Right Reason

The blog of Dr Glenn Andrew Peoples on Theology, Philosophy, and Social Issues

THAT study on same-sex parenting

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With the furore over same-sex marriage gaining steam both in the United States and in New Zealand, where the issue is about to be debated in Parliament, I thought I should say a few things about that recent study that’s got some people upset – The study that said the things that we are all supposed to just know aren’t right and, more importantly, shouldn’t be said, that (stated in very general terms) children do better when they have, in their home life, a man who is their father and a woman who is their mother (as opposed to only one parent or parents of the same sex).

Episode 046: The Non-moral Goodness of God

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What do we mean when we say that God is good? If I’m right, we shouldn’t mean that God is morally good.

In this episode I explain why it’s best not to think of God as morally good, and why it’s also best to maintain a clear distinction between moral and non-moral goodness, and in doing so deflate some objections to divine command ethics.

 

 

When the Christian Brain Ceases to be Relevant

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Apparently it has come to this: If you’re a Christian, then using your grey matter to articulate and defend the Christian faith just isn’t “Relevant.” And who would know better than Relevant magazine, where the number one priority is being, well, relevant?

Has the God particle made God redundant?

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With the discovery of the Higgs boson, a number of wishful thinkers have gotten rather giddy over the supposed religious implications of the finding.

William Cavanaugh lecture series: Challenging the Myths of a Secular Age

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Professor William T. CavanaughComing up in late July / early August 2012 is a series of four free public lectures in Wellington by Professor William T. Cavanaugh. The series is titled Migrations of the Holy: Challenging the Myths of a Secular Age. Dr Cavanaugh is a Senior Research Professor at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago. He is also the 2012 St John’s Visiting Scholar in Religion at Victoria University in Wellington. The lectures are presented in association with Victoria University and St John’s Presbyterian Church.

The public lectures will be:

The Myth of Religious Violence: Does Religion Cause Violence?

Monday, July 30, 6pm, Council Chambers, Hunter Building, Kelburn

 

The Myth of the Free Market: The Unfreedom of the Free Market

Tuesday, July 31, 6pm, Council Chambers, Hunter Building, Kelburn

 

The Myth of Prosperity: The Economy of Fantasy and the Current Global Financial Crisis

Wednesday, August 1, 12pm, RHLT2, Rutherford House, Thorndon

 

The Myth of Consumerism: Christianity and Consumerism

Thursday, August 2, 6pm, Council Chambers, Hunter Building, Kelburn

 

The third lecture is presumably aimed at students or people without jobs (being in the middle of the day at University on Wednesday), but I’ll certainly be at the other three.

Why I don’t reply to everyone (and neither should you)

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This blog post isn’t about why I don’t reply to every email I get. The reason there is really just about being too busy too often. Sorry! This is about responding to what you find on the internet. Bloggers and authors: Should you reply to everyone who criticises you? I think the answer to this is obvious, but here’s what I have to say anyway. While the kind of criticism I have in mind is online, I suppose this advice applies in “real life” as well.

To my fellow believers: On the killing of child abusers

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In what I think is a twisted irony, I’m about to become the bad guy by saying that we are not animals and we should not engage in retaliatory killing.

Book Review: Good God

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David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)

Others have offered their thoughts on this book online (John Hare being an example), and in reading those thoughts I have found a lot of common ground between myself and those reviewers. I take some heart from this, as it reduces the probability that I have unique misunderstandings about what the authors have said. Still, I thought I would offer my thoughts. The larger the number of reviews out there, the better a picture is painted for readers of reviews (and perhaps the authors) of what – if anything – the consensus among friendly reviewers is.

Letting the Bible Interpret Itself?

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What does it mean to say that we should use Scripture to understand Scripture?

A discussion that I was having today reminded me of an issue that you hear about often when discussing biblical interpretation with Evangelicals (among whom I count myself). That issue was the practice of using Scripture to interpret Scripture. It took me back to great textbooks that I was reading in my undergrad years and prior (books like Klein, Blomberg and Hubbard’s Introduction to Biblical Interpretation) and to classes with Bill Osborne and Chris Marshall (“Interpretative Method”). It’s a fairly significant issue if only because of the way that it shapes the way so many people understand the Bible, and the discussion I was part of today has prompted me to write down some of my thoughts on the use – and abuse – of the practice of using Scripture to interpret Scripture.

Reasonable Faith LA

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I’m excited to let you know that on Friday the 29th of June (local time) I will be speaking to the Los Angeles chapter of Reasonable Faith.

The topic will be somewhat philosophical in nature. The title of the talk will be “The non-moral goodness of God,” and in it I’ll be talking about how God’s goodness relates to God’s role in providing the basis of moral truth. If morality is tied up with God’s commands, then couldn’t God just command any horrible thing, and it would be the right thing to do? Can we avoid this sort of objection by saying that God is a morally good agent? Does God have “morally sufficient reasons” for commanding the things that God commands? I’ll be addressing these and other questions.

If you’re in the LA area, please come along! Contact details for the LA chapter of Reasonable Faith are available here at the Reasonable Faith website.

No, I won’t actually be there. This talk will be given via Skype.

See you there (Sort of) – and spread the word!

Glenn Peoples

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