
~ Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791 ~

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Natural disasters - why pray?

In the past week the world has been rocked by another terrible tragedy. On April 25, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 struck the city of Nepal, leaving massive destruction and a death toll of more than 4000 people. That number is predicted to grow even higher as the extent of the damage unfolds and more days pass.

Often in times like this many Christians and perhaps Christadelphians feel that they should pray for the survivors and for the rescue efforts. It also seems like part of our culture to respect such behaviour as if those praying are performing some noble act of kindness. So I guess I'm breaking taboo a little by questioning the value of praying to a god after a natural disaster such as this.

(Actually, the problem isn't prayer so much as those who pray and then don't do anything else. It's the something else you do that makes all the difference. Please donate if you haven't already!)

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Does Archaeology prove that the Old Testament is historically accurate?

During my time as a Christadelphian, Archaeology was often portrayed as one of the pillars of evidence supporting the reliability of the Bible. It was (and still is) taken for granted by many Christadelphians that the Old Testament in particular was on solid grounds as a historically accurate text, backed by a wealth of evidence from Archaeology.

But what does Archaeology actually tell us about the Bible today?