–1– My debate with Justin Martyr of The Faith Heuristic rages on. His replies to my rebuttal are posted here and here. My opening statement for the second half of the debate will be up sometime this weekend. –2– Daylight Atheism has an excellent debunking up of some of Lee Strobel’s claims about near death experiences from The Case for a Creator. The post goes back through the study he cites with a fine toothed comb. –3– I’m always a fan of... Read more
For an explanation of what Weatherwax Wednesdays are all about, read the introduction post. This week’s Weatherwax quote, like last week’s is from Carpe Jugulum. The first speaker is the Omnian missionary, the second speaker is Granny Weatherwax. The two of them alternate speaking throughout the dialogue. “There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example.” “And what do they think? Against it, are they?” “It’s not as simple as that. It’s... Read more
Thanks all for your comments on last week’s post on attempts to sanitize the liturgy. As always, if you’d like to respond to a Monday Call to Arms in longer form as a guest blogger, please email me at leah (dot) libresco (at) yale (dot) edu. The highlighted comment from last week comes from David Wagner: So, lectionary-editing authorities: knock off the bowdlerizing. “He’s not a tame lion.” Bring it on. Those who can’t stand it will go get themselves... Read more
This post is part of a debate with Justin of The Faith Heuristic. The topic is: The Evidence Supports the Existence of a God. The debate is structured as follows: Justin – Opening Statement Leah – Rebuttal –part 1 –part 2 Justin – Rejoinder –part 1 –part 2 Leah – Opening Statement Justin – Rebuttal Leah – Rejoinder One last note to the reader: although I’m delighted to get to mix it up in cosmological questions, some of the scientific... Read more
This post is part of a debate with Justin of The Faith Heuristic. The topic is: The Evidence Supports the Existence of a God. The debate is structured as follows: Justin – Opening Statement Leah – Rebuttal –part 1 –part 2 Justin – Rejoinder –part 1 –part 2 Leah – Opening Statement Justin – Rebuttal Leah – Rejoinder When I saw Justin was making a fine-tuning argument as the second part of his opening statement, I was a little... Read more
–1– First things first: I’m very excited to announce that I will be debating Justin of The Faith Heuristic on the merits of evidence for the existence of God. His first salvo is up today, and I’ll be responding this weekend. Justin always has an open challenge for atheist debaters. You can check out some of his previous debates and future topics here. –2– And speaking of evidence, Iamanatheist.com has a great post up that asks us to apply the... Read more
There are two useful parallels to evangelism for us to consider. One, proposed by Cranky Curmudgeon in the comments trail is the efforts of environmentalists in the face of global warming. The second is action taken by friends and family of a drug addict to try to get them to enter rehab. Dom and others in the comment trail are right to point out that aggressive, impersonal acts of evangelism are counterproductive. All it takes is a look at the... Read more
For an explanation of what Weatherwax Wednesdays are all about, read the introduction post. This week’s quote is from Carpe Jugulum. In the passage below, Granny is speaking to an Omnian missionary named Oats. (For more about Om, check out the excellent Small Gods). Granny said, “It’s no good you trying to make me believe in Om, though… People you can believe in, sometimes, but not gods. And I’ll tell you this Mister Oats…” He sighed. “Yes?” She turned to... Read more
I’m starting a new weekly feature today, subject to modification depending on how it goes over. I plan to post a quote from Granny Weatherwax, a recurring character in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series on Wednesdays, along with a brief commentary. Please leave feedback in the comments. A little about Granny Weatherwax It may not sound as respectable as identifying with Scarlett O’Hara or Jane Eyre, but Esme Weatherwax is the literary character I’ve always felt closest to. To put it... Read more
While looking up the readings for this week’s Mass in the Catholic liturgical calendar, I noticed that the Old Testament readings skipped around in the chosen chapters. I’ve looked up these omissions before, and usually the gap is just an irrelevant sidenote (a timestamp for the event, some geographical digression, etc). However, this week the meaning of the passage is distorted by the edit. (passage below, cut sections in bold) 7 Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘I anointed... Read more
Unequally Yoked
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