The end of the year is almost upon us, and here are my favourite blog posts for 2011. I could just list the ones that have the greatest number of actual hits (traffic wise), but that wouldn’t tell us much because some posts have been accumulating hits since January and some just started in December. So, you’re left with my favourites instead. I haven’t included any podcast episodes, and I’ve chosen no more than one from each month.

January: Deal Breakers and Christian Essentials – Although I identify as a relatively conservative Evangelical Christian, I cop a bit of flack from those who think that whatever they happen to believe counts as the boundary markers for evangelicalism, and anyone who falls outside of that is either suspect or already in the garbage chute to hell. Here I offered some reflections on the kinds of things that I think should really “make the difference” when considering another person’s point of view and whatever it’s acceptable from a Christian perspective.

February: When God attacks: Trying to make sense of God in natural disasters – Written shortly after the Earthquake that devastated Christchurch, here I offer some of my thoughts on reconciling the God revealed in Christ with the suffering we see in tragedies like this one.

March: Yeah, OK, so March was pretty average.

April: It was really hard to pick just one in April, there were a few that I like here. Maybe you should just check out the whole month. But if I’m going to pick one, I’ll pick a fairly geeky one: Does John 1:3 rule out uncreated abstract objects? – Here I offer my thoughts on William lane Craig’s claim that the idea of uncreated abstract objects is at odds with the view that God is the creator of “all things,” and that it is specifically at odds with John 1:3, contrary to the view of Peter Van Inwagen. While it’s not a hill I would die on, I side with Van Inwagen and claim that actually John 1:3 is compatible with the existence of uncreated abstract objects.

May: Richard Carrier on the Resurrection part 1 – Compiling this list has reminded me that at some point I should complete part 2 of this series! This post was the first of several that will dissect the arguments of Richard Carrier on why the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection that we know of was not the original view of the early church, and that it represents a mutated view that crept in very early in the history of the Christian faith. Like most readers, I think his arguments are considerably less than compelling.

June: An open letter to my traditionalist friends – This one is an open letter to the many evangelicals who feel that they must perpetuate the crucially important doctrine of the everlasting torments of hell, and who find themselves called to combat the rising tide of annihilationism (the view I hold). Here I offer a public explanation of why, quite frankly, they are failing and ought to fail.

July: Jesus: The Cold Case – This was a collection of my thoughts on the TV documentary in New Zealand, Jesus: The Cold Case, where, in essence, a tiny selection of theologians and New Testament scholars with views that fall well outside mainstream biblical scholarship were called on to offer the authoritative view that most of hat the Gospels say about the death of Christ is creative anti-Semitic falsehood.

August: Christian employers and the hiring process – I wrote this post at the risk of arousing animosity towards myself in the community of Christian colleges, but I thought – and still think – that this needed to be said. Christian institutions that care about excellence need to purge themselves of the nepotism that many of them are familiar with.

September: Not sure really…

October: Divine Command Ethics: Ontology versus epistemology – Here I attempt to explain a very common confusion when people criticise the idea that morality might depend on God.

November: Brief thoughts about God’s freedom to command - Sometimes (!!) I can admit when I’m wrong. Here I explain how I improved (in my view) my view on the relationship between God’s nature and divine commands.

December: The conditional premise of the moral argument – Here I say a thing or two in defence of the claim that if God did not exist, then moral facts wouldn’t exist either.

Remember folks, the blog has been here since May 2006, so there are plenty of old blog posts to browse through in the Archive over on the right.

The next podcast episode will be out during this week so you still have that to look forward to in 2011, but otherwise, I hope you’ve enjoyed another year of Say Hello to my Little Friend!

Best wishes to all

Glenn Peoples

The offices of Beretta and Say Hello to my Little Friend are about to undergo relocation. All office staff and volunteers will be off for the next week or so, our sound engineers will be taking a break, all equipment is being moved and the entire organisation is getting a change of scenery.

Yeah, I’m moving house, so the blog will be pretty quiet while we pack and stuff.

There’s a shiny new button to press over on the right.

It’s a link to the new store, Say Hello to my Little Store, run by yours truly. You can buy philosophy and theology related T-shirts and other stuff (the inventory is increasing), as well as material promoting this blog and podcast.

Now you won’t ever have to wonder what to buy for Christmas presents again!

EDIT: If you’d like to request an item with a specific theme, suggestions are welcome.

For those of you who don’t know, Say Hello to my Little Friend is an affiliate of the world’s best online bookstore, The Book Depository. In addition to having some unbeatable prices, they offer free postage worldwide on all purchases. Beat that!

Click this button over on the right:

Then when you visit The Book Depository, any purchases you make there in the next fifteen minutes will cent a few cents in my direction – for no extra cost. Alternatively, any time you’re at The Book Depository and you’re about to buy something, add the following to the end of the URL at the site: /?a_aid=shtmlf (only add the / if there’s not already a / at the end of the URL).

It couldn’t be simpler, and although what they pass on to me is pretty meagre (e.g. $0.75 for a purchase price of $15.00), every little penny helps. Spread the word!

A Godless Public Square: Do “private” religious beliefs have a place in public life?

On Wednesday the 3rd of August 2011 I’ll be taking part in a panel discussion on religion in the public square, tackling the issue from the standpoint of theology, philosophy and law. Joining me will be my good friends Matthew Flannagan (theology) and Madeleine Flannagan (law).

The kind of questions that we’ll be exploring will include:

- Is it ever right for Christians to impose their ‘private’ religious beliefs onto others?
- Is it really religiously neutral to insist the public realm be secular?
- How does the idea that religion should be private mesh with freedom of religion and expression laws?

The evening will be held at the University of Auckland. It’s free to the public, and although all three speakers will be bringing their own areas of expertise to bear on the issues, this is not an academic lecture, and it will be aimed at a broad audience. For more details (including the precise location on campus), check out the Facebook page for this event, which  is HERE (at the time of writing, this page was still private, but will be public soon).

If you’ll be in the Auckland area on the 3rd of August, mark this event on your calendar. I hope to meet you there, and spread the word!

Glenn Peoples

As of yesterday, I have a mission statement.

A reader contacted me and commented that he wasn’t able to find one at the website. Well, that’s because there wasn’t one. From time to time I offer a vague comment about just what it is I’m trying to do via this blog, but there was really nowhere where I state it succinctly in an easy to find place. And now there is (see the About / Mission link above, or the button over on the right). This is what I want to do with this blog and podcast:

Mission Statement

Say Hello to my Little Friend exists to serve several ends:

Firstly, to provoke readers and listeners to critically engage philosophy, theology and biblical studies as they relate to academia, culture, history and the most important questions in life.

Secondly, to demonstrate – and to encourage others to demonstrate themselves – that a perspective of Christian belief is not only compatible with the above, but absolutely conducive to it as an intellectually defensible worldview that has much to commend itself to the honest and fair minded critic.

Thirdly, to challenge fellow Christians to be genuinely self critical in their acceptance of theological or philosophical traditions, and to be willing to scrutinise those traditions with a mind to being faithful to truth, to Scripture and ultimately to God.

These ends are met in a variety of ways – through blog entries, discussions in blog comments, direct discussion with readers, through the podcast, publication of articles as prompted by issues that arise here, speaking engagements and face to face with readers and listeners at events.

So now you know! Thanks for the email, Roy.

If the blog looks quiet, there are certainly works in progress. While some blogs have new a ton of new posts day after day in an incessant, hurried effort, with virtually no mental checkpoint at all between “the first thing that comes to mind and sounds awesome and devastating in my internal monologue because I haven’t paused to examine it for weaknesses” and “the final version that appears on my amazing blog Debunking Christianity” (not looking at anyone in particular!), posting good material actually requires a decent amount of preparation time, which just doesn’t allow the constant barrage of posts. But rest assured, I haven’t forgotten you, and I’m working every day on new material, getting it finished and into shape to be posted only when it’s ready. I hope you appreciate the difference!

So what am I working on? What is this stuff you’re waiting for?

Firstly, there are two podcast episodes in the works. One of them addresses the question, “what is faith”? It’s not about theology but epistemology. When we talk about faith and reason, what is the “faith” have of that couplet? What do Christian theists have when they have faith in God? Is it a kind of will to believe without the need for reasons or evidence? Or is it something else? The second podcast I’m working on is actually another instalment in the popular series In Search of the Soul, where I look at the mind-body problem. When I finished the series previously, I was aware of having omitted any coverage of the view of Aristotle (and of Thomas Aquinas, the Western medieval champion of Aristotelianism). So that’s what I’ll be looking at in that episode.

There are also a few blog entries in the making as well. I’ve already posted part one of a three part series on Richard Carrier’s arguments against the resurrection of Jesus. There I looked at Carrier’s extended comparison of the Rubicon crossing of Julius Caesar and the resurrection of Jesus. I’m working on parts two and three of that series. In part two I will be looking at his claims about the general insufficiency of the resurrection as a argument for Christianity, and also his rather extraordinary claim that Jesus’ survival of his resurrection and his escape from the sealed tomb and defeat of the Roman guards would be a more likely explanation for early Christian belief than his actual resurrection. Then in part three – in my view easily the most important of the three, I’ll be looking at Carrier’s most significant claim, to which he devotes by far the most time as it carries most of his case: His claim that the early Christians did not believe in the physical resurrection of the dead body of Jesus at all, but that they actually believed that while the former body remained dead in the tomb, Jesus left his body and entered a new, spiritual body – and that this is what they believed about the future resurrection of the dead as well.

I’m also chipping away at a post offering a historical perspective on the Classical Liberal political tradition and welfare, looking primarily at John Locke and his theory of property rights, which included his theory of the right of those in need to the support of others. I’ll also be contrasting that view with that of utilitarian John Stuart Mill.

There are a couple of other posts I’ve started, but I’m not sure that they’ll make the final cut, just due to my uncertainty over how much they really interest me: A post explaining the position known as sola scriptura, primarily for the sake of providing a fair explanation of that point of view for some of my Roman Catholic friends who seem to misunderstand that position considerably. The other post I’ve started is one discussing some comments by Thom Stark on whether or not some of the conquest accounts in the Old Testament might be hyperbolic, and whether or not we can tell this is the case (at least in part) by comparing contrasting accounts in those histories.

As is always the case, short term interests will pop up that suddenly occupy my attention and that I’ll write on (as in the last two posts on final punishment), but those are the pieces that I’m currently working on. Suggestions are always welcome!

Glenn Peoples

Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Brain Auten of Apologetics 315. The main theme of the discussion was the relationship between God (or a lack thereof) and ethics.

Check it out over at Apologetics 315.

Today’s interview is with Dr. Glenn Peoples. Glenn is a New Zealand based Christian philosopher, podcaster, and blogger. He runs the Beretta blog and hosts the Say Hello to My Little Friend podcast. In this interview, Glenn explores moral terminology, objective morality, the difference between ontology and epistemology, the moral argument, the Craig/Harris debate, advice for apologists, and more.

Hi folks, I thought that with such an educated and knowledgeable readership this would be a good place to ask this question:

What other podcasts on theology / philosophy of religion / philosophy do you know of that are based in the southern hemisphere?

I’m trying to put together a list, but to be honest I don’t listen to very many podcasts. If you know of any, drop me a line or post a comment on this blog.

Thanks!

Well, the podcast has roared back into life with the episode on Divine Command Ethics. Although time is a pretty scarce resource, as I mentioned in episode 39 there are a couple more episodes in the making already. Episode 40 will be in the area of epistemology and philosophy of religion, looking at the question of what faith is (when that word is used in the couplet of “faith and reason”). The episode after that, episode 41, will step away from philosophy and into the world of historic and systematic theology, looking at the doctrine of the descent into hell as mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed.

I’m working on several articles for publication as time allows as well. The first is a fairly popular level exposition of the place of religious convictions in politics and law, aimed at a New Zealand audience. Another is a piece on whether or not a thoroughly secular (in the sense of godless) outlook can give a plausible account of the type of doctrine of equality required by the liberal democracy. The other two pieces are actually being prepared as papers to be delivered at conferences, but after they have been delivered and hopefully subjected to critical feedback I plan to submit them for publication. The first of these is called “The Non-moral Goodness of God” and will be presented at the APRA conference at the University of Auckland this coming July. It’ll be interesting to see how the talk is received by Eric Weilenberg, as it offers some criticism of his comments in his work Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe. The second piece is “The Epistemological Objection to Divine Command Ethics” which responds to the concern that if Divine Command Ethics is true, then people who don’t believe in God have no hope of acquiring moral knowledge – a concern that is most recently raised by Wes Morriston, and which I argue is mistaken. I’ve submitted this paper for presentation at the annual conference of the Evangelical Philosophical Society in San Francisco this November, and I’m hopeful that it will be accepted. If all these projects succeed that’ll be four decent academic achievements this year, which might not be a lot for a full time academic, but for someone in my position it’s not too shabby!

What follows is a bit of somewhat more personal information for those who are interested.

Interested? Read the rest.