The Romans were in trouble. The small nation, still confined to only a small patch of land in western central Italy, was being threatened by its neighbours. War was looming. Less than a decade before, the Romans had abolished the monarchy and banished their king, vowing never to be ruled by a tyrant again. They instituted a republic. With the new system of governance came many freedoms. But the decision making machine sometimes moved slowly. Now was a time for action. They decided to elect a man called Titus Lartius as dictator. For a limited time, he was given absolute authority over the Romans. By doing this, the Romans had a man who could make quick decisions and take the swift action necessary to steer them through the crisis. War passed without casualty as Lartius worked to strengthen Rome's position, making their enemies less eager to attack. Before his six month term as dictator expired, Lartius stepped down from the position, and life returned to normal in the Republic. Read more …

I have written before about being thoughtful when reading and responding to satire. I also showed that a picture with a silly caption can defame, perpetuate a falsehood, and oversimplify a complex issue, such as the cause of the Dark Ages.

While it is easy to say that one should be thoughtful about such things, knowing how to analyse them is a skill which needs to be developed. I am still in the process of personally developing in this manner. One step is to identify a category within which the satire falls. Often objections or criticisms can fall into broad categories, and once a specific objection can be linked to such a broad category, it is easier to respond to the criticism with insight.

This article will present three examples of responding to antitheist “memes”. Read more …

Introduction

The Euthyphro dilemma is an argument meant to illustrate a difficulty which theism faces. This difficulty is, from where does goodness come? If something is good because God decreed it as such, we are in a precarious situation where God can command something truly horrible as being good, such as murder or genocide. On the other hand, if God knows what is good from a transcendent source and simply relays it to us, then God is not all powerful, but Himself dependant on abstract, transcendent truths.

The Euthyphro dilemma is the bane of Christian apologists. Not because it is an effective refutation of theism, but because it is a tired argument which has already been refuted many times. Yet, still, armchair anti-theists, and even philosophical scholars, believe that the Euthyphro dilemma is a death knell to theism1.

In this article I aim to undertake to refute the Euthyphro dilemma. The refutation is not anything new, but I aim to do it in a way, possibly novel, where the originator of this argument is turned upon himself. Read more …

The world seems to be becoming an angrier place. As tensions flare in the U.S.A., other countries become infected as people internalise what is happening there; a kind of life-and-death struggle for the soul of the Western world.

This is, of course, not so, and whether the U.S.A. goes off in a "good" or a "bad" direction, the course of human history has shown us that nothing is permanent and that whatever the outcome, that too, will eventually change.

But despite what happens across the Atlantic, my intention in this article is to warn the reader not to get caught up in this anger. Read more …

In this article I am going to muse on what I think is happening to concepts such as truth and justice in the world such as ours. I am particularly going to consider that rise of extreme scepticism, and (almost contradictory) the possibility that pop culture can determine truth. Read more …

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Yoda, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Earlier this month, another tragic collage campus shooting occurred in Oregon in the USA. At the time it was widely reported that the shooter singled out Christians to kill, although some have urged caution about interpreting the story.

After the shooting, there were cries of and questions over "Christianophobia" on social media.

This needs to stop. If anyone is murdered in a cold and calculated way, whether because they are Christian, Muslim or homosexual, is not the result of a phobia. Read more …

Like a man suffering from post traumatic stress disorder startled by a loud noise, South Africa was jolted last week. A combination of controlled power cuts and xenophobic attacks reminded the country of 2008—a dark time in our post 1994 history. Again people fell on their keyboards, denouncing the violence of the xenophobic attacks, shaming the perpetrators and pleading for a more humanistic attitude and solution. Again I add my voice to theirs, because I worry about how the bourgeoisie perceive the problem. Read more …

Following the events this past week in Paris, where 17 people died as a result of Muslim extremists attacking the leftist satirical newspaper Chalie Hebdo, I have been thinking quite a bit about how to react to it. I have watched people in the West react with shock and unbelief, I have seen the defiant reaction of cartoonists and journalists worldwide (although apparently not universally), the far right has gained momentum, radical Muslims have praised the actions of the attackers, I have seen moderate Muslims claim they denounce the attack, but lament that they themselves are in fact the real victims, and I have seen stories relating to bombings and massacres in Africa and the Middle East be largely ignored. While most of the West rushed to social media to pledge their support with #JeSuisCharlie ("I am Charlie"; including past and present Archbishops of Canterbury), I have been deeply uncomfortable with this. Read more …