Sticky Posts: Old Ones Resurrected

“True Islam” and violent extremism – redux

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 14 comments

I am reposting this in response to the terror attacks in France last night, resulting in the deaths of over one hundred people. As ever, the internet is awash with right-wing shouts to “kill all Muslims” and refugees, to the left-wing shouts that it is the Imperial West to blame and not Islam or Muslims. Neither of these positions are correct. It is obviously thoroughly complex, indeed involving international politics. However, to deny the Qu’ran, Muhammad and the Hadith causal responsibility in these atrocities is to deny the self-determination of those very terrorists who claim that they are doing these actions in the name of Islam and their god.

Faith schools cannot continue their immoral policy of discrimination

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • No comments

“How are the mighty fallen!” is a biblical verse that will not only be well-known by the Roman Catholic state school, the London Oratory, but now applies directly to them. The school – famously chosen by both Tony Blair and Nick Clegg for their sons – has just been criticised by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator for breaching the schools admissions code and ordered to change its policy.

William Lane Craig – “Consequentialism is a terrible ethic” – could he be more incoherent?

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 91 comments

Craig has been involved in a series of discussions in Australia with Laurence Krauss regarding philosophy and science. Unfortunately, Krauss is no great philosopher which is what most of this discussion revolved around. However, both Craig and the annoying moderator claimed the “consequentialism is a terrible ethic” and that utilitarianism and consequentialism had been “renounced” by the Abrahamic faiths.

Peppa Pig World, traffic, and the philosophy of free riding

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 2 comments

My twins had their birthday the other day so we went to Paulton’s Park, a local theme park for young children with a section called Peppa Pig World, and my boys love Peppa Pig.

All sounds rather unphilosophical so far. But that was until we pulled off the M27 and hit the short dual carriageway to a roundabout which led to a single carriage road to the park itself. The drive would normally take somewhere in the region of a minute. Or less. Apart from it took us an hour. One whole hour of my life I will never get back.

Texas mega-church learns the hard way that God alone is a useless defence against disease

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • No comments

This report in The Freethinker details the importance of a robust vaccination programme for the health and wellbeing of citizens across the globe. This is science (bitches – ooh, Dawkins, so rude) and this is how it helps progress.

Or, this is backward church anti-vax thinking, and this is how it hinders progress.

It is no surprise that something like this has happened. In fact, I believe we had a measles outbreak earlier this year in the UK (esp. Wales) due to a lack of vaccination in certain demographics.

The Earliest Connection between UFOs and the Star of Bethlehem–A Follow-up

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 4 comments

In my last post about the various ways that the Star of Bethlehem from the Gospel of Matthew had been imagined, I talked about the folks that thought it was some sort of alien craft or UFO. When I wrote it, my best efforts to find the earliest claim to that came from Rev. Barry Downing in 1968. However, Jason Colavito had discovered a slightly older reference. From there, I continued the search.

Secularism For Beginners

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 1 comment

Jesus of Nazareth is attributed with saying many things. “Blessed are the meek” was one. “My kingdom is not of this world” was another. As far as we know, he never said, “This thing’s never gonna fly unless my followers can secure a whole raft of legal, political and economic privileges.”

Interview with Advocatus Atheist, Tristan Vick, on ignosticism and other things

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 8 comments

Tristan Vick is a blogger and author who I have various dealings with online, not least of which is a co-edited book in the final stages of editing which we will release called Beyond An Absence Of Faith, an anthology of deconversion accounts which has been really fascinating to put together. Tristan has just completed a book on the position of ignosticism which is detailed in the interview.

Quotes of the Day by Andy Schueler

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 8 comments

Recently, Zytigon, a skeptic who comments on Debunking Christianity, noticed a comment on a anthropogenic global warming denial blog entry by a Johnathan Pearce, thought it was me, understandably. The spelling, though, is slightly different and this person was not me. I support the scientific consensus on global warming agreed by an overwhelming proportion of scientists in the relevant fields.