why believe?

About 2 billion people around the world believe in christianity. Even if some belief is just nominal, there are still many millions who believe. But why do they believe?

the rich get richer and the poor get the picture?

We all know that there is a wide gap between the world's richest countries and the world's poorest. For a while that gap was widening, but in the past 50 years, many of the formerly poor nations, especially in Asia, have been catching up. The big challenge remains Africa, where many of the poorest nations are, because while more people around the world are getting a fairer share of the pie, things haven't improved much for them

This excellent short video sets it out graphically.

does religion cause terrorism?

It's a common charge these days. Nobel Prize winning Physicist and atheist Stephen Weinberg said: "for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." And this atheist certainly seems to thinks so: "we see religion regularly used for war, mass murder, terrorism, and even genocide"

Are there any facts on the subject?

It turns out that there are.

putting Armatree on the map

Armatree is a small town, or village, in central western NSW. It consists of a handful of houses, a large country pub, and a railway siding with grain storage. It has a nominal population of almost 400, but most of these would live on farms in the area around the town. I only know about it because I used to have relatives at nearby Gilgandra.

Armatree is close to the Castlereagh River, a generally dry and sandy stream that occasionally erupts in floods which pour water over the surrounding countryside, revitalising the soil, but also sometimes destroying wheat crops. And that's what happened recently.

But Aussie farmers are a resilient breed, and so three cockies (slang for farmers) from Armatree hit back at the floodwaters with this short video of "Baywatch, Armatree". Check it out.

Well-prepared arguments for christian truth

This book (Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig) is the best I have read on the arguments for the truth of the existence of God and the truth of the christian faith.

The arguments between believers and non-believers have hotted up in the last decade,