So the pope, feeling somewhat backfooted by all this fuss about a few children being groped or cuddled or raped by priests and bishops, goes on the attack in his friendly pastoral visit to the UK.

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth

There was also the Presbyterian minister who commented (and replied to comments, in an obliging and patient way) on Jerry’s post yesterday. He’s the liberal kind of minister, which is good in its way (less likely to persecute sinners and doubters, that kind of thing), but not convincing. What he said sounded merely evasive and empty to me (and to others). It sounded like what you would say if you were a liberal minister in an age of science; it sounded more like excuses than like theology.

For instance:

There are lots of priests, pastors and theologians in the Catholic Church and in many other denominations who would describe the resurrection as mystery or metaphor. What is essential in

I’m an expert on the hidden god, so I’m interested in what Rabbi Alan Lurie has to say about it.

This notion, that God’s presence is hidden, is a significant dilemma for many, and for some is clear proof that God does not exist…Many site the Holocaust, for example, as clear proof of God’s impotence or indifference.

No not proof; evidence; reasons. The notion that God’s presence is hidden is a reason to think god either doesn’t exist or is a nasty trickster.

The first step, then, is to let go of a literal vision of God, and to begin to know that the search for God is more akin to the search for love and connection than

I saw this article by Chris Mooney yesterday but I couldn’t summon the will to comment on it. I waited for Jerry to do so instead. If I had commented I would have said something brisk about the silly word “spirituality,” but mostly I would have pointed out how heavily Mooney always leans on war-language when he talks about overt atheists, and how invidious that is. He leans especially heavily here.

We hear a lot these days about the “conflict” between science and religion — the atheists and the fundamentalists, it seems, are constantly blasting one another. But what’s rarely noted is that even as science-religion warriors clash by night, in the morning they’ll see the battlefield has shifted beneath

The Freethinker tells us of an unusually idiotic outburst even for the Institute of Ideas (which is a refuge for the old Living Marxism gang, who apparently converted from “Revolutionary Communism” to libertarianism as a group and overnight) and Claire Fox. It’s about how the (wait for it) new atheists are demonizing that nice man the pope and (yes really) engaging in a witch hunt.

A New Atheist witch-hunt – in stark contrast to their own professed views on tolerance.

What professed views on tolerance? I, for one, have said many times that I don’t believe in blanket “tolerance”; it depends what is being tolerated and what the tolerance consists in. I don’t profess to tolerate everything. I don’t think … Read the rest