Analytic Theology

Jesus had an annoying habit of speaking in parables. The New Testament sets forth anywhere from 32 to 48 of them, depending on who’s doing the counting. In fact, parables comprise most of what he had to say during his stay here on the terra firma; Matthew 13:34 and Mark 4:33 go so far as [...]

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OK, just to make sure we’re all on the same page, Arianism was invented by Arius, who was a Catholic priest in Alexandria, Egypt, circa 300 C.E. Yes, the same Alexandria later reconceptualized by Lawrence Durrell in his immortal Alexandria Quartet, about which, more later — like, way later. At the risk of paraphrase, the [...]

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I am growing increasingly skeptical about the idea of a “Judeo-Christian tradition.” Everybody from historians to anthropologists frequently appeals to this concept, as a way of explaining or emphasizing certain allegedly desirable features of Western civilization, particularly in its current form. The fact of the matter, though, is that it is difficult to think of [...]

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I always have been intrigued by arguments for the existence of God. Maybe it’s because they tend to put you in a contemplative frame of mind. Lately I’ve become interested in a sub-set of these issues, which is, why don’t we all start believing in the indigenous God that is native to our ancestral territories. [...]

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The New York Times Book Review from several weeks ago discussed two books, which are: Hauser, M., Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong (2006) (reviewed by the esteemed Richard Rorty); and, Collins F., The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2006). Ironically, the reviews appeared only [...]

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