This article presents a novel argument against an application of evidential scientism to religious belief. In particular, our target is those arguments at whose core lies the claim that it ought to be the case that, if one holds religious beliefs, then those beliefs are based on the best scientific evidence. Moreover, rather than focussing on the philosophical puzzles that usually fall within the purview of philosophers of religion, we are interested in the mundane beliefs of ordinary believers about their everyday interactions with God. Our argument combines recent work on epistemic partiality in close personal relationships with insights from analytic theology on the personal nature of believer's relationships with God. We argue that it's inappropriate for believers who take themselves to have a personal relationship with God to base their religious beliefs about God's nature on scientific evidence. In particular, it's precisely because these believers are in a personal relationship with God that it's sometimes inappropriate for them to form their beliefs about God's nature on the basis of scientific evidence.

In this article, my objective is to argue for the compatibility between religious diversity and Christian theism by invoking the concept of divine creativity. I propose that, if God is a being of infinite powers and infinite creativity, He is such that it is possible for Him to create different and varied realities in a continuous process of creation. More than that, given His infinite creativity, God can reveal Himself in the most creative and diverse ways possible. There is no need for Him to reveal Himself as one and in a unique way, as some scholars of Christian theism argue. Basing my discussion on these ideas, I suggest that from the infinite creativity of God, it is possible to develop an argument in favour of a transformative pluralist view in face of religious diversity.

In this article, I explore a Wittgensteinian approach to blasphemy. While philosophy of religion tends to have very little to say about blasphemy, we can note two key, typically unchallenged, assumptions about it. First, there is the Assertion from Anywhere Assumption: whether one can successfully blaspheme is entirely independent of one's religious views, commitments, or way of life. Second, there is the Act of Communication Assumption: blasphemy is essentially an act of assertion. I contend that a Wittgensteinian approach rejects both assumptions and, thus, reorients our conception of blasphemy. Take two characteristically Wittgensteinian claims. First, religious statements/beliefs have a different ‘grammar’ than empirical propositions. Second (and relatedly), holding religious beliefs necessarily connects with how one lives. Wittgensteinian blasphemy rejects the Assertion from Anywhere Assumption: to blaspheme, one must be in or have been in the religious framework one blasphemes. Being entirely outside of that context divests one's blasphemy from its proper content. Second, Wittgensteinian blasphemy rejects the Act of Communication Assumption: if religious belief is centrally a form of life, then blasphemy must be lived out as well. Wittgensteinian blasphemy is less about the utterances one makes and more about how one's life intersects (or fails to intersect) with religiosity.

A prominent view in religious epistemology, which I call divine-help epistemology, says that people of faith are epistemically gifted by God, whereas non-believers are subject to the noetic effects of a fallen world. This view aims to show how religious beliefs for people of faith can be epistemically justified. But I argue that it makes such people prone to a cluster of epistemic vices that I call epistemic phariseeism. Divine-help epistemology is especially apt to promote these vices because its normativity is not just epistemic, but also religious and moral. I suggest an alternative epistemological view that is better suited to religious faith.

The link between law and morality has been hotly debated by lawyers and philosophers over the years. This article takes as its starting point the assumption at the beginning of the twentieth century that it was the responsibility of courts and their judges to enforce and promote Christian morality. During the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that assumption has been comprehensively undone. This article examines the key points in the development of judicial approaches to law, morality and religion that have led to a completely different approach to such questions in the courts today.

It is widely recognised that the process of secularisation takes place differently in different parts of the world. Less often appreciated is the wide variety of ‘secularities’ (and indeed of ‘secularisms’) that emerge as a result. This article will look at this question systematically, and will try to identify at least some of the factors that must be taken into account if we are to understand unbelief as well as belief. In so doing it builds on the author's earlier work relating to patterns of religion in modern Europe.1

Although a variety of research projects have been conducted on the benefits of religious coping in older adults, no direct comparison between atheism and religious faith has been published. The study reported in this paper tackled this issue by interviewing two matched groups of people aged over 60 years living in southern England, one of 11 informants with strong atheistic beliefs, and the other of eight informants with strong religious beliefs. Five paired comparisons were undertaken to examine the role of the content of the belief system itself in coping with different negative stresses and losses commonly associated with ageing and old age. The pairs were matched for the nature of the loss or stress that the two people had experienced, but the two individuals had opposed atheistic and religious beliefs. The analyses showed that all the study participants – regardless of their beliefs – were coping well, and suggested that a strong atheistic belief system can fulfil the same role as a strong religious belief system in providing support, explanation, consolation and inspiration. It is postulated that the strength of people's beliefs and how those beliefs are used might have more influence on the efficacy of coping than the specific nature of the beliefs. Further research into the strength of belief systems, including atheism, is required to test and elaborate this hypothesis.

It is popular nowadays to claim not only that narrative is the most effective way to communicate religious knowledge but also that narrative provides the framework within which religious lifestyles and practices are meaningful. However, many today lack familiarity with the narratives of traditional religions. In other words, they suffer from ‘religious illiteracy’. This article considers the problem of how religion can become meaningful to such people. The view that religion can be divested of its outdated cultural accoutrements and presented in a form that resonates with postmodern secular culture is considered and found to be problematic. If acquiring a religion is like acquiring a culture, or a language, it seems unlikely that a deeper appreciation of a religious tradition will be facilitated by divesting it of its traditional cultural expressions. Moreover, the view that religious lifestyles should be emphasised rather than religious belief seems to be more a symptom of the problem of ‘religious illiteracy’ than a solution to it. The article concludes that both of these responses fail to provide a solution to the problem and that an alternative strategy is urgently required.