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From all our contributors, we want to wish everyone a Happy Christmas.

A response to “the Dunedin School”, who recently described Thinking Matters as a group “of frustrated and atavistic reactionists who want to take away rights from women, homosexuals, and other minorities and restore power to the patriarchy.”

Modern Western Science is an enterprise that was heavily motivated and influenced by Christian thinkers at the time of its birth. However, the initial success of science soon led to scientism where nonbelievers and even many naive Christians tried to explain everything, material as well as immaterial, by physical sciences and physical sciences alone.

Last night I presented the talk ‘Is the New Atheism Reasonable?’ at Thinking Matters Tauranga.  It was split into two parts – the first was a bit of worldview and epistemology and the second more social commentary and history to refute the New Atheist claim that Christianity is somehow bloodthirsty.
To start my presentation, I looked at the question of Agnosticism and identified the two types: Soft Agnosticism and Hard Agnosticism.

Last night at Thinking Matters Tauranga we had Dr Jeff Tallon present on Astronomy and the Bible.  This was the last event in our “Faith & Science” series and we had 111 people turn up – a very good turn out.
The feedback after this event (and his presentation from 8 weeks ago) has been very positive, so I hope to get Dr Tallon back next year to present again.  It sounds like Thinking Matters Auckland may also ask him to speak up there.
So what did you think of his presentation?
Please …

On the 12th May, Thinking Matters Tauranga had Dr Graeme Finlay present on Evolution and Faith.  This was a presentation on Theistic Evolution which certainly got people thinking, and challenged many of us with some evidence for evolution from the field of Gene Science (Graeme holds a PhD in Cell Biology, and a Bachelor of Theology).
The feedback thus-far has been wide and varied.  There have been so many emails back and forth on this that I thought I would take advantage of the “Thinking Matters Talk” site to give you …

I won a scholarship in 1981 to attend a special Christian journalism training in Singapore. About 40 sponsored candidates were brought from all over the world to attend this training.
Each person was supposed to send much in advance the outline, plus the first chapter in full, of a proposed book in one’s area of interest. I sent in the outline of a book “Evolution And Empirical Proofs”. In the book I tried to argue that while nobody can deny the right of people to propagate the idea of  evolution, …

Dr Flannagan will address the objection that Christianity is irrational in the absence of proof. He will unpack this claim and offer an alternative method of looking at faith and reason demonstrating that lack of evidence does not make faith in God irrational.

The word “Science” evokes God-like respect for many people, more because the advances of “technology” have blurred what people should know about “science” and the scientific establishment. This awe for science is often exploited by the so-called rationalists for intimidating Christians, particularly those who are passing through doubts about the Bible and their faith.
Christians need to be reminded repeatedly that while science as a discipline of study aims to be objective, the “practice” of science is not always full of objectivity. One’s philosophy, political loyalties, departmental intrigues, mutual competition, …