Tonight is the eighth and last night of the Jewish holiday of Chanukah, also sometimes called the “Festival of Lights.” Wikipedia sums the basis for the eight days and the lights: According to the Talmud, at the re-dedication following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, there was only enough consecrated olive oil [...]
All posts tagged torah
A not-so-happy Chanukah
Posted by NFQ on December 8, 2010
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2010/12/a-not-so-happy-chanukah/
God is not (good)
When I watched this clip from God on Trial, I thought of a guy I was talking with a couple weeks ago. He told me that he believed in “God, sort of.” When I asked him to clarify, he explained that he believed there was a supremely powerful being guiding the universe and everything that [...]
Posted by NFQ on November 30, 2010
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2010/11/god-is-not-good/
A week without God
This illustration, or the text it contains, has been making the rounds. I’d heard the cheesy “Seven days without God makes one weak” saying before, but the first time I saw it with these altered weekday names was on STFU, Believers — a blog which posts evidence of “how people feel the need to plaster [...]
Posted by NFQ on November 29, 2010
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2010/11/a-week-without-god/
My, how you’ve changed!
There are plenty of logical arguments to be had about whether a god might exist, or whether we have any evidence to suggest that a god actually does exist. However, I’m constantly being reminded, most religious people don’t actually justify their faith with such arguments (and, to be fair, many people who are atheists don’t [...]
Posted by NFQ on September 26, 2010
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2010/09/my-how-youve-changed/
What is idolatry?
I read a number of Christian blogs, some big and fancy ones by pastors and other leaders, and some smaller personal blogs. One trend I’ve noticed, more so in the professional blogs (presumably since they are more concerned with spreading their own doctrines), is a sort of trigger-happy application of the term “idolatry.” Everything seems [...]
Posted by NFQ on September 20, 2010
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2010/09/what-is-idolatry/
All the same god?
I’m sick of hearing that Jews, Christians, and Muslims “all worship the same god.” It’s such a popular characterization amongst proponents of interfaith collaboration. It sounds so nice. But it just doesn’t make sense. Suppose Alice says, “I believe in Zeus — he’s the god of the sky, and the king of all the gods.” [...]
Posted by NFQ on September 2, 2010
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2010/09/all-the-same-god/
Christians disagree on hell
This shouldn’t come as a big surprise, but I thought it was a particularly vivid example. It’s next to impossible to generalize about “what Christians believe,” because they disagree on so many seeming points of fact. Justin Taylor recently asked, “What is the worst thing about hell?” and quoted Calvinist theologian R.C. Sproul to answer. [...]
Posted by NFQ on August 18, 2010
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2010/08/christians-disagree-on-hell/
Deuteronomy
It’s difficult to convince a True Believer™ that the Bible is unreliable. It was divinely inspired but written down by people, they’ll say, so there’s bound to be a minor factual slip-up here or there, but that’s no big deal, no reason to mistrust the text as a whole. Or — you just don’t understand, [...]
Posted by NFQ on July 19, 2010
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2010/07/deuteronomy/
Who wrote the Bible?
The more we know about how the texts of the Bible were assembled over the millennia, the less convincing it becomes to argue that it is a divinely inspired text containing holy revelations. The story of the Bible is filled with political agendas, cultures in flux, and clumsy editing. I saw a documentary on the [...]
Posted by NFQ on June 22, 2010
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2010/06/who-wrote-the-bible/
More on Adam & Eve: Is God unjust?
This is a continuation of my response to a Christian on the topic of Adam and Eve, which I began in the previous post. So. As I asked in that old post: is God being unjust, or is God being arbitrary, when he punishes Adam and Eve for eating the fruit? Canterrain says it’s more [...]
Posted by NFQ on June 20, 2010
http://www.noforbiddenquestions.com/2010/06/more-on-adam-eve-is-god-unjust/
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