“What has happened to consistent, coherent atheism?” is the question being asked by Michael Robbins, who’s reviewing Nick Spencer’s book Atheism: The Origin of the Species for Slate. Spencer’s book examines what he calls the ‘creation myth’ of the orgin of modern atheism, different versions of which are embraced by most of the ‘New Atheists’...
As we’re greeted today by the news that a Christian bakery in Northern Ireland faces legal action over refusing to bake a cake with a slogan in support of gay marriage, this week’s New York Times column by Ross Douthat is hugely relevant. What I like about Douthat is that e’s almost never content to...
One of the things the Iona Institute does most is… fight. We put forward ideas in the public square, and if those ideas weren’t at least somewhat controversial or disputed there wouldn’t be a need for us to exist. But we only hope to start conversations – what people think about religious education, or marriage...
There’s a new report out from the Institute for American Values and the Center of the American Experiment, which examines some of the ways that men and women’s brains and bodies change when they become parents. While the physical changes that happen in women during and after pregnancy are well known, Mother Bodies, Father Bodies,...
Judging by the end-times rhetoric employed by some journalists, bloggers and Twitterati in response to the US Supreme Court’s decision on Hobby Lobby, one might be forgiven for thinking that contraception had been banned nationwide, fundamentalist corporation owners authorised to micromanage their employees’ sex lives, and women declared second-class citizens. A rather popular image doing...
Can the ‘working poor’ afford to maintain a family? Does being a member of the working poor make a person more likely to divorce? Does it make them less likely to marry in the first place? The answers are ‘no’, yes’ and ‘yes’ respectively. What is to be done? There is no easy answer, but...
“The Meaning of Religious Freedom” Speaking Notes of Bishop Brendan Leahy Strand Hotel, Limerick, June 17th, 2014 Hosted by The Iona Institute and The Irish Catholic I am grateful to the Iona Institute and The Irish Catholic newspaper for their invitation to offer a reflection on “The Meaning of Religious Freedom”. Though the suggested title...
Peter Ferguson, who calls himself ‘Humanisticus’, has replied once again on polygamy and same-sex marriage, and asked the Iona Institute a few questions. I’ll do my best to answer them here, and I think it might be wise to leave our blogathon at that. In truth, these points have been dealt with in numerous previous...
Many atheists do not believe in free will. They don’t believe in free will because they believe we, and our thoughts, are the products of matter and energy and nothing else and therefore we are basically ‘meat machines’ or ‘moist robots’ and therefore no more have free will than a robot, or a dog. This...
The bad news keeps rolling in as the ever-predictable Ratchet Effect guides social policy. Supposedly only available in cases of extreme suffering, Belgium saw euthanasia figures rise by 27% in the last year. Still, one cannot deny that a worthy human trait is the reluctance to see others suffer. In Man’sSearch for Meaning, the late...
