Category: Current Affairs
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Was the Bishop a Complete Idiot?
The Bishop was George Berkeley (1685-1753), and he could be blamed for the following question that’s sometimes asked – ‘Does the Moon still exist when no one is looking at it?’ This is usually dismissed as a piece of obvious nonsense – a joke rather than a serious question. Bishop Berkeley, knowing his Latin, put…
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Let’s get ‘Real’
Assuming we’re not hostile to Science for religious or other reasons, we really ought to take on board some of its newest findings, however strange or disturbing some of them might seem to be, especially if we’re at all interested in being ‘real’. Imagine you’re sitting at a table. It has a flat top, and…
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Don’t Take Offence
A man, protesting because a cinema screened a film he objected to on religious grounds, claimed, “I have a right not to be offended”. On every possible ground, that’s a piece of egregious nonsense. From a legal standpoint, in the UK, no such right exists. This was made clear in 1979 when protestors against the…
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The Search for Meaning (i)
Does human life have a meaning? Paradoxically, perhaps, Richard Dawkins seems to suggest the only possible meaning of life is, it’s meaningless! Here’s a typical quote – “Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor…
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The POE-t who beat the Astronomers to it !
Astronomers, from the late 16th century onwards, who believed that the universe was infinite in age and extent, couldn’t understand why the night sky wasn’t an uninterrupted blaze of light. If the universe was infinite in extent, and had an infinite number of stars, then every line of sight would lead to a star, and…
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Noah’s Flood
Five centuries before Israel appeared, along with the tales that form its national epic, a story was told by the Sumerian people in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). The gods created humans to do the heavy work, like digging drainage ditches, harvesting crops, and animal husbandry. They multiplied too rapidly, however, becoming obstreperous, ‘bolshie’ nuisances. “The country…
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Rethinking Jesus (14) Radical Teaching
The teachings of Jesus are those of a first century, Palestinian Jew, who subscribed to the current apocalyptic view, that a great ‘reversal’ in world history was imminent. God was about to intervene dramatically to finally deal with the powers of evil, and all people who hadn’t been loyal to himself. The dead would be…
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Jordan Peterson Hits the Target
Jordan Peterson, whatever else you may think about him, in my view, hits the target with this, for blog readers and writers, and for everyone else as well. “Almost all ideas are wrong. And it doesn’t matter if they’re your ideas or someone else’s ideas. They’re probably wrong and, even if they strike you with…
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2022
THIS would be a good “fingerprint” for all of us to ‘make our mark’ with on the year ahead – whether religious or non-religious …..
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The Nativity Stories (iv) More Thoughts
I’ve been suggesting that the nativity stories in the gospels of Matthew and Luke are two different stories, and that we do them a disservice if we try to prove, with far-fetched and ingenious rationalisations, that they’re historical accounts. They invite us, while enjoying what’s on the surface, to look a little bit more deeply. …
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