Back in 2005 there was a minor furore when Labour MP Ashraf Choudhary stated he agreed with the Koran’s teaching that people who engaged in homosexual conduct or who committed adultery should be stoned to death. In the media spiral that followed, some commentators pointed out that it was not just Islam that held this […]
Entries Tagged as 'Theology'
Contra Mundum: Stoning Adulterers
May 2nd, 2011 92 Comments
Tags: Adultery · Ashraf Choudhary · Capital Punishment · Contra Mundum · Gordon Wenham · Investigate Magazine · J J Finkelstein · John Goldingay · Old Testament Ethics · Raymond Westbrook · Walter Kaiser
Moving Beyond Sunday School
April 19th, 2011 9 Comments
On this blog we often rail against new-atheist readings of Biblical texts. Our pages are littered with expositions as to what a text is really saying when you consider the context, genre and textual evidence, all of which demonstrates that the new-atheist readings of the texts are at best wanting and at worst down-right stupid […]
Tags: Hermeneutics · Paul Copan
Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels – Tim McGrew
April 14th, 2011 28 Comments
If we have a question on the historicity of the resurrection, Timothy McGrew is our first port of call; there is no one we would turn to before him on the subject. Tim is also highly regarded for his work on probability theory and on miracles – he is the author of “Miracles” for the […]
Tags: Faith and Reason · Historical Apologetics · Lydia McGrew · MP3 · Timothy McGrew
Debate Review: Sam Harris and William Lane Craig on Divine Command Theory Part I
April 13th, 2011 54 Comments
Last week Sam Harris and William Lane Craig debated the question: “Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural?” at the University of Notre Dame. Given my interest in divine command meta-ethics I found the debate and the subsequent online discussion concerning it extremely interesting. I was particularly interested in how the ‘new atheist’ movement would […]
Tags: Debates · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural? · Notre Dame · Philip Quinn · Robert Adams · Sam Harris · William Lane Craig
Unbelievable? Is God a Moral Monster? Paul Copan & Norman Bacrac
April 11th, 2011 7 Comments
Paul Copan recently debated Norman Bacrac on the topic “Is God a Moral Monster?” on a recent episode of Unbelievable? on the UK station Premier Christian Radio. Matt and I just listened to it and we both thought it was worth sharing as Copan really handled himself well and very clearly articulated his position on the […]
Tags: Canaanites · Christian Premier Radio · Is God a Moral Monster? · Justin Brierley · Norman Bacrac · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan · Richard Dawkins · Unbelievable?
Thom Stark on Wolterstorff and Hagiographic Hyperbole
April 7th, 2011 36 Comments
Earlier this year I finished a forthcoming article in which I defended Nicholas Wolterstorff’s take on the Canaanite massacre recorded in the book of Joshua. Wolterstorff argues that the Book of Joshua is a highly figurative, hagiographic and hyperbolic account of Israel’s early skirmishes and it is not intended to be taken literally in its details.[1] […]
Tags: Canaanites · Douglas S. Earl · Genocide · Hermeneutics · Joshua · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Thom Stark
Is God a Moral Monster? A Review of Paul Copan’s Book
March 17th, 2011 17 Comments
On 11 September 2001 Islamic terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Centre, killing thousands of innocent people. Ostensibly they did this because they believed God commanded them to do so. This event has reinvigorated a fear that has been latent in Western psyche since the 17th century when religious wars tore Europe apart. […]
Tags: Book Review · Is God a Moral Monster? · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan
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.
