From the category archives:

Faith

How to Avoid “Political Manipulation in the Name of Religion”?

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What if Karl Marx is right? What if religious faith really does gravitate naturally toward the covers of political zeal, sneaks up under them and turns into an iron hand in a velvet glove? Much like a man can be a loving husband on the weekends but beats his wife on weekdays. What if, more [...]

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Would You Risk Being a Wishful Believer?

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You deserve a lot of sympathy if you ever looked at yourself through Freud’s lens of suspicion. First, he says your poor ego - i.e. the real you - is barely there and definitely needs rescuing. Next he says that, if you hope for a divine rescue, you are a victim of humanity’s oldest, strongest [...]

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What’s Left If You Repent of Your Faith?

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You have to love the hermeneutics of suspicion, because it makes the life of faith quite dangerous. It throws the most provocative idea right in the face of believing persons: Repent of your faith! Yes. Repent of your faith. That should make you feel like you’re standing naked. But naked before what? An empty universe?
The [...]

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Was Passion Ever a Convincing Argument?

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I mean, was passion ever a convincing argument for the way we should think and believe? John Caputo says yes, but I wonder if you think he is right. Come along for a little thinking and give me your honest response.
Philosophy and theology have always been companions in the quest for the answers to life’s [...]

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What to Do When You Wish God Were Tangible?

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We use knowledge to solve problems. If there is a rotten smell in our house, for instance, we start looking for its cause. We think maybe some food is going bad, and when we know where it is, then we can cure the smell. But, if we use our senses to create knowledge, does this [...]

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Why Should Faith Cause Us to Refuse Real Knowledge?

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All of us hunger for knowledge. We are relentless when it comes to figuring out how things are. But why do we then sometimes figure something out and still refuse to adapt it as knowledge? As when we know it is time to leave the house if we want to make our appointment but still [...]

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Is Faith Blind?

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We like to talk about faith as a personal matter. We also like to think all religions are equally valid. These are very good attitudes. But, when we have these attitudes, do we then also say that the things we believe are not really real? Let me explain what I mean.
Personally, I know that if [...]

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Why Argue for God’s Existence?

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If you ever took one of my theology classes, then I know you left class frustrated at least once. Because those classical proofs of God’s existence were too much. Seeing that frustration never failed to make me consider dropping these proofs as required reading.
More seriously, arguing for God’s existence always makes me think about the [...]

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How Do You Know Your Faith Would Survive Global Suffering?

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Faith can be a challenge to handle. Especially when you face unreasonable personal suffering. Because then you feel the impulse not to believe in God. You tell yourself that God would only allow such suffering if he were either not entirely good, or if he lacked power. Therefore you want to stop believing that God [...]

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Do You Believe a New Earth is Coming?

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The Christian scriptures tell us history will come to an end. It is not clear why believing this gets as much bad press as it does. But, maybe it has to do with some alarmist descriptions of the way things are today, and how this must be a sign that we are near the end.
It [...]

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