Cross Examined

You don't call yourself an a-unicornist. Or an a-Santaist. Why should people without a god belief call themselves a-theists? (For the podcast transcript, search for the title at www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined)

"Abortion means the death of a baby!" That's true only if you say that a newborn baby is no different than the single cell that it came from. But this denies a spectrum of personhood that we all acknowledge. (For the podcast transcript, search for the title at www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined)

How do you describe the relationship between you and Jesus? It's similar to an ordinary person-to-person relationship ... or so goes the popular analogy. Think about it for a moment, however, and this analogy falls apart. (For the podcast transcript, search for the title at www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined)

A podcaster has pushed back against my recent "Scientist Thinking vs. Lawyer Thinking" post. Let's give him a hearing and see what that does to my argument. (For the podcast transcript, search for the title at www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined)

The Catholic League's Bill Donohue enjoys getting agitated about this or that perceived insult against his religion, but he's delighted with a new study showing the religious to be more generous. A little research uncovers a different story, however. (For the podcast transcript, search for the title at www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined)

"God exists" is an easy claim to make, but how likely is it? Consider a series of increasingly unlikely categories of claims to see where the Christian claim fits in. (For the podcast transcript, search for the title at www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined)

Christians often reshape their view of life's events to fit and bolster their Christian worldview, but give it a little thought. The simple Christian explanation of God's hand at work often leads to a bizarre conclusion. (To find the transcript, search for the title at www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined)

Sift through Paul's writings, and you get very little of the biography of Jesus. What does this say about how the Jesus story grew over time? (To find the transcript, search for the title at www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined)

Consider two kinds of thinking--scientist thinking and lawyer thinking. Each has its place, but we fool ourselves when we use one but pretend that we're using another.