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	<title>Alex's Heresies - embracing a physical reality</title>
	<link>http://www.alexblog.com</link>
	<description>news, commentaries and articles dedicated to a non-dualistic view of the world</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:05:18 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>News: Boston Catholics advertise to stop falling confessions</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The decline of the mainstream Christian churches is self-evidence in most parts of Western society. The world-wide increase of Christians comes from nations of Africa, Asia, and former Soviet republics. The latest casuality, much to my surprise as an Australian, is the confessional numbers in US Catholic churches. While older parishioners persist, young people are [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.alexblog.com/2010/03/news-boston-catholics-advertise-to-stop-falling-confessions/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Comment: Bouma blames atheism for sectarian intolerance</title>
		<description><![CDATA[According to The Age newspaper online &#8221;Monash University Professor Gary Bouma says people without a specific faith are fuelling sectarian conflict and cause division in society.&#8221; He essentially blames atheists, treated as one homogeneous group, for saying that theists are stupid and also saying that religious discourse should be driven out of the public space. As [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.alexblog.com/2010/03/comment-bouma-blames-atheism-for-sectarian-intolerance/</link>
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		<title>Comment: Robert Winston stereotypes atheists on BBC</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A Personal Rant
In a recent BBC Hardtalk interview with Stephen Sackur, Robert Winston, renowned British scientist and occasional Christian apologist, typecasts atheists as believing in the absolute and, therefore, unreasonable certainty of science. By implication many non-atheists take a more reasonable, nuanced view that scientific knowledge is probabilistic with some claims being more assured than others. Interestingly, Christians like [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.alexblog.com/2010/03/comment-robert-winston-stereotypes-atheists-on-bbc/</link>
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		<title>Comment: Current Readings Jesus &amp; Christianity &#8211; Earl Doherty &amp; Linda Woodhead</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I spend a lot of time travelling and, so, reading articles and books and listening to recorded lectures are my constant companions. My latest are interesting, a book &#8211; Jesus: Neither God nor Man by Earl Doherty and a talking book &#8211; Christianity, A Very Short Introduction (OUP) by Linda Woodhead.
Before discussing those, or at [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.alexblog.com/2010/02/comment-current-readings-jesus-christianity-earl-doherty-linda-woodhead/</link>
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		<title>News: Separating Christ from Christian Charity</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In US and Australia governments fund Christian charities to help the disadvantaged. The question is whether or not government-funded activities should be free of Christian proselytising. This area has always been problematic for supporters of a secular society: is it state-sponsored religion through the back door?
The Washington Post, drawing from a New York Civil Liberties Union article, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.alexblog.com/2010/02/news-separating-christ-from-christian-charity/</link>
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		<title>Comment: Finding the historical Jesus in the Gospels</title>
		<description><![CDATA[With only sketchy support from non-Christian references for Jesus, Christian scholars still rely on the gospels, especially the so-called synoptic gospels, for constructing the historical Jesus. How should we read these gospels &#8211; Matthew, Mark, and Luke &#8211; critically? And should we include John as well?
Here are a few ideas.


Gospels were written as proclamations of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.alexblog.com/2010/02/comment-finding-the-historical-jesus-in-the-gospels/</link>
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		<title>Link: Non-Belief &#8211; Third-Largest Religion</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Without tackling the &#8220;atheism as a religion&#8221; argument here are some interesting statistics on religion from Adherents.com

Christianity: 2.1 billion
Islam: 1.5 billion
Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion
Hinduism: 900 million
Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
Buddhism: 376 million
primal-indigenous: 300 million
African Traditional &#38; Diasporic: 100 million
Sikhism: 23 million
Juche: 19 million
Spiritism: 15 million
Judaism: 14 million
Baha&#8217;i: 7 million
Jainism: 4.2 million
Shinto: 4 million
Cao Dai: 4 million
Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
Tenrikyo: [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.alexblog.com/2010/02/link-non-belief-third-largest-religion/</link>
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		<title>News: A.C. Grayling on Cherie Blair</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Great AC Grayling article at Richard Dawkins site about the &#8216;morality&#8217; of Cherie Blair&#8217;s decision to be lenient on a religious (Muslim) assaulter of another. Would we treat the surviving 9/11 perpetrators with some leniency for also being religious, which they certainly were?
Alex McCullie
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.alexblog.com/2010/02/news-a-c-grayling-on-cherie-blair/</link>
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		<title>Comment: Jesus, Christians, and Pliny</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Around 110 CE Emperor Trajan appointed Pliny the Younger, Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, as Governor of Bithynia-Pontus, on the southern coast of the Black Sea in modern-day Turkey. He was to investigate financial and administrative problems and deal with political unrest. Pliny was a successful middle-ranking bureaucrat from the Equestrian order, the lower of the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.alexblog.com/2010/02/comment-jesus-christians-and-pliny/</link>
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		<title>Course: Historical Jesus &#8211; 6 night Course May 2010</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I shall be running a six night course, late May 2010, at the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne, Australia, on searching for the historical jesus, looking at the historical figure behind the religion &#8211; what do we know?
Course: searching for the historical jesus


Explore the historical Jesus, separate from the figure of devotion. In doing so, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.alexblog.com/2010/02/course-historical-jesus-6-night-course-may-2010/</link>
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