Category: Phil-Osophy
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The Secular Society and Me
The Secular Society And Me I’ve been thinking a lot about the Secular Society this morning. Mostly off the back of the rising insanity that comes from having a Conservative government, which is only to be expected. Thankfully, in the UK, it is only moderate insanity, and we only get things like Erik Pickles trying…
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A Cursory glance at the influence of Babylonian Mythos on Christianity
I have been reading a book on Babylonian and Assyrian Myths and Ledgends, and they have sparked some interesting theological links. I thought that it would be best to make some small posts as I went through the book, so that I didn’t forget the ideas. When Abraham left the city of Ur and struct…
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Origen’s origens of Angels.
I have been reading J. N. D Kelly’s Early Christian Doctrines (Fith Edition), and have come accross a rather interesting piece that comes from the writing of Origen, as he explains the mystical beginnings of the world. Before the ages they were all pure intelligences, whether demons or souls or angels. One of them, the…
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Final Year Essays
I have said for a long while that I would upload my final year essays. Many of them might be of use to some people. They are Christian in basis, but the topics are varied. There are essays that cover scriptural studies of the Antichrist, through to ethical studies of the place of the Bible…
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Protected: Dissertation – Final Draft Update! – 21 May 2011
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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Justified by Faith
The theme Justified by Faith has been very much on my mind recently, with it coming to the fore as I re-read Romans in the context of a Biblical Studies class on the book. Part of the class was to use E.P. Saunder’s approach to Romans to rediscover a more authentic reading of Romans that…
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The Carpathian Conundrum
The BBC has recently launched a new Science Fiction series called Outcasts. It starts 5 years after a colonisation expedition has arrived on a new planet that has been called Carpathia, after the ship that showed up to rescue the survivors of the Titanic. Carpathia only has one major town, called Forthaven. The society is…
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Jesus Christ : the Liminal Man
When reading Bishop Spong’s book, something struck me about an idea he had put forward of the river Jordan. That Jordan River was also thought to offer a door way into the promised land where God was believed to reign as king. [*] The Jordan, then is a liminal place. A Place on the boundaries.…
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Bishop Spong : Removing the image of the Divine Rescuer
In his book, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, Bishop John Shelby Spong outlines many of the problems which he sees in modern-day Christianity. Though I agree with the statement, I’m not sure that I agree with his conclusions. Bishop Spong seems to want to remove the Theistic aspect from Christianity, which while I can…
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Wishing for Answers
Sometimes I wish I had the answers. Sometimes I wish there was a way that I could articulate in a way that was fully rational why I believe there is a God. I look around the internet, and it seems to be polarised between Kantian-descended rationalists, who have finally done away with Kant’s need for…
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Wisdom, where art thou?
Oh Wisdom, where art thou? Where is your promised rest? Upon You, and upon Your word I meditate, I read, mark, learn and inwardly digest, And my questions are answered by silence, As though they are but dust and wind. I take Your light into the world, And bare witness to it, Yet they question…
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Could you be an anonymous Muslim?
During the Christianity and Interfaith Dialogue Module that I’m following as part of my course, we are studying Karl Rahner’s idea of being an “unnamed Christian”. This phrase is more commonly though of as the “Anonymous Christian”. This is the notion that so long as you are worshipping God as best you can in your…
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Exploring my Religion and my Post-Modern World View
In the modern world, belief has become something of a joke. People either think that you are, in some way, in capable of rational thought, or that you are incapable of seeing why it is your belief doesn’t match the modern world. It’s a tough place to be in. The Post-Modernist View of the world…
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Prophetic Voices from Renewed Ancient Traditions
I was at a lecture today at the Baptist College of South Wales in Cardiff, curteusy of my training. The interesting thing that came to light (amongst the learning about the Celtic Tradition (which I’m very interested in), the Anabaptists, and the New Monastic Movement), was this idea that prophetic voices have not been lost…
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Paul Tillich and Intellectual Criticism
I enjoy spending time debating; though you could have worked that out from the numerous posts on the subject on this blog. During one of these debates in an attempt to defend the Religious point of view, I made the standard appeal to experience. It was pointed out to me that the experience is often…