This isn’t a real episode, just a message to other podcasters out there about how to promote this podcast. I’m more than happy to do the same for your podcast/site.
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Here’s Episode 8, in which I discuss whether a truly secular version of political liberalism can really embrace a proper liberal doctrine of equality. I argue that it cannot.
I’m also experimenting with lower quality mp3 files to save space, and it make it quicker to download. This one is only 64kbps.
I also have a cold in this episode. I hate colds.
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William Lane Craig was recently in New Zealand for a conference on Molinism at the Victoria University in Wellington. While he was here he had a number of public speaking engagements, including this one, a debate with Bill Cook of the New Zealand Atheists, Rationalists and Humanists, at the University of Auckland. The topic of the debate was: “Is God a Delusion?”
Unfortunately I was not able to attend. From what I have heard, most of those in attendance, regardless of their view of the existence of God held a more or less shared view of who won the debate. But you can decide for yourself.
I just discovered this gem. It’s not quite as good as the South Park episode, “all about Mormons,” but it’s not bad!
OK, my hosting provider has just emailed me to let me know that I just exceeded my monthly bandwidth limit. That means I’m had a lot of downloads from this site. This is good and bad. It’s good because it means that more people than I realised are listening to this podcast (listening to it at my site has the same effect on my bandwidth usage as downloading it). I will never discourage that, of course. In fact I’d like to see my listener base increase greatly.
On the downside, this means I’m going to have to upgrade to a more expensive hosting plan. The benefits of hosting podcast files in space that you rent yourself are significant, so that’s what I did. But you know what I’m discovering? Hosting plans with decent storage and bandwidth limits aint dirt cheap.
Now (listening to my own show, I realise that I use that word a lot. I have cut out so many instances of it), I’m not even thinking about wimping out – not likely! I’ll just meet these costs as they arise. What I’ve decided to do, however, is to add a donate button to this blog. At the main blog site (www.beretta-online.com/wordpress) you’ll see some buttons on the right hand side. The one at the bottom is a PayPal donate button. If you have a paypal account (and you really should, it’s a fantastic way to make international payments online), you can click on that button, which will take you to the paypal site where you can make a $5 donation. Nothing is expected, everything is appreciated. If it were ever to generate a profit I would remove the button until hard times come again.
Think of it like the collection plate at a poor church you’re just visiting. No obligation whatsoever, but if you like what they’re doing, you might wanna help them out a little. 🙂
We now return you to our regular programme.
A few episodes ago in my podcast I made a reference to the fact that Helen Clarke’s Labour Government was seriously talking about the possibility of allowing accused people to be re-tried for the same offense. I used it as an example of how extremely totalitarian the views of our Prime Minister really are. I would never have thought – at the time – that such a sinister move would ever find wide support. I noted an extraordinary outlandish point of view, and moved on.
Today I confess to being somewhat gobsmacked. As my friend Madeleine over at M and M has noted, this is now a reality in New Zealand. Somehow the label “Communist Re-trial” didn’t appeal, so it has been called the “Criminal Procedure Bill.” And it’s not just the Left that supported it. It gained enough support in parliament to be passed last night.
As Madeleine explains, given the normal practice of one accusation, one trial:
So we are left having to accept that once a court has heard a case, weighed the evidence and ruled, that’s that. Allowing the state to keep having a go because despite the court’s assessment, the state “know” this person is guilty (or worse because of trial by media, the public “know”) is to give the state far too much power and to give society far too much uncertainty in the justice system. Whilst it may succeed in increasing the chances of nailing the guilty it equally runs the risk of allowing the state to run trial after trial after trial with its vast resources against the innocent.
Labour undid hundreds of years of jurisprudence on human rights formulated by far greater legal and ethical minds than any of them possess in one sitting last night. Just remember that next time you decide that someone guilty got off after listening to the 8 second soundbite on the news or reading the 600 word article in the Herald; if a judge and 12 of your peers who heard all of the evidence, got to see the body-language and hear the tone of voice of the witnesses ruled the other way, maybe they were in a better position to assess the case. If the police failed to build their case then tough. If anything, knowing they can have a second crack will encourage them proceed with a lower standard of evidence.
Well said.
The Bill, which will become law soon, also allows a guilty verdict to be reached by only 11 of the 12-person jury.
Seig Helen.
And here it is, episode 7, the final part in the three part series on hell. This is the longest episode that I have ever done, and it is the longest I ever plan on doing. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to become a pattern, but I wasn’t about to do a fourth part, so I had to fit everything into this one.
As always, your comments and questions are welcome. Drop me a line – You can even send your comment or question as an audio clip, and I’ll play it on the show.
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Here’s part 2 on my series on hell. In this episode, I look at some key arguments against annihilationism and for the doctrine of eternal torment, and why those arguments fail.
As this episode ended up being longer than expected (there are plenty of bad arguments to cover!), I’ve decided to present a third episode in this series, where I will cover the remainder of the main arguments for the traditional view. But at least this time I managed to squeeze in my regular “This Week in History” segment.
The next episode will be a little shorter.
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We’ve made it to five episodes! This one is part one of a biblical and theological (mostly biblical) discussion about hell, the doctrine of eternal punishment in Christian theology. It’s a two part presentation. In this part, I present my position on the subject, a view called annihilationism. In the next show I’ll be looking at argument against my view and in favour of a more traditional view of hell as a place of the eternal torment of the damned.
As I promised in the Episode, here’s a list of some prominent Christian thinkers who hold (or held – some of them are dead) to an annihilationist point of view:
- John Stott
- Michael Green
- Clark Pinnock
- Philip Edgecumbe Hughes
- John Wenham
- Dale Moody
- Edward Fudge
- Graham Scroggie
- Edward White
- Basil Atkinson
- E. Earle Ellis
- Homer Hailey
That’s what I came up with in 2 minutes. Now, come on in, the water’s lovely!
EDIT: Here are parts two and three.
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Episode 4 already. One more episode and I’m halfway to 10!
The main feature of this show is an audio dialogue, “A New Euthyphro.” This dialogue is a re-make of part of Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue, with a twist: This time Socrates’ is armed with a little more philosophical acuity than the bumbling Euthyphro that Socrates gave us. This time, the so-called “Euthyphro Dilemma” fails abysmally as an attack on divine command ethics.
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