Can't We Enjoy the Best Bits?

Alain de Botton has a handsome new book out called Religion for Atheists, and he has launched  a little website puffing it. I've never been too keen on de Botton's writing, but his heart is often in the right place. This book gets a stinking review from the rather pusillanimous accommodationist Terry Eagleton, who says: What the...

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Are Atheists Bullies?

The recent kerfuffle at UCL prompted by overly sensitive religious sentiment has caused a number of folk to say that atheists are bullies, often comparing them to religious fundamentalists. At RichardDawkins.NET there was a rather incoherent poster called Griswold Grim who made the 'bullying' claim, but he never substantiated it,...

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Notpologetics

This has really got to stop, says Eric Macdonald, about believers arguing for particular views without admitting their real, religious based, grounding. This is something I've noticed frequently; believers will say they are arguing on prudential grounds, for example, when arguing for abstinence in combating AIDS. It's legitimate to point...

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A Blog Post Concerning John Locke

In John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) he presents two minor arguments for religious toleration, and one major one. The 'Unchristian' argument If the gospel and apostle may be credited no man can be a Christian without charity, and without that faith which works, not by force, but by love. His argument goes something...

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Ronald Searle, 1920-2011

A little diversion, to celebrate the wonderful drawings of Ronald Searle. He illustrated Geoffrey Willlans's  Molesworth books, which struck a chord with me at my slightly archaic grammar school. Here are his grips and tortures for masters, which seem to have been studied well by some of mine (particularly the plain blip). ...

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The Tall Tales of Hoffmann

"Hic!" I'm not sure if this Hoffmann's first love was Olympia, the automaton, (or was it Ophelia? She's certainly no automaton.) or if his further loves were Antonia and Giulietta, but there is more than a whiff of the old Hoffmann about this New Oxonian. It's as if some gnu atheist Lindorff has gone off with his Stella,...

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Rhyme or Reason?

Richard Dawkins suggests that Rowan Williams and other sophisticated theologians are being poetic about their beliefs - perhaps that they are metaphorical. I'm pretty sure that Williams thinks, however poetic he gets, that there is an underlying real truth behind what he says. And this is surely true of most senior Anglicans, despite the...

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