In my previous post, I set out the differences between relativist and objectivist views of ethics. I noted that objectivist views were widely disparaged in our culture in favour of relativist ones. I now want to raise what, I think, is an obvious question, why should we accept the relativism assumed in much cultural ethical […]
Entries Tagged as 'Philosophy of Religion'
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism II
December 5th, 2008 13 Comments
Tags: Ethics · Frances Howard-Snyder · Philosophy of Religion · Relativism · Rodney Stark
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism I
December 2nd, 2008 19 Comments
Suppose you asked me what today’s date was and I answered that the Maori Electorate seats in Parliament should be scrapped. You would quite rightly wonder what I was on. The question of what the date is is a completely different question as to whether a particular social policy is just. Oddly enough, however, when […]
Tags: Ethics · Frances Howard-Snyder · Philosophy of Religion · Relativism · Robert Adams
More on Christians and Bigotry
November 30th, 2008 13 Comments
Matt’s post on the practice of throwing the bigot label at Christians as a method to silence debate got me thinking. Some of my thinking came out in the comment I wrote on Half Done and in Matt’s comment in the original post but I still feel I have more to say. I’m someone who […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Religion in Public Life
Why am I a Bigot?
November 26th, 2008 16 Comments
I am a Theologian with a strong background in Philosophy; apart from Philosophical Theology, my particular area of interest is Ethics. Given this, I often post my thoughts and reflections on moral issues of various persuasions on this blog. I have discussed the morality of warfare, whether it is sometimes permissible to lie, the morality […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Ethics · Feticide · Homosexual Conduct · Religion in Public Life
What About the Poor? More on Sustenance Rights
November 19th, 2008 9 Comments
In my last post, What About the Poor? Sustenance Rights Examined, I noted the position of Nicholas Wolterstorff that, “If a rich man knows of someone who is starving and has the power to help that person, and chooses not to, then he violates that person’s rights as surely and reprehensively as if he had […]
Tags: Christian History · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Role of the State · Welfare
What About the Poor? Sustenance Rights Examined
November 18th, 2008 4 Comments
When I began university I had strong socialist leanings. The reason was that I believed, as a Christian, we had a duty to help the poor. Studying at Waikato University, however, brought me face to face with socialist academics and left-wing activists and I discovered a hostile and dangerous social agenda that I could not […]
Tags: Christian History · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Role of the State · Welfare
Sentience Part 2
November 2nd, 2008 2 Comments
Following on from Sentience Part 1, I will now address the conclusion of Bonnie Steinbock’s argument. Steinbock’s Conclusion Similar ambiguities affect Steinbock’s conclusion. Steinbock asserts that for killing an individual to be unlawful homicide, the individual must be sentient. However, this is ambiguous; as Don Marquis points out, this could mean that the individual will […]
Tags: Abortion · Bonnie Steinbock · Don Marquis · Feticide · Sentience
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.
