Kester Brewin

I’ve not yet read the full book that Alain de Botton has been promoting recently, but I’ve read a number of interviews and heard him speak, and browsed his website: religionforatheists.com and I wanted to post a couple of first-thoughts about his thesis. Firstly, he’s being unashamed to say that he is ‘picking and mixing’ [...]

Great piece in The Guardian today about trying to get God out of a funeral… and finding that ‘He’ (sic) turns up nonetheless. She may not have wanted Him at her funeral, but she needed Him. My sister, born in England in 1949, a singer of hymns in her primary school, grew up with Him. [...]

Whilst doing some sessions at St John’s College in Durham recently, the question of what community is was raised. There’s a whole lot of talk about ‘living in community’ and ‘faith communities’ and going out to plant ‘missional communities’ – but whilst a lot is written about what faith and mission may be, there seems [...]

Every once in a while something comes along that leaves you with so many questions it’s just impossible to know where to start. The promo video for ‘After The Rapture Pet Care’ is one such thing: (HT the very Darwinian Head of Biology, Mr Simon King ) How does one begin to unpack this? First [...]

The people who brought you the ‘there’s probably no God, so just relax and get on with life’ have created a new campaign aimed at parents. They want to encourage parents to give their children freedom of choice. The campaign urges parents not to label children with their beliefs. The key problem here is, of [...]

Interesting article from last year by Alain de Botton on the possibility of a ‘Religion for Atheists.’ De Botton is clear: ‘by getting rid of God, one would also be dispensing with a whole raft of very useful, if often peculiar and sometimes retrograde, notions that had held societies together since the beginning of time.’ [...]

An interesting thread developing on Twitter with philosophybites – Nigel Warburton under the covers – around ideas of atheism and agnosticism. It’s building towards a telephone discussion on BBC Radio Five Live tonight from 1am (one for the podcast) about whether we should all just say we’re agnostics. Nigel notes today that there is ‘no [...]

Spotted at my local bookshop. Someone’s been hard at work. One would have thought that a single disproof would suffice for the average rationalist. But here we have six. All improved too! Got to love fundamentalists, haven’t you?