Dr Paul Allen

English: Alvin Plantinga after telling a joke at the beginning of a lecture on science and religion delivered at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The twentieth century has seen philosophers of religion, such as Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne , reaffirm the rationality of faith and reinvigorate traditional debates about reasons for belief in God—catalysed in part by new scientific understandings of the origins of the universe. There’s a growing consensus that belief in God is perfectly rational—unless, of course, you define rationality in terms that deliberately exclude such a belief.5 Rationality is less concerned with adopting a particular starting point or conclusion than with the rules that regulate reflective discussion leading to a conclusion. New Atheist writers often define the term beyond its fundamental sense, holding that it demands we interpret the world in a specific way that excludes belief in God. Yet this interpretation c

Image via Wikipedia Though atheists may argue that the existence of a supreme being is impossible, their arguments often reveal a belief that God just doesn't behave as they think he should. In a debate, Christopher Hitchens complained about war and killing in the Old Testament . He said he wrote his book God Is Not Great in response to the murders in Muslim countries that followed the publishing of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad . None of these are arguments against God's existence, but rather arguments against how God and especially his followers act. Timothy Larsen, professor of history at Wheaton College and author of  Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England , says he has come to see doubt as a way in which we take our faith seriously: "If you haven't doubted, you haven't re-owned your faith." Many Victorian atheists, Larsen discovered, converted back to Christianity . "Some actually are really trying to answer questions. Th

Image via Wikipedia Though atheists may argue that the existence of a supreme being is impossible, their arguments often reveal a belief that God just doesn't behave as they think he should. In a debate, Christopher Hitchens complained about war and killing in the Old Testament . He said he wrote his book God Is Not Great in response to the murders in Muslim countries that followed the publishing of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad . None of these are arguments against God's existence, but rather arguments against how God and especially his followers act. Timothy Larsen, professor of history at Wheaton College and author of  Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England , says he has come to see doubt as a way in which we take our faith seriously: "If you haven't doubted, you haven't re-owned your faith." Many Victorian atheists, Larsen discovered, converted back to Christianity . "Some actually are really trying to answer questions. Th