Sunday Sermon: Faith Even Smaller Than Mustard Seeds

As an Anti-theist (technically I'm an Ignostic, but I can scarily imagine a deity - as the term is commonly understood - or religious faith that I would not be strongly opposed to people believing) it is very easy to pick on the Old Testament when dealing with Christianity. Even many Christians deny the Old Testament, choosing instead to claim that "Jesus changed all that". Frankly, as Yhwh is the supreme being in both testaments, I doubt that a Christian could reasonably deny the Old Testament without committing blasphemy.

That said, for this Sunday Sermon, I will set aside my objections to the rejection of the Old Testament, and assume that Jesus really did change many of the Old Testament teachings. Instead I will focus solely on the New Testament. What's more - to sidestep some Christians' objections to the writings of Paul - I will focus solely on the words of Jesus, as reported in the Gospels.

David Hume on "Intelligent Design"

I am currently reading David Hume's (1711-1776) book, "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. In Chapter 11 (pages 135-139) of his book, he makes an argument (put into the mouth of a friend of his) regarding just how much a rational argument could support, regarding the existence and character of a deity. Because the argument sounds very much like a counter to today's "Intelligent Design" crowd who want the creation of the universe by a deity to be taught as a valid scientific theory, I would like to relate the argument for you.

Sunday Sermon: "Just an Animal".

I encountered a fellow recently who - in the course of conversation - routinely said "If man is just an animal... [we would have no reason to be moral... we would be purely driven by instinct... etc etc]." If you've heard a claim that starts with "If man is just an animal..." that claim was probably made in this conversation. He built on this argument by claiming that - since humans are not as he claimed we would be if we were "just an animal" - we must therefore have a god-given, immortal soul that makes us unlike everything else in the universe. I'd like to take a moment to take issue with that claim.

Christopher Hitchens on Miracles

Christopher Hitchens destroys the claims of biblical miracles in less than 3 1/2 minutes.