Religions

The Dalai Lama and his teaching have had a significant impact upon concepts of the meaning of life and happiness in the Western world. This article provides a summary of the Dalai Lama, his teaching and a Christian response to both. The article was published in the quarterly magazine of the Centre for Apologetic Scholarship [...]

Yesterday, a Buddhist nun addressed and interacted with the class I am teaching about Buddhism. She did a fine job of articulating basic Buddhist thought and on the whole fielded questions quite well. As I reflected on our time with her the following points come to mind: 1. Some students asked perceptive questions about how [...]

In Buddhist thought suffering in samsara is due to ignorance of three realities: dukkha (suffering, or better “unsatisfactoriness”), impermanence and especially non-self. There is no self, that is, as Siderits puts it, “we are empty persons, persons who are empty of selves.” To be more precise, a ‘person’ has no essence, the continued existence of [...]

In one interview Hiedegger remarked: I would say that men – for example in communism – have a religion, because they believe in science. They believe unconditionally in modern science. And this unconditional belief in science, that means the confidence in the certainty of the results of science is a belief, and in a certain [...]

This blog continues the series of studies looking at references to the Garden(s) of Paradise, as depicted in the Qur’an. Our last blog on this matter was on May 22. The next relevant passage is from Surah 42:22-23 (Yusuf Ali): 22: Thou wilt see the Wrong-doers in fear on account of what they have earned, [...]

In his book Christianity Alongside Islam John Wilson gives extended consideration to the issue of human rights in Islam. In this discussion it is important to avoid hypocrisy and to admit readily that human rights abuses are committed by non-Muslim societies. Notwithstanding, Islam does have some major problems in this area: 1. The Qur’an encourages [...]

This blog continues the series of studies looking at references to the Garden(s) of Paradise, as depicted in the Qur’an. Our last blog on this matter was on May 4. The next relevant passage is from Surah 42:7-9 (Yusuf Ali): 7: Thus have We sent by inspiration to thee an Arabic Qur’an: that thou mayest [...]

In his recent book Christianity Alongside Islam (Acorn Press, 2010), John Wilson combats the common secularist notion that all religions are essentially the same. According to such a viewpoint choosing a religion is akin to choosing between a Ford or a Toyota or between McDonald’s and KFC – just a matter of personal preference. What [...]

This blog continues the series of studies looking at references to the Garden(s) of Paradise, as depicted in the Qur’an. Our last blog on this matter was on May 4. The next relevant passage is from Surah 41:27-32 (Yusuf Ali): 27: But We will certainly give the Unbelievers a taste of a severe Penalty, and [...]

Mark Durie has posted an important blog which examines a major translation issue in the Qur’an. He explains: There are many verses in the Quran which refer to fighting and killing.  I would like to consider the difficulty inherent in reading verses which attempt to translate the verb qātilū, found, for example, in Sura 9:29 [...]