A Thinking Reed

  • (How) does Jesus reveal moral truth?

    It occurred to me after the last post that there might be a subset or version of the first view (God is necessary for us to know the difference between right and wrong) which has a stronger claim than I gave it credit for. That is the idea that moral truth is revealed in the…

  • Do we need God to be good?

    It’s often asserted, or assumed, that God is “necessary” for morality, not infrequently leading to furious argument about the relative virtues of believers and atheists. But there are several senses in which God might be related to morality, so it’s important to distinguish them: God is necessary for us to know the difference between right…

  • OT bleg

    Any readers have recommendations for secondary material on the Book of Daniel? I’m looking for something a bit more specific than a typical commentary: information on the history of its reception and/or interpretation. Any book- or article-length suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

  • “There ain’t no party like my nana’s tea party”

    One more from FOTC:

  • Friday Metal: Textures, “Awake”

    Just discovered these guys this week. Kind of Meshuggah meets Faith No More (if that makes any sense):

  • One more (at least) on pluralism

    Another thought occurred to me about John Hick’s pluralism hypothesis: that it risks introducing a moralistic distortion into religion. Since, for Hick, religion is primarily a practical rather than a cognitive enterprise (because the Real in itself eludes our cognitive abilities), the criteria by which he judges religion are primarily moral ones. Religions are vehicles…

  • Further thoughts on pluralism

    Thinking a bit more about John Hick’s pluralism, spurred on by some of the excellent comments on the last post, it does seem that my original worry about Hick’s position could be stated in a stronger form. My question was whether it’s necessary to believe in a tradition in a non-pluralist way (i.e., to believe…

  • “The day after my birthday is not my birthday, mum.”

    Been watching season 2 of Flight of the Conchords. This one cracks me up:

  • Religious pluralism revisited

    One common criticism of the pluralistic view of religions–and one that I have found persuasive–is that it presupposes a “god’s eye” vantage point that seems to be ruled out by the theory itself. That is, asserting that all religions provide a partial perspective on the divine, seems to imply that the pluralist can discern clearly…

  • Friday Metal: Shadows Fall, “Still I Rise”

    The video’s kind of cheesy, but the song rules, and the album–which just came out this week–is great: