Woody Allen and the Secret to Lasting Joy

The great 19th century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard spoke of three stages that one passes through on the way to spiritual maturity: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. During the aesthetic stage, a person is preoccupied with sensual pleasure, with the satisfaction of bodily desire. Food, drink, sex, comfort, and artistic beauty are the dominating concerns of this stage of life. The ordinary fellow drinking beer at the baseball game and the effete aristocrat sipping wine in... Read More

Do Atheists Really Have Higher IQs than Believers?

Some atheists maintain their non-belief comes through superior intelligence. In particular, many online atheists like to quote, “A fool says in his heart there is a God.” He reads only those sources which confirm and conform to his view and eschews those which do not. And he isn’t shy about telling you how dumb it is not to believe as he does. But consider: nearly all the greatest, best, highest, most beautiful minds that ever existed were theists. Aristotle? Augustine? Confucius?... Read More

What’s the Difference Between Fact and Opinion?

NOTE: Dr. Feser's contributions at Strange Notions were originally posted on his own blog, and therefore lose some of their context when reprinted here. Dr. Feser explains why that matters.     A reader wrote me to ask:   "Please could you elucidate the distinction between a fact and an opinion? I am a secondary school English teacher and there is a lot of rubbish written on this part of the curriculum that would lead to such absurdities as, for example, the atomic weight... Read More

Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow’s Inadvertent Proof for God

There's an old saying about giving a man enough rope, and he'll hang himself. The idea is that if someone is wrong or lying, the longer they go on, the more obvious this becomes.  Well, Bantam Books gave Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow all the rope they wanted, and the result is The Grand Design, a new book in which they argue against the necessity (and existence) of God.  Here's the core of their argument:   “[Just] as Darwin and Wallace explained how the apparently miraculous... Read More

Did Jesus Exist? An Alternate Approach

Did Jesus exist? Discussions of this subject often begin by looking at references to Jesus in early Christian sources. Either that or they look for references to Jesus in early non-Christian sources. But there’s another way of looking at the question that is often ignored . . .   The Standard Approach Jesus is obviously mentioned in early Christian sources, such as the gospels, the other writings of the New Testament, and the works of the early Church fathers. Because these are Christian... Read More

A-Rod and Augustine: Steroids and the Invasion of God

I’ve been a baseball fan since I was six years old, when my father took my brother and me to a Detroit Tigers game in the summer of 1966. I’ll never forget the beauty of the intensely, almost garishly, green field and the crisp white uniforms of the home-team players under the bright lights that night. I started with tee-ball when I was seven and moved through many years of little-league and Babe-Ruth league, becoming in time a pretty good hitter and shortstop. When I was nine, in... Read More

Exploding the Mithras Myth

In an effort to cast doubt on Christianity, skeptics will attempt to point out parallels between the beliefs and practices of Christians to those of the Roman cult of Mithras. In this article we will examine the most commonly encountered parallels and answer their claims. Lists of parallels can be found in skeptic literature or by searching the Internet and they usually appear as follows: Mithras preceded Christianity by roughly 600 years. Mithras was born on December 25. He was considered... Read More

Nightclub Fires and the Problem of Evil

In the recent aftermath of the horrific Kiss nightclub fire in Brazil that claimed 235 young lives, people continue to ask what they always ask after a disaster: “Where was God?” On Sunday, January 27, the nightclub erupted into an inferno after the club’s band set off fireworks that ignited flammable material. The club’s poor design and the even'ts overcrowding were the main factors in the high death toll. Video footage of a similar nightclub fire in Rhode Island (be warned,... Read More

Cows, Quarks, and Divine Simplicity

Recently, Cardinal George Pell publicly debated atheist Richard Dawkins on the subject of God’s existence. When Mr. Dawkins was asked about the cause of the universe, and how something could come from nothing, he replied that while his own theory cannot sufficiently answer this question, any answer would be better than something as complex as God. “'Nothing' is very, very, simple,” Dawkins says, “but God as a creative cause is very complex.” Dawkins’ point is that an immaterial... Read More

Should the Bible Be Taught in Public Schools?

Recently, there has been a bit of discussion about the possibility of teaching “Introduction to the Bible” courses to a generation of students illiterate about the most foundational document in Western Civilization. Not surprisingly, discussion has tended to polarize into two groups: those who insist on the “wall of separation” between Church and State, and those who insist on getting “back to the Bible” if we hope to save what little remains of civilization in a schoolyard... Read More

« Previous Page — Next Page »