Show Notes In recent episodes we have discussed Design Arguments and Intelligent Design. Here we cover another chapter from the 50 Arguments for Faith book which explains the apparent suboptimal Design. It is interesting to see what reasons Intelligent Design proponents give. One suggestion is: "We must also remember that the world we are observing is not the original creation. It is a corrupted version of The Creation." This leads us into discussing the Fall as an explanation for Natural Suffer...
Jun 27, 2025•1 hr 26 min
Show Notes We looked at Design Arguments in our Episodes 82 & 85 but avoided diving deep into Fine Tuning, waiting for our discussion with Phil. It was worth it! We covered questions such as what are the actual physical observations which we call Fine Tuning? What are the main explanations for the observations that cosmologists/physicists generally think most likely and how popular are they among the scientist? Phil’s survey results on that are fascinating. Apologies for some technical diffi...
May 26, 2025•1 hr 31 min
Show Notes We welcome again our great friend John Nelson as our guest. John has started an excellent academic blog, “Behind the Gospels”, which we discuss at length. We cover individual issues that John has covered, especially whether Matthew the disciple was the author of Matthews Gospel. We couldn’t hold back from asking about some hot topics, such as whether ‘John’ knew the synoptic gospels or ‘Luke’ had read Josephus. The discussion also extended to wider issues like the cultural influences ...
Apr 07, 2025•1 hr 24 min
Show Notes We welcome a new guest Jim Paul, a Christian thinker from the UK L’Abri community. He introduces us to a view of Heaven which is in contrast to the familiar ethereal heaven in our culture. The familiar view is centuries old with its fluffy clouds and plump babies with wings, but it is a corruption of the Bible’s view, which is more earthy and on reflection more attractive. Jim has written a book on this, “What on Earth is Heaven?”, which we discuss at length. Links: Jim’s book “What o...
Mar 06, 2025•1 hr 36 min
Design Arguments Part 2 Show Notes In episode 82 we started our discussion on Design Arguments and got up to the start of the 19thC. Later in that century the argument was turned on its head by Darwin and his Origin of Species. We discuss this and move on to modern creationism (a little) and Intelligent Design (a lot), selecting by our design – not at random - two more chapters from the 50 Arguments for Faith book which is heavy on Intelligent Design. Links: The 50 Arguments for Faith book: “Evi...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr 16 min
Show Notes We start from an informative update on the Flat Earth movement. Their model for the earth usually includes a wall of ice round the rim – Anarctica, that implies the 24 hour sunshine in the Anarctica summer is impossible and their claims often include that it does not occur. So what happens when a group of prominent Flat Earth advocates are paid to visit Anarctica during its summer? That happened this month. For the rest of the show we discuss another story doing the rounds. It is prom...
Jan 04, 2025•1 hr 28 min
Show Notes We start with the recent UK Parliament decision in favour of assisted dying and the religion and secular division that it brought out. Then we enjoy discussing Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at length. There’s a debate among academics on whether it is a fully secular story, or if it is a Christian allegory. We wade in. The question on what Dickens’ own beliefs were has relevance and it seems that he had a “works not faith” view of Christianity, especially with reference to A Chris...
Dec 06, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Show Notes We start with the next chapter selected by the randomiser in our 50 Arguments for God book. “Can We Be Certain That Jesus Died on a Cross? A Look at the Ancient Practice of Crucifixion” We agree that the answer is Yes, and enjoy ourselves on the way. Then we move on to another random chapter which is on how our planet is ideal for doing astronomy – “Designed for Discovery”. This leads to a wider discussion on Design Arguments. We look at their history and cover Aquinas, Hume and Paley...
Nov 16, 2024•1 hr 24 min
Show Notes Ed continues relating the history of the remote isolated Scottish island of St Kilda and its amazing community. We had finished Part 1 at about 1700 AD with a kind of Utopia and a gentle folksy religion. Here we discuss its decline (our take) into a harsh, puritan, rule-bound and Calvinist kind of religion. And we ask how it could have happened and whether it’s a case of Hitchen’s “Religion poisons everything”. Links: That key book: Tom Steel, The life and death of St Kilda, 1975, Fon...
Oct 20, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Show Notes Ed shares from his longstanding interest in the remote isolated Scottish island of St Kilda and its amazing community that survived for 1000s of years up to 1930. In part 1 we cover its geography, community structure and social conditions, and then its religious history finishing around 1700 which was when outsiders began worrying about their souls. How did a small isolated community work in beliefs, morals and even economic arrangements? Links: Do a google-images on “St Kilda Scotlan...
Sep 14, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Show Notes We covered the book of Daniel in episode 44 explaining it’s likely ‘forgery’ status and we briefly discussed his 70 Weeks prophecy in that episode. Here Andrew leads us into a deep dive, plunging the murky waters. Indeed, studying the prophecy has been called a ‘dismal swamp’. We discuss how all approaches, apologetic or scholarly, lead to difficulties making “Daniel’s” weird maths fit with historical dates. Needless to say, apologetic claims that the fulfilled prophecy of the 70 Week...
Aug 09, 2024•1 hr 30 min
Show Notes In Part 1, friends of the show John Nelson and Josh Parikh returned as guests and discussed “McGrewvianism”, which is the apologetic approach of partners Tim & Lydia McGrew. Their critiques of McGrewvianism centred largely in lack of engagement in the last 150 years of scholarship into the New Testament documents and they related this extensively to the McGrew’s use of ‘Undesigned Coincidences’ to establish the historical reliability of the NT narratives. Jonathan McLatchie, who w...
Jul 05, 2024•1 hr 28 min
Show Notes We return to our “Doubts Aloud Book Club” with a second episode on Tom Holland’s book ‘Dominion’ which has caused quite a stir in Christian apologetics circles over the last few years. We cover some of the critical responses, including ours. But most importantly we sought out responses from historians. Tom makes a bold and interesting set of claims that we list, and then we assess them with a wider philosophical view to go with the historical story that Dominion presents. Links: The b...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 26 min
Show Notes Friends of the show John Nelson and Josh Parikh return as guests together. They introduce Josh’s new term to the world: McGrewvianism, which is the apologetic approach of partners Tim & Lydia McGrew. They are scholars in their own fields but do not use the methods of modern NT scholarship when arguing for the historical reliability of the gospels. Potentially this can be seen as fresh air, but Josh & John dig deeper. This will be the first episode of a 2 part set. Josh & J...
May 06, 2024•1 hr 29 min
Show Notes Tom Holland’s book ‘Dominion’ has caused quite a stir in Christian apologetics circles over the last few years and we’ve been reading it. We also attended a church leader’s evening where he was the speaker. So we thought we would start a “Doubts Aloud Book Club” with Dominion the first book covered.We introduce Tom, his current faith position and the book, we discuss his style and how much we enjoyed the read. We present the key messages that Tom seeks to make and talk about whether i...
Apr 04, 2024•1 hr 29 min
Show Notes We are excited to have guest Rev Michael Roberts with us, he’s an Oxford geologist who subsequently became an Anglican vicar. He is extremely knowledgeable on the history of geology and the age of the earth in science, Christian academic thought, theology and the modern Young Earth movement. Did you know that Darwin was a geologist at the start of his career? Neither did we. Links:Michael’s blog is: https://michaelroberts4004.wordpress.com/ Michael’s paper “Just before the Beagle”: ht...
Mar 06, 2024•1 hr 15 min
Show Notes his month we return to that different form of Apologetics - Presuppositional Apologetics. Please see Part 1 - Episode 70 - where we gave a more social and historical background to it. Here we look at the basic argument made: the Transcendental Argument for God, “TAG”. We set it out and discuss implications and objections to it. Links:The Debunking Christianity material on Presup: https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2022/08/the-failure-of-van-tillian.html The short clip of someone d...
Feb 08, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Show Notes We deal with the current conflict in Israel and Gaza by looking at the influence of religion, in the minds of the Israeli leaders & the settlers taking land in the West Bank and also in the minds of the Evangelical Zionist backers in the UK and US. The UK evangelical influence is more of historical interest but the US is very current and is influencing events now. Links etc: The video by Al Jazeera used for extracts at the start of the show – “How Evangelicals Betray Christians In...
Jan 04, 2024•1 hr 25 min
Show Notes Merry Christmas one and all and what could be more festive than digging into the historical reliability of that Census? The one Luke uses to set up his nativity narrative. We make our case as to why this matters, after all, Luke is said to be a great historian by many. Then we get to it dealing with the 3 main historical issues with the census as presented by Luke:he says it covered the entire Roman world but there is no record of it elsewhere,he presents this strange idea of ‘everyon...
Dec 07, 2023•1 hr 31 min
Show Notes This month we (in our view) bravely jump into a completely different form of Apologetics - Presuppositional Apologetics. It can be a bid disorientating as in Andrew’s words it can be summarised as “God’s word says you are wrong so you have no case to make". Frances is more measured with her summary: “the only proof of the Christian position is that, unless its truth is presupposed, there is no possibility of proving anything at all”. We give a brief history starting from Cornelius Van...
Nov 07, 2023•1 hr 26 min
Show Notes In this episode Andrew shares his research on the origins of the Book of Mormon and the early roots of the Mormon church. This includes discussing the belief that gold plates were discoverd near New York in the early 19th century that gave the purported story of jews emigrating from the holy land to the americas in around 600 BC. Andrew also covers aspects of the character and background of the founder of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith. Also discussed is the cultural context and sett...
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 30 min
Show Notes Andrew has been following a story about a ‘Curse Tablet’ found at an archaeological site in Israel which proponents claim should up-end Biblical Archaeology in such a way as to confirm the conservative evangelical view of the Torah – the first five books of the OT. We look into it and hear from both sides. This led on to Ed introducing the chapter in the ‘50 Arguments for God’ book on Biblical Archaeology. It concentrated on the NT and we picked up especially on one claim in the chapt...
Sep 09, 2023•1 hr 3 min
This episodes is Part 2 of a 2 part show with just with Andrew on his own and and he recounts in detail his own de-conversion story.
Aug 08, 2023•1 hr 6 min
This episodes is Part 1 of a 2 part show with just with Andrew on his own and and he recounts in detail his own de-conversion story.
Jul 09, 2023•52 min
Show Notes We continued our discussion with friend of ours Josh Parikh - a Christian Apologist who has always thought deeply about the issues and maintained intellectual integrity. There were two Old Testament case studies that Josh included in his talk “A Tumultuous Period in Apologetics?” to the Discussion Group in London, and we were keen not to miss these out: the famous story of bears mauling 42 children and the patriarchy with misogamy in both the narratives and especially in prophets Hose...
Jun 08, 2023•1 hr 23 min
Show Notes Josh Parikh is an old friend of ours having contributed to our Discussion Groups over many years as a Christian Apologist who has always thought deeply about the issues and maintained intellectual integrity. He has been on a journey, especially having engaged with Biblical scholarship. This has overlapped with his time at Oxford University and continued since graduating. Like many, he has remained a Christian and has moved in a ‘progressive’ direction. Josh recently gave a talk “A Tum...
May 07, 2023•1 hr 22 min
Show Notes For Part 2 of our discussion of same-sex relationships, sexual practice and the Bible, we start with background and origins for the OT Law (we covered its interpretation in Part 1). One scholar has identified an evolution in the laws in Leviticus from a more lenient view to the harsh one found in the final text. Frances has researched reactions to these laws in Jewish writings and that led to a wider ‘world tour’ or religious treatment of the issues. Links: See pp 291 & 292 here f...
Apr 06, 2023•53 min
Show Notes We do a tour of the Bible and its material on same-sex relationships and sexual practice. We find that the story of Sodom isn’t the place to start and the OT Law has issues with interpretation. Jesus didn’t directly teach on the subject and so we spend more time with the references to it by Paul, in a long passage in Romans 1 (v 18-32) and a shorter one in 1Corinthians6v9. 1Tim1v10 is similar to the Corinthians one. Can we see Paul as condemning all same-sex practice?How this works ou...
Mar 06, 2023•1 hr 29 min
Episode 61 – Show Notes Occam’s Razor shows us how simple explanations are superior to complex ones and so simplicity is a concept that might lead us to believe in God as this one simple concept – a supernatural personal agent – can explain all the complexities of the world. We try to assess this line of thinking, especially using the work of the Oxford Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne who favours the approach. This then leads into the doctrine of Divine Simplicity which was prominent in ...
Feb 14, 2023•1 hr 22 min
Episode 60– Show NotesJohn Nelson returned as our guest to start off 2023. He’s been monitoring the debate about what literary genre we should consider the gospels to be and what the implications would be if they are taken as biography in the Greek & Roman tradition. The question fits with his studies for his PhD at the University of Edinburgh in Christian Origins. John maintains that understanding biography allows us to avoid the crass literalism of fundamentalism (and its attendant overcon...
Jan 04, 2023•1 hr 25 min
