One thing I find particularly frustrating is reading commentary on theology and philosophy written by scientists. To be fair, some scientists I have read are informed and do offer astute and insightful comments; commonly, however, one finds a person who is undoubtedly brilliant in their own field, writing with confident gusto, articles that fail to [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Investigate Magazine'
Contra Mundum: When Scientists Make Bad Ethicists
October 10th, 2011 387 Comments
Tags: Charles Darwin · Contra Mundum · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Investigate Magazine · Jerry Coyne · Robert Adams · Science and Religion
Contra Mundum: Separating Church and State
September 2nd, 2011 87 Comments
Co-authored by Matthew and Madeleine Flannagan The late Philosopher Richard Rorty once described religion as a “conversation stopper”, something that polarises discussion and ends or prevents fruitful dialogue. Rorty was an advocate of, “the happy, Jeffersonian compromise that the Enlightenment reached with the religious. This compromise consists in privatizing religion — keeping it out of [...]
Tags: Contra Mundum · First Amendment · Investigate Magazine · Separation of Church and State · Separationism · Steven Smith · Thomas Jefferson · Wall of Separation
Macsyna King, Representative of the Coming Race
July 8th, 2011 13 Comments
We are simple souls, and so find ourselves “conflicted” (to use pop psych jargon) over the public vituperate venting about one Macsyna King. How we love a mob. All heat and no light. A dirty bomb. Macsyna is coming out of the closet via a book, Breaking Silence: The Kahui Case, written by Ian Wishart. The mob [...]
Tags: Chris and Cru Kahui · Due Process · Ian Wishart · Investigate Magazine · Macsyna King · Welfare
Contra Mundum: Religion and Violence
June 1st, 2011 40 Comments
On 1 May 2011 the world received the news that Osama Bin Laden was dead; gunned down in Pakistan by an elite team of US Navy Seals. Even before his death Bin Laden had become a legendary persona. Not only was he a terrorist leader responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents but he [...]
Tags: 9/11 · Alister McGrath · Christian History · Christopher Eberle · Contra Mundum · David Lindberg · Glenn Peoples · Historical Atrocities · Investigate Magazine · Jim Peron · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Osama Bin Laden · Regine Pernoud · Religion in Public Life · Religious History · Richard Wurmbrand · Ronald Numbers · Sam Harris · Terence Cuneo
Contra Mundum: Stoning Adulterers
May 2nd, 2011 90 Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Adultery · Ashraf Choudhary · Capital Punishment · Contra Mundum · Gordon Wenham · Investigate Magazine · J J Finkelstein · John Goldingay · Old Testament Ethics · Raymond Westbrook · Walter Kaiser
Contra Mundum: In Defence of Santa
December 25th, 2010 37 Comments
I grasped the sponge, water dripped down my wrist as I took aim. The man from the McGillicuddy Serious Party raised his voice and said “now throw!” The sponge flew through the air from my hand and struck Santa solidly on the chest soaking his red costume. Santa laughed and said “throw another one!” It [...]
Tags: Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · McGillicuddy Serious Party · Nicholas of Myra · Santa
Contra Mundum: The Number of the Beast
December 1st, 2010 29 Comments
Recently TV3 screened The Omen. This classic horror is a about a boy called Damian who is the predicted anti-Christ and appropriately has the number 666 on his head. This film epitomises how the book of Revelation is understood in contemporary culture; apparently it predicts a future person, the beast or the anti-Christ who will [...]
Tags: 616 · 666 · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Nero · Number of the Beast · Revelation · The Omen
Contra Mundum: Pluralism and Being Right
November 5th, 2010 7 Comments
Recently I attended a lecture on science and religion at the University of Auckland. As is normal after such talks students stayed and discussed issues raised by the presentation. One student brought up a fairly common chestnut, he objected to the claim made by some Christians that their religion was true and that other religions [...]
Tags: Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Pluralism
Contra Mundum: Pacifism and Just Wars
July 5th, 2011 25 Comments
Comedian Bill Maher recently berated Christians for being hypocrites for supporting military action against terrorists in his “New Rules” segment on the U.S. TV show Real Time (transcript here). Jesus, Maher contended, was a pacifist; “Jesus lays on that hippie stuff pretty thick. He has lines like, “do not repay evil with evil,” and “do [...]
Tags: Bill Maher · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Just War · Pacifism · War Ethics