03.09.09
Posted in Religion and Science, science at 6:27 pm by Lottie
There has long been a heated debate between scientists and Christians as to whether evolution or creationism is the ‘correct’ cause of life as we know it today. But last week the Catholic Church claimed that the theory of evolution and Genesis can coincide and that evolution doesn’t prove the non-existence of God. They said that the Vatican “does not stand in the way of scientific realities”, that there is “no a priori incompatibility between evolution and the message of the Bible.”
They are right in a way to say that there isnt any objective proof that they can’t be compatible, but surely they are very different ideas so as it would be difficult for them to be compatible in the first place? In my opinion evolution seems a more believable theory compared to a transcendent being beyond human understanding creating everything in 7 days. But then, how long was a day in Bible terms? A day may have lasted centuries. We can’t ever be sure if the Bible is meant to be symbolic or literal, as we can’t go back in time.
I can see why religious believers would be against evolution, as in a way it undermines the idea of God being all powerful etc, which undermines the root of their faith. But then again, it could be argued that the power of God is immense to be able to begin the evolutionary process of all life on Earth. But in the end, can we end this battle between these two greatly influential theories?
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02.25.09
Posted in debate, Applied Ethics, news, general, Uncategorized at 12:05 pm by Lottie
In Saudi Arabia women are protesting about the lack of women workers in their lingerie shops. Now, whatever your opinion is of lingerie, the issue here is that the women should be able to have other women sell them such clothing, and in a society where unrelated men and women can’t be in the same room together alone, it seems odd that men would work in such shops.
The women (and men working in the shops) feel very uncomfortable and frustrated about the situation and would like it changed. A student says that the girls don’t feel comfortable with men giving them advice, and that “It’s just not appropriate, especially here in our culture.” Someone else says “It’s really embarrassing. They try to give comments…-it’s really not ethical.” This is an understandable argument, particularly because unmarried men and women can’t have physical contact, and so the women can’t be properly fitted, and can’t even try on anything in the shop because fitting rooms are banned.
There are actually laws to allow women to work in shops which sell women’s items but the law isn’t being enforced everywhere. There may be the worry of increased unemployment for men, and Muslim clerics believe that a woman’s place is at home. But the campaigner for this change- Reem Asaad says that “the concept of women selling women’s underwear to other women is so natural that any other option is just invalid.”
In my opinion allowing women to work in shops selling women’s items is entirely fair and doesn’t really harm the ways of their society. It is better for women to be involved in such an issue instead of men, especially with the strict rules for conduct between men and women in their culture. Is it ethical to you that women should sell other women women’s items, in such a culture, or because of the male dominance etc, should men remain working in the shops?
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02.11.09
Posted in Ayer, Implications, A2 at 9:40 am by Mr Hardwick
We are about to start religious language in preparation for the A J Ayer Implications reading.
Please print off the following work document to support the learning in class. The text book alos has all the information you need. To support your understanding of Ayer you need to focus on the verification and falsification principle. You need to be aware of realist and antirealist forms of language. You need to be able to talk about the correspondance and coherence theory of truth.
Religious langauge
(sorry about the spelling!)
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02.02.09
Posted in debate, general at 6:55 pm by Lottie
There is now a website called PrayAbout.com where you can ask people to pray for you through intercessory prayer. It receives around 20 requests from people per day, and has 100,000 active members.
It is thought that it will help support personal interaction and that it is a good way for people to pray, as it can fit more easily into people’s daily lives and busy lifestyles. They say that it also helps people who don’t want to talk about issues face to face, but can get help online first. Rebecca Phillips from Belief.net also says that the internet is anonymous, which can really help people.
Is this a good thing for religion, that will encourage people to pray more, and to bring religion more into the 21st century? Or is it an attempt to convert more people to their faith? Or is it something that will just be useful to help support people in their time of need?
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01.22.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:29 pm by nc
I was on the BBC website and came across an article on Humanistic slogans (atheist) on buses. There have been 326 complaints to the advertising standards agency but are these (and religious view) really necessary or be advertised like this?
The full article can be read at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7842769.stm
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12.08.08
Posted in general at 2:55 pm by Martin
Yaaaaaaay 
Its nearly that time of the year again. Don’t worry there is a reason for the outburst of excitement. Well in previous years Christmas has had the label of loosing all real meaning, just becoming one big media love fest (lots of money for them). But what with the credit crunch and all (you know everyone’s bankrupt, and having to cut back; especially if your Woolies), does anybody reckon things may be different this year; people are going to be spending less and as Santa can only afford to power 6 reindeer and give gifts to the really good kids (sorry bit off track there). Well there you have it, will people take joy in what really matters i.e. being around the people you love etc. (not that we don’t already) or will things still be pretty much the same as always (not that I’m complaining of course, after all who doesn’t enjoy a few of pressies)
Well, hope you all enjoy a babble on this one.
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12.01.08
Posted in general, Uncategorized at 1:04 pm by Rachel
This is not really linked to anything that’s been happening recently, it’s more pondering than anything else. Weird it may be but I was wondering about people’s views about reincarnation. Whilst I doubt there will be a huge number of people here about to say they believe in it I may yet be surprised.
Firstly, reincarnation without God. Plausible? I have this problem with the idea of death that what do you experience? I mean obviously, your dead, so you shouldn’t experience anything. But my idea of nothingness is blackness, but there wouldn’t even be that. Just an incomprehensible nothing. So what happens to the thinking part? Surely something must. It’s just incredibly confusing.
Next, reincarnation with God, not necessarily the God of Classical Theism, just a God of some form. Possible? More likely maybe. That would explain the process of the thinking part, or soul if you will, changing from one person/body to another. Yet if you don’t believe in God this would cause problems.
If you do not believe in either which is more plausible to you? Preferably with reasoning. I myself am unsure and undecided as I always am.
Anyway. There are my ramblings. I would be interested in yours.
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11.28.08
Posted in theism, news at 3:40 pm by Flic
“Most people think of the Bible as a densely printed book with no pictures, but a version of the scripture that resembles a glossy coffee table magazine aims to change that. It’s part of a wave of radical presentations of the Bible, including a manga version and a Lego gospel. But how do Christians feel about these attempts to spread the word?”
- Taken from the BBC news website
The full article can be found here
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11.24.08
Posted in Ethics, A2 at 11:30 am by Lottie
As we are starting to look at meta-ethics in class I thought to have a little look at what it is.
Essentially it is concerned with ethical properties and ethical statements etc, and to find the meaning behind them, for example ‘what is good’? Branches of meta-ethics include subjectivism, emotivism and relativism. Such theoretical meta-ethical theories are deontology, virtue theory and consequentialism.
While we are on the subject, what do we think good is? Is it a sort of intuition? Is it acquired through our actions, or by practice, or from being taught it by our parents and society? ‘Good’ is a word that is used very often, but have we ever took the time to actually think about what is it? I suppose that the word ‘good’ is used to represent things as well; such as a good or evil person. Or is good down to a matter of opinion? Is it down to the individual subject or the community?
Good and evil are certainly things to ponder, and I think that we should do it more often when thinking about ethics and ethical theories, and how we live our lives. It is important I think to know what you think good is, and whether you want to be a good person, and how to achieve that. Everyone probably has their own slightly different idea of what a good person has- characteristics or their actions etc.
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11.10.08
Posted in debate, news, Ethics, general at 11:34 am by Lottie
A recent article in”The Times” said that secondary school teachers are going to have training to help them to teach students about the Holocaust “comprehensively and sensitively”.
Stuart Foster, director of the project, said: “There are increasing concerns in society about intolerance and racism. The BNP is coming to the forefront, and there’s increased anti-Semitism.”
It is supposed to make people aware of what the Nazis did to the Jews, and perhaps this will help people see what racism etc can lead to, and the horrific events that really should never have happened. This may help reduce racism, and the training aims to help teachers feel more comfortable teaching such a sensitive subject. But to me there may be a risk of putting people into good and bad categories, when it was more complex.
Do you think it is a good thing that teachers are getting help to teach it? Do you think that it will help combat racism?
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Posted in debate, news at 11:21 am by Lottie
Quite a few people were interested in the recent US election. It has been all over the news, and an important topic of conversation. Personally I am not too interested in politics, but I was very pleased to hear that Obama has won the election. I am likely to sound racist myself, but I think that it will be a great change for America to have a black man as the most important figure. It has been too long in coming, and it will hopefully change some people’s attitudes, so that there will be less racism. Of course, he needs to do a good job really before any sort of changes can probably happen. A leader needs to be a good leader.
What do you think? Is a good thing that a black man instead of a white man is going to be President?
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10.23.08
Posted in atheism, A2 at 3:38 pm by Mr Hardwick
One of the best blogs supporting atheism is professional philosopher Stephen Law:
It seems to me that by observing the world around us, we can answer the question of whether God exists. In fact, think it’s pretty obvious there’s no God.
That last claim may surprise even some atheists. How could it be pretty obvious there’s no God? Surely this is a tortuously difficult and complex question over which the greatest minds have pondered for millennia, without ever reaching any real consensus. How, then, can the answer be pretty obvious?
Well, I think the (evidential) problem of evil, combined with an absence of any half decent argument for the all-powerful, maximally good God of traditional monotheism, shows beyond reasonable doubt there’s no such being. We really need to do little more than look out the window to see there’s no such God.
Taken from:
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2008/09/could-it-be-pretty-obvious-theres-no.html
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Posted in atheism, philosophy, A2 at 1:33 pm by Mr Hardwick
One of the main critiques given by the so-called New Atheists is not so much their argumentation, but rather their dismissive tone toward theistic arguments. A debate took place recently between atheist, or rather anti-theist, ‘God is NOT Great’ author Christopher Hitchens (incidently this book is available in the school library) and his believing brother and Daily Mail columist Peter. The discussion moved to the existence of God. Christopher rose from his chair to the podium and announced the notion of God as absurd declaring this ”easily shown”. 5000 years of careful philosophical and theological analysis from some of the most major intellectual thinkers over the period of written human history thrown into the fire of nonsense.
This form of rhetoric has been effective. Arguments invoking God are often met with derision or faint embarassment. In an interview with Tony Blair his publicist Alistair Campbell famously interjected to a question on the premiers faith - “We don’t do God”. Why? Because the very notion of God according to our secular inclination, is intellectually ludicious.
But is this really the case? Have theists become intellectually spent and run out of steam? Has the case for God died after 200 years of attack from the philosophers of the Enlightenment?
Well not according to naturalist philosopher Quentin Smith who laments the seriousness with which God is taken in academic Philosophy in the last 40 years.
He acknowledges that ‘by the second half of the twentieth century, universities and colleges had been become in the main secularized’
however,
’secularization of mainstream academia began to quickly unravel upon the publication of Plantinga’s influential book on realist theism, God and Other Minds… In philosophy, it became, almost overnight, “academically respectable” to argue for theism, making philosophy a favored field of entry for the most intelligent and talented theists entering academia today’
He summerises OUP (Oxford University Press) in 2000-1 published a massive 96 books on the philosophy of religion 94 advancing theism and 2 presenting “both sides”. By contrast, only ‘28 books in this catalogue on the philosophy of language, 23 on epistemology (including religious epistemology, such as Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief), 14 on metaphysics, 61 books on the philosophy of mind, and 51 books on the philosophy of science.
Could one argue this is evidence of an explosion in theist intellectual thought and one which atheists only respond to with empty rhetoric?
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Posted in atheism at 1:27 pm by Mr Hardwick
21% of American Atheists believe in God!
Increases in atheism may be less threatening to religious belief than previously assumed. One of the more arresting findings of a major new survey is that 21 per cent of US atheists believe in God, with eight per cent saying they are ‘absolutely certain’
http://www.thirdwaymagazine.com/359
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Posted in atheism, news at 10:28 am by Flic
From January, buses will be travelling around London with the slogan
“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
In an effort to make people think and counteract the religious slogans often seen on transport, the British Humanist Association, along with Richard Dawkins, set themselves a target of raising £5,500 (which would be matched by Dawkins) to carry out this project . Perhaps surprisingly though, a massive £36,000 has been raised. This means that they have the funds to put these slogans inside the buses, as well as on the outside.
Dawkins defends this project stating that “Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride - automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children. Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side. This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion.”
Is this just a way for atheists to fight back, or is this bordering on atheist fundamentalism? Should people be able to challenge people’s beliefs this publicly and overtly?
The full article can be found here
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