Monthly Archives: March 2009

Two Views of Faith

Some time ago a commenter here wrote, The core problem is that religion teaches that holding absolute beliefs without evidence (aka faith) is a virtue. Is that what faith is? No, actually not. The other day in a Bible study at church, I noticed a great way to illustrate the difference between this and true …

March 31, 2009 – 3:16 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Evidences, The Faith | Tagged | Comments (13)

“Did Evangelicals Curb the Housing Bubble? – NYTimes.com”

From the New York Times: A new study by Christopher W. Crowe, an economist for the International Monetary Fund, found that during the last two housing booms in the United States, regions with high concentrations of evangelicals saw lower gains in home prices and less volatility than similar regions with fewer evangelical residents. The reason …

March 30, 2009 – 10:06 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Deep Social Change, Ethics | Tagged | Comments (4)

Which Extraordinary Claims?

From Triablogue: Carl Sagan famously said that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. In this he was popularizing a Humean rule of evidence…. Unbelievers invoke this maxim because they think it undercuts the Christian faith…. Let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that this is a sound maxim. The problem with this maxim is that it …

March 30, 2009 – 11:10 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Evidences | Comments (55)

Christianity in China

Christianity in China: Official numbers fall far short of the actual total. Recent surveys calculate the number of Christians worshipping independently of the State churches in China to be as high as 100 million. That means that almost one in every ten Chinese may now be a Christian, making Christianity bigger than the 74 million-member …

March 28, 2009 – 1:05 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in The Faith | Tagged , | Comments (2)

Christian Carnival 269 (CCLXIX): The Lord of the Rings Edition

The current Christian carnival is The Lord of the Rings Edition at BibleArchive.com.

March 26, 2009 – 2:26 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Miscellanea | Comments Off

Tom Clark, Empiricism, and Ethics

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Tom Clark and Naturalism

After a two-month hiatus, it’s my pleasure once again to take up conversation with Tom Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism, who also runs the website Naturalism.org and the Memeing Naturalism blog. Our first three rounds on this were interesting and productive, in my opinion, and apparently also Tom’s. Previously we discussed whether his approach …

March 26, 2009 – 11:11 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Ethics, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)

Mary Midgley’s Moral System: Not The Answer I Was Looking For

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Mary Midgley and Ethics

In my previous posts on Mary Midgley’s view of morality, I noted my appreciation for her unwillingness to accept reductionist explanations (especially for human experience), and her nearly answering a lifelong question of mine: is there really no way to ground a solid sense of morality apart from God? At the end of each post …

March 24, 2009 – 6:00 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Ethics, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , | Comments (37)

“Creationism Feels Right, but That Doesn’t Make it So: Scientific American”

I don’t know why they didn’t title the article, “Gopnik’s Explanation Feels Right, But That Doesn’t Make It So.”

March 23, 2009 – 6:45 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science | Tagged , | Comments (7)