There are just four more sleeps until I fly out for the UK to take part in the annual conference of the European Society for the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Oxford. I’m excited!

Adding to the excitement, another appointment has come up. Some of you may be familiar with the Unbelievable? radio show, which is also a very popular London-based podcast, hosted by Justin Brierly. The show features on Premiere Radio. I’ve been talking with Justin and he’s keen to get me into the studio to record not one but two shows with me. The first show will be on Christian physicialism: Those who (like me) profess a fairly conservative Christian faith, and yet reject dualistic portraits of human nature. As is the norm on the show, there will be another guest on the show who holds an alternative view. AT the moment Justin is looking at getting Kieth Ward onto the show, who’s a keen defender of Christian dualism.

The second show – only a possibility at this stage, but we’re both keen to see it happen – will be related to the moral argument, and will look at the question of whether or not moral facts could exist if God did not exist. Justin’s looking for another guest to join us on the show at the moment, but the names of Stephen law and Julian Baggini have been suggested as possibilities – but we’ll see what works out!

This will be fun. I’ve never done a radio show before, and Unbelievable? has a large listening audience. Come to think of it, if you don’t subscribe to the Podcast via the iTunes store already, I highly recommend it.

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Hey everyone, my host has gotten a new, bigger and more powerful server. This site is about to be moved over to the new server. Anything you post int he next 24 hours may be lost, so it’s probably best to wait a day before posting anything.

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Public Lecture: The New Atheism, Science and Morality

As you know (and a number of you have very kindly supported me in the endeavour), shortly I’ll be flying off to Oxford for a conference at which I’ll be speaking (more on that another time). When I get back I have a couple of speaking engagements lined up in Auckland before returning home to Dunedin. Here’s one of them.

The New Atheists, that outspoken motley crew full of passion and godlessness (a description I rather suspect they’d appreciate and endorse), have little time for the view that the existence of moral truths is correctly explained with reference to God as the moral lawgiver. That view, says Sam Harris, is downright dangerous in our day and age. Instead, we should think of moral facts as being scientific facts, facts revealed to us by neuroscience as it describes the human brain and its ability to produce the experience of either happiness or suffering. With this argument in hand, many might think that the New Atheists have latched on to a way of preserving genuine moral truths in a world without God.

But have they? In this public lecture I’ll explain how Dr Harris presents his view, and I will also explain the fundamental moral issues that his account overlooks altogether. Far from being an explanation of morality that makes God redundant, what the New Atheists really have in Harris’s account is a model of morality that lacks foundations unless God is re-introduced as the lawgiver who decides which states of affairs we ought to be trying to bring about in the first place.

Date: Monday the 6th of September 2010, 7pm

Place: University of Auckland, Library Basement 15

EDIT: HERE is the Facebook page for this event.

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OK, we’re up and running again. For those of you who are just glad that the site is up again, there’s no need to read what follows. For those who are curious as to what went wrong, here’s an explanation of why the website, blog and podcast have been unavailable for so long recently.

First, some of you might not have websites and so you might not be aware of some of the terminology, so I’ll start out by explaining two terms. Firstly, a web host is someone who provides a server (i.e. a hard drive out there that provides disc space) where the documents, pictures etc on a website are located. This is a physical location and it has an IP address, which is a series of numbers that identifies that location. Secondly, a domain name host (often just called a domain host) is a provider of domain name services. You order your domain name from them (or you can transfer your domain name to them) and then at their website you log in and edit the settings for your domain name. Most importantly, you enter the IP address of your web host, so that your domain name points to your web host. That way, when somebody types your domain name into their web browser, it directs them to your web host so they can view the pages that make up your website. A number of web hosting providers also provide domain name servers, enabling you to get both services from the same company and avoid having to deal with more than one company.

OK, now here’s what happened.
Read the rest of the entry »

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Hi all!

Some time ago now I announced that I would be speaking at a conference at the University of Oxford in late August if I could raise the funds. That announcement is HERE.

As you can see via the thermometer over on the right hand side, we’re getting there. A big chunk of the funds that have come in have been generous donations from readers of this blog. Thank you so much. Without this support, this speaking event just could not happen. The time has come where I really need to get the plane ticket before prices get a lot higher. However, a part of what is showing as received in that thermometer (just over $1000 of it, in fact) has been promised but not received yet. It’s a portion that I will receive by reimbursement some time after I’ve spent the money. This means that while I’m getting there, I’m not quite there yet.

So, if you’ve been aware of this speaking engagement but been undecided on whether or not you wanted to offer any support, now would be a fantastic time! I hope to be able to get the tickets within the next week. While the actual cost of the ticket isn’t set in stone yet (I’m having a quote put together now), it will be somewhere between $3250 and $3600. As this needs to happen whether I get any further support or not, I’ll do what it takes to get the ticket as soon as the quote is complete (i.e. I’ll use temporary credit, just because this is worth it). If this were World War I (which, let’s face it, it’s not), now is the time to go over the top. One last push and we’ll be there.

For those who have shown generosity to me in this endeavour, again, thank you so much. Your support means a lot.

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Matthew Flannagan and Raymond Bradley are to publicly debate the question: “Is God the Source of Morality?”

Venue: University of Auckland, in “The Centennial” 260 – 098 OGGB (the bottom level of the Business School) on 12 Grafton Rd, Auckland City.

Date/time: Monday 2 August from 7-9pm

The subject of the debate will be whether or not we can sensibly regard God as the source of moral truth. Raymond Bradley certainly doesn’t think so, and in the past I’ve comment on his arguments in that the Christian view of ethics results in a hopeless contradiction. As I said at the time, I think his objections were fundamentally flawed, so I’ll be interested to see what shape his argument takes in this exchange.

For those who can’t be at the debate, the footage will find its way online for all to see.

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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For almost the last 24 hours, my site has been inaccessible.

I apologise for this. The fault was caused by the dishonest, misleading, underhanded, unfair, greedy and arguably illegal actions of my domain name service provider, Clever Internet. I will not bore you with the details, but I have been busy for most of my waking time since the problem began, trying to get it resolved. Given how incredibly easy these comments are to substantiate as true, I run absolutely no risk publishing them here.

We now return you to our scheduled broadcast.

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From the 17th to the 23rd of November 2010 the annual conference of the Evangelical Philosophical Society will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, in the USA. This year my good friend and fellow blogger Matt Flannagan will be attending and speaking on “God and the Genocide of the Canaanites.” Here’s the blurb on his talk from the EPS website:

How could a just and loving God command Joshua to genocide the Canaanites as is apparently taught in the Old Testament? Is God really a moral monster as Christianity’s critics use these passages to claim? Matthew will re-examine these passages in light of the context they were written in showing that the skeptics’ case against God relies on a questionable reading of the Old Testament.

It’ll be a great opportunity for Matt, who, in addition to presenting the above paper will also be taking part in a panel discussion on “navigating Old Testament ethics.”

Matt is in a very similar position that I’m in with my trip to Oxford (see my link on the right hand side of the page). Most people who attend academic conferences are affiliated in some way with a university department, and as a result they have access to funding via that department. Not so for those who are yet to land that elusive first position. Do head on over to M and M and read about the trip. I often hear Christians in New Zealand tell me how great it would be to have Christian scholars at the top of their field working from New Zealand. Well, this is an opportunity to help get people into those positions. I know that any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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…. OK, not really famous in general, but at least known by the right people. I’ve been up to a few things lately, which is why the blog has been fairly quiet. One of the things I’ve been doing is working on a promo CD. Basically, it’s a CD that I will be sending out to organisations that I’d like to know that I’m here, and with whom I’d like to work, whether as a potential future employee or maybe a guest speaker. I’m being my own publicity agent in other words. The CD is basically a miniature website that autoplays when the disc is inserted into the CD ROM. It includes selected podcast episodes and public talks, articles, my CV, and some endorsements (and if you’re in a position to do so and you’d be willing to write a brief endorsement of either me or the podcast, please let me know ASAP). On the front page of the “site on a disc” is an introductory blurb, links to the other sections of the disc, and also this: a short promo clip.

Yes, it’s intentionally very simple and only provides a tiny snippet of information. It doesn’t go into any depth at all, and one reason for that is that the disc isn’t primarily designed to be sent in with applications for university lecturing jobs – those jobs have fairly rigid guidlines concerning what to send in, and promo CDs is not one of those things. The promo video clip is simple and broad because it’s meant to be just a very general overview of which subject areas I specialise in for organisations that aren’t university departments. The more in depth information is included on the other material on the disc. This is just a kind of personal greeting on the front page. Anyway, here it is

EDIT: I have become aware that this clip might not play in Internet Explorer. The code used to embed the clip is fine. The solution is to stop using Internet Explorer and use another browser. I have looked for a way to work around this, but after some hours I have stopped looking.

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Greetings dear readers.

It has been really encouraging of late to see the number of visitors to the site continuing to grow. The last few blog entries on the question of historical evidence outside the New Testament for the existence of Jesus in particular have generated a lot of interest – the site stats show that the interest was far greater than is indicated by the comments alone. If you’re  a regular reader/listener, or if you’re a newcomer who likes what’s here, please make sure you spread the word. Also make sure you tell people that you can access the podcast via the iTunes store. Under the podcast category, just search for the title “Say Hello to my Little Friend,” or search Glenn Peoples in the author category.

Here’s an update on what’s going on at the moment. The podcast has been quiet for a moment, but it’s about to roar into life again. As some of you will know, Alvin Plantinga recently retired from his position as the John O’ Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Prompted by this turn of events, the next  episode will introduce listeners who have not yet had the pleasure to one of Plantinga’s most important contributions to philosophy of religion and epistemology – and to philosophy in general, actually, namely the concept of properly basic beliefs and the way that at least some religious beliefs may function as properly basic beliefs. If that sounds dull, trust me – it’s not. I’ll start putting that episode together tonight. I’ve been a little distracted from this over the last couple of days as my wife has been in hospital, but fortunately it looks like all will be well.

As I mention from time to time, I’m also preparing for my approaching trip to the UK to speak in Oxford. For more about this (if you haven’t seen it before), details are here, and if you want to get involved and help me get there, that would be greatly appreciated!

I’m trying to seek out other possible speaking opportunities while I’m in the area too. I’m making contact with the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics to see if they’re interested in a visiting speaker. It would be great if that could take place, so here’s hoping. Here in New Zealand too I’m open to speaking opportunities on a whole range of subject areas.

Also, as I mentioned not too long ago, I’m venturing into starting up an online peer reviewed philosophy journal called The Philosopher’s Stone. Right now I’m assembling an editorial board for this journal. The role of that board is simply to peer reviewed articles that are submitted for publication, or locate someone who would peer review the article. If you’re suitably qualified and think you might be interested, please get in touch.

And that’s all I can tell you for now without having to kill you. Take care out there, kids!

Glenn Peoples

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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