Thoughts, Engagements, Updates from Fraser Watts
Easter is still marked by bank holidays, but people have largely lost track of what it is supposed to be about. It is partly about what happened to a particular man, Yeshua (or Jesus), from Nazareth about 2000 years ago, after he had been crucified. However, Christians are convinced it…
Over the centuries Christians have used various ideas to try to explain their belief that the crucifixion of Jesus had consequences that were far-reaching and beneficial. I think it is helpful to think freshly about this, and to come up with new ideas that can go along side the traditional…
I have recently become aware of an intriguing convergence between the Social Brain theory of Professor Robin Dunbar at Oxford, and the Congregation Size theory that has been developed largely in the USA. Dunbar is best known for ‘Dunbar’s number’, 150, the number of people with whom we can maintain…
Different kinds of music have different effects on people; understanding how that works is one of the tasks of the psychology of music. I would very much like to see that applied to different kinds of religious music. Different kinds of religion develop close links with particular kinds of music….
Over my lifetime there have been massive developments in what computers can do. But it is something it is very difficult to take a balanced view about. A lot of those who are most expert seem to have a vested interest in exaggerating what they can do. Those who are…
Most people (Christians and otherwise) think that Christians should do good in the world, and I agree with them. But I think it makes a lot of difference why they should do that. For some time I have noticed that some of the reasons Christians give for doing good inspire…
There is a principle often found in science writing, known as the butterfly effect, where small causes can have large effects, says Fraser Watts. The term was coined by Edward Lorenz, the ‘father’ of chaos theory and the butterfly effect, who showed how the details of a tornado could be…
In my last blog I took a modest line about claims for the divinity of Jesus. In this blog I turn to what Jesus accomplished, and here I take a stronger line. In both cases I believe I am following the New Testament, which is much stronger about the ‘work’…
The claim made by Christians that Jesus was God has become problematic for many people, and deters many people who might otherwise think of themselves as Christians. I think Christians have become over-dogmatic about what Christians have to believe about Jesus, in a way that has become an obstacle to…
Religious people tend to be healthier than non-religious people, and live longer. The evidence for that is beyond dispute, though it is only a trend, and there can be exceptions. In this blog I want to explore why religious people are healthier. It is tempting to assume that religion actually…