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Entries Tagged as 'Philosophy of Religion'

The Question of Islam

August 21st, 2007 Comments Off on The Question of Islam

An interesting discussion of Islam has been occurring at Kiwiblog. Up until now I have merely chipped in to correct inaccurate claims about Christian beliefs and practices. However, for what its worth I’ll add my two cents worth here. Here is what I think the issues are. We are familiar with Christian teachings on the […]

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Against Liberal Morality

August 10th, 2007 Comments Off on Against Liberal Morality

In debates over abortion, homosexual conduct, euthanasia, prostitution, drugs. Those who call themselves liberals often mount the same basic argument. A socially or morally permissive stance is necessitated towards such practices because people have a right to choose do what ever they like with their bodies. As Mill put it, The only part of the […]

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Contra Christopher Hitchens

August 10th, 2007 Comments Off on Contra Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens’ critiques of religion get a thorough rebuttal here. My favourite paragraph is this expose, The effectiveness of Hitchens’ book is also undermined by the large number of errors it contains, many so glaring that they will be picked up by even a casual reader with some knowledge of history and theology. The Gnostic […]

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Paul Litterick on Religion and Public Life: A second Look

August 7th, 2007 Comments Off on Paul Litterick on Religion and Public Life: A second Look

In a previous post I criticised an argument made by Paul Litterick for the conclusion that theological arguments should not affect public policy. Paul has responded saying that this post consisted of a “lengthy misrepresentation of [his] views” Now I do not wish to caricature anyone’s views. I would rather refute Paul’s actual arguments than […]

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Correspondence from Dr Bill Cooke

August 6th, 2007 1 Comment

I received the following last night: Dear Matthew Thank you telling your readers you apologised for not seeking my side of the story with regard to the Visiting Associate Professor imbroglio. I appreciate your honesty there. However, I was dismayed to read a new litany of innuendo about this. I am depressed that you should […]

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Religion and Public Life: A Response to Russell Brown and Paul Litterick

August 3rd, 2007 11 Comments

Paul Litterick was recently interviewed by Russell Brown on Public Address. The topic predictably is his criticism of conservative Christian groups whom Russell appears to have no time for. Here I will make to criticisms of this broadcast, first one of Russell Brown and the second of Litterick. Turning first to Russell Brown; Brown mentioned […]

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Abortion and Capital Punishment: No Contradiction

August 2nd, 2007 1 Comment

This blog post has been published in Think: A Journal of the Royal Institute for Philosophy 6 (2008) 87-92, which is a journal of Cambridge University. One argument I frequently hear is that opposition to feticide, the killing of a human fetus, is inconsistent with support for capital punishment. Some times this argument is pushed even further. […]

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