Critics of Christianity often ask how can a good and loving God command the extermination of the Canaanites as is taught the Old Testament? A clear assumption behind this question is that the Old Testament teaches that God did in fact command the extermination of the Canaanites, an assumption which is based on a straight-forward […]
Entries Tagged as 'Ethics'
Wolterstorff, the Canaanites and Hyperbole: A Response to Ken Pulliam
June 29th, 2010 47 Comments
Tags: Canaanites · Divine Command Theory · Genocide · Ken Pulliam · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics
Contra Mundum: Secular Smoke Screens and Plato’s Euthyphro
March 2nd, 2010 35 Comments
In “Religion: A Barrier to Clear Thinking,” the final article in the award winning series of lay philosophy articles published in the Christchurch Press, Canterbury based Philosopher Simon Clarke addressed the question, “what is the biggest obstacle to thinking clearly about social and political issues?” Predictably he answered “Several answers suggested themselves but time and […]
Tags: Contra Mundum · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · Investigate Magazine · Peter Geach · Plato · Simon Clarke · William Lane Craig
Sovereignty and The Treaty of Waitangi
February 6th, 2010 18 Comments
In the Theory of Morality, Alan Donagan has a concise discussion of the morality of contracts. At one point he makes the following plausible argument, Obviously, the normal conditions of the existence of a contract are not fulfilled if the promisee misunderstands what the promiser intends. … a promiser is morally bound to perform whatever […]
Tags: Alan Donagan · Jurisprudence · Sovereignty · Treaty of Waitangi
Contra Mundum: The Judgmental Jesus
January 29th, 2010 22 Comments
Few things are thought to be more morally pernicious than the practice of judging others. Sometimes this is given a theological spin with people citing the Sermon on the Mount “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure […]
Tags: Contra Mundum · Ethics · Hermeneutics · Investigate Magazine · Judging
The “Three Strikes Bill” Moves Forward
January 19th, 2010 2 Comments
I am cautiously optimistic at today’s announcement that the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill a.k.a. the “Three Strikes Bill” will be moving forward as part of the government’s legislative program. In my post Three Strikes: Proportion and Protection, which was published in the New Zealand Law Students Association publication LEX, I argued that the “apparent […]
Tags: Justice · Public Policy · Punishment · Three Strikes Bill
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.
Tune in to Marae Tomorrow
February 5th, 2010 9 Comments
Yesterday Matt and I participated in filming a debate on the Treaty of Waitangi. The moot was “That the Treaty of Waitangi is holding NZ back.” There were four panelists, Stephen Franks, Tim Wikiriwhi, Matthew Hooten and Hana O’Regan and an active audience, of which Matt and I were asked to be members of to […]
Tags: Hana O'Regan · John Minto · Marae · Matthew Hooten · Shane Taurima · Stephen Franks · Tim Wikiriwhi · Treaty of Waitangi · TV One · TVNZ