Bob quotes John Stuart Mill any one who feels it conducive either to his satisfaction or to his usefulness to hope for a future state as a possibility, there is no hindrance to his indulging that hope” (Mill 1874: 210). … Continue reading →

The BBC reports that the Vatican is thinking about doing away with limbo – the doctrine that unbaptised babies don’t quite make it to heaven but they don’t get sent straight into the inferno. It’s great that the Pope is … Continue reading →

John Wilkins wonders when atheism began. Over a number of beers, the discussion turned to the question when it became possible to be an atheist. De Sade lived at a time when public atheism was just beginning its run. Prior … Continue reading →

When the pope says, “Only this can free us from being afraid of God — which is ultimately at the root of modern atheism,” he said. “Only this God saves us from being afraid of the world and from anxiety … Continue reading →

One thing struck me as unusual in the latest Blogging the Bible post. Our blogger mentions the red heifer story and says it is vaguely familiar. Also, an unusual ritual is described: An unblemished red heifer is sacrificed, burned to … Continue reading →

I have been following the Blogging the Bible series at Slate, reading a few chapters each week, and today I reached the book of Numbers. In my past attempts to read the bible, I always enjoyed the Abraham-Isaac-Jacob-Joseph stories (when … Continue reading →

In my research for the entry on global warming, I found a number of sites that were protesting the Landover Baptist site. To my horror, I found that I had no way of knowing which of those sites were, themselves, … Continue reading →

Andrew Sullivan posts a letter from someone who claims to be a Cultural Catholic. Andrew doesn’t like the idea at all and proposes an acid test for being a Christian [a believer in the resurrection and the message of the … Continue reading →

I have started reading the Bible several times – starting at the very beginning – but I never made it past Exodus. Slate has a series called Blogging the Bible in which the author, David Plotz, has embarked on the … Continue reading →

It’s official! John Derbyshire says so… Trouble is, Jesus was not a philosopher. The Bible is full of inspiration and spiritual insights, but as a handbook for conducting worldly affairs, it needs to be taken with a dash of, well, … Continue reading →