Intelligent Puddles, Early Religion and Fine Tuning

James McGrath's blog really is a mighty blog. He is single handedly responsible for sending over 80 readers to this weeks carnival. If you can keep up with the volume of posts (which now I work full time I struggle to do) and can filter out the obsessive Dr Who references you will always find somethiing interesting. He shares this image with a quote from Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Fame,

Which elicited a great deal of discussion. Despite the protests of one commenter, Adams did intend this analogy to critique the biblical idea that this world was made for humanity to live in. A fuller extract of the speech the quote is from is very interesting and worth reading, before he gets to the puddle analogy Adams argues that early tool making man would look at the world and see a world made for his existence. He continues,

Debaptise Yourself!

All this talk of baptising, re-baptising, and the rest, reminded me of an old news clip from last year.  For once I am in sympathy with the whinging atheist!  :-)



HT Steve Taylor, also Steve's jocund riff on the subject is worth a second reading too.

a refined quartet of posts

• Marilynne Robinson on the human mind and the new atheists (HT)
• A charismatic Christian thoughtfully critiques the charismatic practice of "tongues" (HT)
• Do you need biblical inspiration for a get well card?
• And more on biblical beer drinking (Hat Tip)

Education, Debating, And Other Tidbits

James McGrath and Marc Cortez discuss exams versus otherways of testing students.  My question would be, is the point that students know theology, or that they can do theology?  Maggi Dawn didn't get what she needed from her theological education, she had to start blogging for that.  Where I work, we have very few exams, mostly assignment based assesment, and are using more and more online interaction in assesment and delivery.

Paul Windsor gives Fox news a good spanking. While Jim West observes that Hitchens gets a spanking from John Haldane, I especially liked this bit if only because it tied in so nicely with my blog post of Lev 24, perhaps he read it before the debate?  The dissapointing thing is that most of it goes way over Hitchen's head and he just keeps pushing the same old tired wheelbarrow.  Poor thing. Seriously, this is why I avoid debates, no one ever listens.

Meanwhile Ben Myers just asks us to be nice to theologians, after all, they are human (sort of) too, and Jason Goroncy wants us to save the internet, but why should we bother?

Dennett vs Clayton: A New Atheist Versus a Non-Fundy Theist! (Whatever Willl They Think of Next?)

Belated congrats to Philip Clayton on a successfull challenge to Daniel Dennett which resulted in this pretty interesting but reasonably civil debate/discussion. 

Which makes me wonder, whatever happened to the debate we have been awaiting between Glenn Peoples and John Loftus?

Virtue Can Cause Atheism Too

With all the recent excitement about a book to argue the thesis that sin can be a cause of atheism us believers need to not get too excited.  It is worth remembering that, while some manifestly have turned away from faith because of moral failure, others have turned away from faith because they were too moral to accept what they felt their faith demanded of them, whether in terms of action, attitude, or belief. 

Not only that but moral failure is often a catalyst for people to find faith as they come face to face with their own moral bankruptcy and seek redemption.  However, a church that is full of judgmentalism will succeed in creating atheists both through moral failure and moral virtue and will also prevent those seeking redemption from finding it there.  That is why the Lord told us to take the plank (judgmentalism) out of our own eye before we dare to address the dust in the eye of another.

The Decade of Eagleton

As noted earlier, some have suggested that the 00s were the decade of the Atheists.  I predict that the next decade will be the decade of Terry Eagleton.  He is perfectly placed to ride the wave of the new-atheism as a swashbuckling rhetoritician surfer of outrageous derring-doo.  That he is the man for this moment is witnessed to by the sudden surge of interest in his writings by the blogging community. That this is a good thing is that writing at a popular level he may be the one who can rescue North American and Australasian Christianity from its captivity to the political right:

Yes, I quote my father who insisted that Jesus Christ was a socialist and that any Christianity that is not on the side of the dispossessed against the arrogance of the powerful and rich is utterly untraditional. Dawkins and Hitchens write about Christianity and never link the words God, justice and love. That is either a sign of their obtuseness or a sign of the massive self-betrayal of the Christian movement. It has got to the point where intelligent people like them don't understand that Christianity is not about how many months you get in purgatory for adultery. It's about a love and a thirst for justice that will bring you to your death. There's nothing lovely about it.

From here

[prophetic disclaimer: this does not constitute a word from the LORD, only the half baked opinion of someone avoiding working on his masters thesis!!  Therefore it may or may not come true.  Any loss or damage to property or personal fortune as a result of believing this prediction is entirely at the readers own risk. :-)]

Some more of other people's blogs

Marriage is under attack in the UK by those promoting adultery as entertainment, am I really a reactinoary old prude for thinking that should be stopped quickly?  Loren argues that Paul was converted rather than called which is interesting and I thiknk depends largely on how you understand conversion and religion.  Meanwhile the decade of the Atheists is over, but what will come next?  i would like a decade of really really good pie shops opening in my local neighbourhood.  Steve asks how true do we need the Bible to be?  But I wonder how much we can rely on history to make some of those decisions given how much of the data is still underground and how little survives in any form.  But in case it never occured to you, it didn't me, Goliath's helmet was an important historical clue.  And it should be noted that even the most happening lively active church can be lonely and we need to make the effort to spend time in each other's homes, but that would be hard if you go to "commuter" church.  Bon appetit!

Atheist lessons

This cartoon is very funny. (Hat tip to James McGrath)

It is penned by an atheist and is obviously designed to poke fun at and expose the hypocrisy of Christians. While I obviously don't agree with much of the content and aims of the site, exposing hypocrisy is, I think, a valuable contribution.

But I also think the cartoon is a wonderful introduction, both to the importance of the study of Biblical hermeneutics, i.e. how we interpret the scriptures, and secondly a rather pointed reminder that discipleship is far more about radical living than just assenting to radical beliefs.

Let me know what you think :-)

P.S. And if anyone wonders why I don't do Christmas trees... now you know!