Category: Religion
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The Stove ‘Dilemma’ and the Lewis ‘Trilemma’
This from D. J. Stove, the son of atheist and neo-positivist David Stove: When the possibility of converting to Catholicism became a real one, it was the immensity of the whole package that daunted me, rather than specific teachings. I therefore spent little time agonizing over the Assumption of Mary, justification by works as well…
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Why Richard Dawkins Refuses to Debate William Lane Craig
Dawkins explains.
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Will Science Put Religion out of Business? A Preliminary Tilt at Transhumanism
A correspondent writes: Here's how I think science will eventually put religion out of business. Soon medical science is going to be able to offer serious life extension, not pie-in-the-sky soul survival or re-incarnation, but real life extension with possible rejuvenation. When science can offer and DELIVER what religion can only promise, religion is done.…
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A Test for the Religious Sensibility
Some have the religious sensibility (inclination, predisposition, call it what you will) and some don't. Here is one of several possible tests to see if you have it. Get hold of Augustine's Confessions and Pascal's Pensées. If you read these books and they do not speak to you at all, if they do not move you,…
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The Religious Predisposition and Predestination
A UK reader e-mails: In your recent post My Relation to Catholicism, you write; "For a religion to take root in a person, the person must have a religious nature or predisposition to begin with." If this is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of becoming, let's say, a Christian, it seems very close to…
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My Relation to Catholicism
This from a graduate student in philosophy who describes himself as a theologically conservative Protestant who is toying with the idea of 'swimming the Tiber': In a recent post you say this: ""Study everything, join nothing" means that one ought to beware of institutions and organizations with their tendency toward self-corruption and the corruption of their…
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Five Attitudes Toward the Christian Dogmas
Original Sin, Trinity, and Incarnation are three Christian dogmas. There are others as well. Here is an off-the-cuff taxonomy of possible attitudes towards such dogmas. 1. They are just nonsense to be ignored or even a sign of deep mental dysfunction. When I first started blogging about the Trinity, John Jay Ray commented (6 January…
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A Pascalian Pointer to Our Fallenness
Edward T. Oakes in a fine article quotes Pascal: The greatness of man is so evident that it is even proved by his wretchedness. For what in animals is called nature we call wretchedness in man; by which we recognize that, his nature now being like that of animals, he has fallen from a better…
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Kant on Peccatum Originale Originans and Peccatum Originale Originatum
1. An important distinction for understanding the doctrine of original sin is that between originating original sin (peccatum originale originans) and originated original sin (peccatum originale originatum). This post will explain the distinction and then consider Immanuel Kant's reasons for rejecting originated original sin. It is important to realize that Kant does accept something like original…
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The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Mr Vallicella, I want to give you a heads up on the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". The phrase is probably an idiom that means something like 'universal wisdom' or 'all knowledge'. A better translation may be 'The Tree of the Knowledge of Everything From A to Z'. There is, in…
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Fall of Man or Rise of Man? The Aporetics of Genesis 2 and 3
At Genesis 2,17 the Lord forbids Adam from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, on pain of death. In the next chapter, however, Eve is tempted by the serpent, succumbs, eats of the tree, and persuades Adam to eat of it too. As punishment for their disobedience, Adam and Eve are banished…
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Theocracy and the Left
I wrote, "To reverse the scriptural phrase, they will swallow the imaginary gnat of 'theocracy' while straining at the all-too-real camel of Islamo-terrorism." A reader comments, "I'm not so sure it's gullibility as much as flat-out dishonesty half the time. Honestly, when I first heard the 'Dominionist' rumblings again, I thought it was comedy.…
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Two Opposite Mistakes Concerning Original Sin
One mistake is to think that the doctrine of Original Sin is empirically verifiable. I have seen this thought attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr. (If someone can supply a reference for me with exact bibliographical data, I would be much obliged.) I could easily be mistaken, but I believe I have encountered the thought in Kierkegaard as well. (Anyone…
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Modern Genetics and the Fall: Science and Religion in Collision?
John Farrell, a long-time friend of Maverick Philosopher, has an article in Forbes Magazine entitled Can Theology Evolve? Early in his piece Farrell quotes biologist Jerry Coyne: I’ve always maintained that this piece of the Old Testament, which is easily falsified by modern genetics (modern humans descended from a group of no fewer than 10,000…
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On the Misuse of ‘Theology’
This is an addendum to my post On the Misuse of Religious Language. In that left-wing rag, the NYT, we find: “When you buy gold you’re saying nothing is going to work and everything is going to stay ridiculous,” said Mackin Pulsifer, vice chairman and chief investment officer of Fiduciary Trust International in New York.…