Since 9/11 a choir of commentators have claimed that the willingness to murder innocent people in the name of God stems from the progenator of the Abrahamic faiths. Abraham, the father of Christianity, Judaism and Islam is commended for attempting to kill his own son. The account of this episode is arguable the most infamous […]
Entries Tagged as 'Philosophy of Religion'
Contra Mundum: Abraham and Isaac and the Killing of Innocents
October 3rd, 2010 124 Comments
Tags: Abraham · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Isaac · John Hare · Killing Innocents
Commonsense Atheism and the Canaanite Massacre
September 23rd, 2010 25 Comments
Luke Muehlauser at Commonsense Atheism has written a review of my argument on the genocide of the Canaanites (Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I and Part II). Luke’s comments are largely positive (and I appreciate that a critic of Theism and Christianity sees merit in my position) he does, however, raise a few issues […]
Tags: Canaanites · Commonsense Atheism · Genocide · Luke Muehlhauser · Old Testament Ethics · William Lane Craig
Video: Bradley v Flannagan “Is God the Source of Morality?
September 20th, 2010 19 Comments
On Monday 2 August at the University of Auckland Emeritus Professor of Philosophy Dr Raymond Bradley and Dr Matthew Flannagan (of this blog) debated the topic “Is God the Source of Morality? Is it rational to ground right and wrong in commands issued by God?” Here is the video of that debate. Hat Tip: Thinking Matters […]
Tags: Debates · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · MandM on Video · Matthew Flannagan · Raymond Bradley
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and the Moral Scepticism Objection to Divine Commands
September 16th, 2010 9 Comments
In responding to William Lane Craig’s advocacy of a Divine Command Theory (DCT) Walter Sinnott-Armstrong makes the objection that,“The divine command theory makes morality unknowable.” He makes the following argument for this: To see why, consider whether or not it is immoral to eat pork. If the divine command theory is correct, we cannot answer […]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · James Cornman · Keith Lehrer · Patrick Nowell Smith · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · William Lane Craig
Watch the Video of “The New Atheism, Science & Morality” with Glenn Peoples
September 8th, 2010 62 Comments
http://vimeo.com/moogaloo
The unofficial video of Glenn Peoples’ talk at Auckland Uni “The New Atheism, Science & Morality” is online. Hat Tip: E†B
Tags: Atheism · Glenn Peoples · New Atheists · Sam Harris · Thinking Matters
Contra Mundum: Selling Atheism
September 2nd, 2010 133 Comments
New Zealand motorists will have noticed a new genre of advertising billboards, those attempting to sell the concept that there is probably no God. These billboards are the collective efforts of the New Zealand Atheist Campaign, The Humanist Society and the New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists. Like all advertising campaigns, these billboards offer clever-sounding […]
Tags: Atheism · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · NZ Atheist Campaign · NZARH · The Humanist Society
Recycling The Dawkins Delusion
August 27th, 2010 3 Comments
Browsing the archives this morning I stumbled accross this gem, The Dawkins Delusion, which Matt originally published here some three years ago back before we had much of a readership so a lot you may have missed it. It is seriously clever and funny – go see!
Tags: Humour · New Atheists · Richard Dawkins
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.
