Tag: Science
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Genesis One as a Work of Literature
Genesis 1:1- 2:3 was one of the last contributions to the opening five books of the Hebrew Bible. It was added when they were reaching their final shape, at the hands of Priestly editors. The following Genesis 2:4 to 3:24 ‘creation’ account is much earlier, with a human-like God strolling around his garden, talking to…
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Let There Be Light !
The Greek philosopher Thales had an idea that was right and wrong. He thought there must be one thing from which all others were made, and decided this was water. It’s one thing, yet it can be solid, liquid or gas, and it’s essential for life – dead things dry up. That was a reasonable…
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Awareness, Consciousness, Experience, Mind
Is there anything we can be absolutely certain is ‘real’? The answer to that question is, yes! There is one thing, and it is consciousness. Always however, and especially here, we need to define our terms, lest there be any misunderstandings. By ‘consciousness’ I mean subjective experience, whether of thoughts, of feelings, or of sights,…
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The ‘Final’ Reality
For the final time (for now), let’s think again about the fascinating fact of a different level of ‘reality’. Let’s consider a picture that should make immediate sense to us. Wherever we are right now, passing through us, are radio, television, and internet ‘waves’. They are real, but we can’t see them. Common sense would…
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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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Honest to God?
It seems to me that if we’re to be ‘honest to God’, (understood as being, in some way, the originator and sustainer of all that is), we must face the challenge presented by the philosopher Bertrand Russell, who cuts to the chase in an impressively concise way (unusual for a philosopher, some might say). “That…
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A Down-to-Earth look at God (ii)
Following on from my previous post, I’m exploring what can, reasonably and credibly, be said about God. Many people may have the science versus religion debate, (occasionally acrimonious and mud-slinging), in the background, if not foreground, of their thinking. On the one hand, there are the ‘new atheists’ who don’t just claim that religion poisons…
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My Religious Paradigm (2) The sacred books
Continuing this series, I’m asking myself, having been a preacher, what my current religious ‘paradigm’ is, by which I mean, what do I think, and feel, I can reasonably and credibly believe? Religious literature is exactly that and, in my view, must be subject to the same historical and critical scrutiny as all other kinds…
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Science and Religion (iii) A “Selfie” from a Past Life!
In this series of posts, I’m thinking about Thomas Kuhn’s model of scientific ‘paradigms’, with its ongoing alternation between reasonably stable ‘normal’ times and times of ‘crisis’, when what has been the ‘normal’ no longer works and ‘revolutionary transformations’ are required. I’m wondering if this could possibly be applied to religion. Over the last several…
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