In my previous post, Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I, I mentioned the position suggested by Alvin Plantinga and endorsed by Nicholas Wolterstorff that the passages in Joshua that appear to record the carrying out of genocide at God’s command, such as, “putting all the people to the sword”, “leaving no survivors”, […]
Entries Tagged as 'Series'
Sunday Study: Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part II
January 10th, 2010 45 Comments
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Genocide · K Lawson Younger · Kenneth Kitchen · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Sunday Study
Contra Mundum: Confessions of an Anti-Choice Fanatic
January 5th, 2010 76 Comments
If current media is to be believed opposition to legal abortion comes from misogynist fundamentalist fanatics who want to impose their religious mores onto others. This string of pejorative terms is amusing; however, it does not actually address the more crucial question of whether laws against feticide (the killing of a fetus) are just. I […]
Tags: Abortion · Contra Mundum · David Boonin · Feticide · Investigate Magazine · Peter Singer · Selection
Sunday Study: Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I
January 3rd, 2010 52 Comments
Critics of Christianity often claim that the book of Joshua teaches that God commanded genocide. Raymond Bradley for example states, In chapters 7 through 12, [the book of Joshua] treats us to a chilling chronicle of the 31 kingdoms, and all the cities therein, that fell victim to Joshua’s, and God’s, genocidal policies. Time and […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Brevard Childs · Canaanites · Genocide · Hermeneutics · Joshua · Kenneth Kitchen · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Raymond Bradley · Sunday Study · Theology · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Contra Mundum: The Flat-Earth Myth
December 1st, 2009 218 Comments
A while back I made a passing comment on my blog criticising an advertisement which claimed that, prior to Columbus, the Church taught that the world was flat. In response I received the following email from a high-school student in the US, I’ve been studying Christopher Columbus in my history class and my history books […]
Tags: Christian History · Contra Mundum · flat earth · Investigate Magazine · Science and Religion · Selection · Urban Myths
Contra Mundum: “Bigoted Fundamentalist” as Orwellian Double-Speak
November 2nd, 2009 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 publish my thoughts and reflections on moral issues, of various persuasions, in various media. I have written on the morality of warfare, whether it is sometimes permissible to lie, the […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Contra Mundum · Fundamentalism · Investigate Magazine
Sunday Study: Paul on Freedom of Conscience – Romans 14
October 5th, 2009 3 Comments
In the 14th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans there is an interesting discussion of strictures relating to the eating of meat. The discussion is interesting because it brings up issues which have application beyond the context Paul addressed. Specifically, Paul affirms in these passages the existence of a prima facie right to freedom […]
Tags: Alan Donagan · Aquinas · Augustine · Freedom of Conscience · Sunday Study
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.
