Posts Tagged ‘Christianity’

Three Surprising Facts about Atheists

The Pew Research Center recently released a report entitled 10 Facts About Atheism. Many of the facts cited are unsurprising: while on the rise, atheist represent a small percentage of the American population (3.1%), atheists tend to lean liberal and democratic, tend to be younger and male, and are slightly more educated than the general public. Three facts embedded in this report however were quite interesting.

The Argument from Reason to God

Naturalism is the view that there are no supernatural beings. The natural world is causally closed: there is nothing outside the box, nothing transcendent, nothing that impinges on the world from beyond. Thus, the basic level of analysis is physics: all reality, at rock bottom is captured by tiny bits of matter (quarks? strings?) that are properly understood by the discipline of physics. On this picture, a deep puzzle—conflict even—arises: how is it that our world is intelligible, if man is just a product of chance and necessity? Whence reason?

Is Christianity or Islam the Greatest Religion?

Given the amount of evil perpetrated by followers of Islam worldwide, I was quite surprised to read in Stephen Prothero’s introduction to his book God is not One that he thinks Islam, and not Christianity, is the greatest religion in the world. In this post, I’ll explain his reasoning and then share why I think he is wrong.

Is Christianity the Best Possible Story?

I’m currently reading Alvin Plantinga’s excellent book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, & Naturalism, when in offering a possible reason for sin and suffering, Plantinga suggests that Christianity is not only the greatest story ever told, but the greatest possible story ever told.