One question I regularly hear is: can you be a politician and retain your integrity? Is politics such a dirty game that everyone who plays ends up covered in muck? I think there are three short answers.
* Yes, it is possible to be a politicia
Discussions about freedom often identify two distinct kinds of freedom, often described as 'freedom from' and 'freedom to'; some people identify a third kind of freedom, which can be described as 'freedom to be' - freedom to be yourself, freedom to b
While we desire freedom, most of the things which matter to us are the result of limiting our freedom. We find that choosing to limit our freedom in some ways actually expands our freedom in other, more important, ways.
Freedom is a subject people have talked and argued about for a very long time. The aim of these articles is not to end the arguments, but to provide a possible framework within which we can have clear and constructive discussions about freedom, unde
I would like to suggest that one major reason why we struggle with the concept is because the meaning of freedom is paradoxical, partial and ambiguous - deeply context-dependent.
The framework we are using divides all of reality (like Caesar divided Gaul) into three parts: physical, social and spiritual. This is primarily because each area requires a distinct set of tools and disciplines.
There is something that everybody certainly believes in, uses most days, and yet it is purely an artifact of reasoning and is nothing more than an abstraction. It appears in the core of every business and appears within every transaction. It determ
Afghanistan is a country with several longstanding problems; in the past half century, interventions by other nations have failed to address these problems, and sometimes made them worse.
Some people believe that morality is not real, but simply a myth – a useful fiction. According to this perspective, people invented morality as a tool to help society function, in much the same way that we invented money.
We wish to start by recognizing that we do not yet completely understand the Bible, and by recognizing that there is a large amount of material available to help us come to a better, more complete and more accurate understanding of it, based on evide
Morality is a large and difficult subject, so we are not going to attempt to summarize it here: the aim of this article is to set out an overview of the subject, and describe the territory in a way which will help us to talk usefully about morality w
The search for truth involves techniques and disciplines which vary between the different areas: the search for truth in a research lab follows one set of rules, in a law court it follows another. But it is always a human activity, and the same basic
One of the significant developments of the past century is the development of human rights. But it is arguable that concentrating on human rights, while it has produced a great amount of good, has been a side-track from a more productive perspective
What does it mean to be human? People have discussed and argued about this for a long time. It is of general interest, but it also plays a significant part in shaping our understanding of other significant issues.
Freedom is a difficult concept. You can't have complete freedom, and you would not want it anyway: you want some freedoms to be restricted, so that you can enjoy other freedoms. Some freedoms should be restricted to avoid harm - to avoid harming othe
The best way to understand the Christian faith is from the perspective of the founder, Jesus. The next best way is from the perspectives of the first Christians, who knew Him personally.
Augustine thought that God was all-powerful, that everything happens because God wants it to. But the Bible is full of stories, from the Garden of Eden onward, which show very clearly that much of what happens is not God's will.
