-exempt arguments that I might want to offer for [...]
Tags: Bad Reasoning
Fallacy Friday: What is an Argument?
January 21st, 2011 45 Comments
When I was doing my PhD at the University of Otago, Madeleine and I would try to save up for a “date night” once a fortnight. Often we would go to the movies. On more than one occasion we would stand in the theatre and look at various options. Madeleine would suggest we see one [...]
Tags: Fallacy Friday
Fallacy Fridays
January 21st, 2011 5 Comments
Over the past few years I have occasionally been asked by para-church, church and home-schooling groups to put together a critical thinking or “mini logic” course, with a focus on fallacy spotting, and teach it to their youth. I have done this from time to time and have often found as many adults in attendance as youth; [...]
Tags: Fallacy Friday
Pro Life Tour: Hear Jill Stanek, Bryan Kemper, Glenn Peoples, Brendan Malone and Matthew Flannagan
January 31st, 2011 305 Comments
Student group Pro-Life New Zealand brought have popular pro-life speakers Jill Stanek and Bryan Kemper out from the US for a nationwide tour of New Zealand. Pro Life Tour 2011 31 Jan Wellington 1 Feb Palmerston North 2 – 3 Feb Christchurch 4 Feb Dunedin 5 Feb Auckland 7 Feb Hamilton Most centres will have day workshops [...]
Tags: Abortion · Brendan Malone · Bryan Kemper · Ethics · Feticide · Glenn Peoples · Jill Stanek · Pro Life NZ