2010-06-30

At long last, another leader who won’t play with god

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Religion is too much with us
Middle America, Benedict
Blair, Rudd, Abbott
Zion, Mecca, Congress

Thank the Darwinian Fish for a fresh air Gillard

See Gillard won’t play the religion card

“I am not going to pretend a faith I don’t feel,” she said.

“I am what I am and people will judge that.

“For people of faith, I think the greatest compliment I could pay to them is to respect their genuinely held beliefs and not to engage in some pretence about mine.”

Bio
Latest Posts

Neil Godfrey

Neil is the author of this post. To read more about Neil, see our About page.

Latest posts by Neil Godfrey (see all)

Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection - 2024-09-10 08:56:33 GMT+0000
“I am not persuaded” — valid criticism or merely posturing? - 2024-08-27 08:49:12 GMT+0000
Questioning the Identity/Historicity of the Apostle Paul - 2024-08-25 04:09:22 GMT+0000

If you enjoyed this post, please consider donating to Vridar. Thanks!

3 thoughts on “At long last, another leader who won’t play with god”

Gingerbaker says:

2010-06-30 23:00:11 GMT+0000 at 23:00

Methinks she respects those religious beliefs of others a little too much. She just announced she does not support gay marriage. 🙁

Reply
neilgodfrey says:

2010-06-30 23:25:41 GMT+0000 at 23:25

Okaay — but there’s still hope — that might be just her way of saying she doesn’t support marriage, period!??? (She is living de facto herself, after all.)

Do let me enjoy my new balloon for a little while before you start poking it with needles! :-/

Reply
Gingerbaker says:

2010-07-01 03:50:57 GMT+0000 at 03:50

Argghh. Sorry, Neil. ;D

Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

"Very good. This post is going straight to the March 2016 Biblical Studies Carnival."

—N.T. Wrong, – March 2016
"For an excellent example of generally high-quality scholarship by someone who isn’t a biblical studies professor, see Neil Godfrey’s work posted on the website vridar.org."

— Tom Dykstra, – JOCABS 2015
"Thanks much for this book review. I think it expands, and contributes to, the effort in honouring Thomas that we with Lukasz originally had in mind with this volume. Best, Emanuel"

-- Emanuel Pfoh - August 2020
This is superb work, Neil, and reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s work from a century ago. . . . .

I commend you for being the first to even TRY to translate Bruno Bauer’s brilliant Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs, which is now more than 150 years old.

. . . . .Thank you for your historic effort.

-- Paul Trejo, M.A., - November 2022
Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
"I still wonder at all the material you turn out for Vridar. The more I read your stuff (and I still do, of course), the more I realize how much we all owe you. Your voice is unique."

— Earl Doherty, November 2013 (personal email)
Congratulations, Vridar, . . . I declare, Vridar, your own hard work translating Bruno Bauer will make a major difference in future studies of Bruno Bauer and the evolution of Hegel’s philosophy of religion.

-- Paul Trejo, - April 2023
"Neil, for what it is worth it is obvious to me that if you had earlier in life tracked into a graduate program at one of the world’s leading research universities you would be one of the world’s formidable ones. You are doing essentially the same quality now (apart from the philology and languages) except mostly sticking to commenting on others’ work as informed comment/discussion."

— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
"I’ve even been cited by atheists with approval (which I really don’t know how to take, so thanks, I think, but I’m not sure, Vrider (even though I feel like I need to take a shower now))."

-- Jim West, – September 2010
"Thanks for your very elaborate review! I realized that I hadn’t added your blog to our blogroll. This oversight has been corrected. Looking forward to more segments."

— Anthony Le Donne, – September 2009
"Neil, this is actually rather useful. Good job."

— R. Joseph Hoffmann, – June 2014
"These reviews of yours are so bloody weird!"

— James Crossley, – April 2010
"Vridar is consistently thought-provoking, well-informed, and asking the right questions. There are intelligent, thoughtful comments and commenters regularly offering productive discussion. Books and publications are covered with a range of perspectives with attempts at fair and accurate representation of others’ arguments and content (where there are occasional and inevitable missteps on that I notice Neil making corrections and apologies where warranted, which wins points with me). Please carry on."

— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
"Neil, You’ve done a clean job in your posting on ‘Jesus the Healer’. It reflects well on you. Best, John"

— John Moles, September 2011 (personal email)
"I have found your website really valuable as an interpretive filter for Biblical scholarship, especially the origins of Christianity and historicity of Jesus issue. Your clarity of expression, fair comments and personal insights are much valued. I refer to your site frequently as yet more names and publications pop up requiring an academic critique and helpful recommendations for book purchases. So, please continue to delve deeply and share this intellectual sustenance with your grateful readers."

— Mary Booker, – February 2020 (personal email)
"I want to say here that this site is so resourceful and highly on top of the most modern scholarship in the areas discussed here. . . I know of no other site which offers a wide range of topics related to careful critical analysis of historically and scripturally related issues."

-- Martin Lewadny, - March 2009
"By the way, my thanks to Neil for an ongoing superb job of exposing Jim’s review for what it is: a farcical and none too effective exercise in mythicism assassination, nothing to do with rational, let alone unbiased, scholarship. I’m also happy to see even Jim giving Neil credit where credit is due."

— Earl Doherty, June 2011
"I find your blog most interesting and appreciate your ongoing effort to keep to the evidence for the issues discussed!"

-- Thomas L. Thompson, - April 2020
"Thanks for this detailed interaction! I’ll try to offer something more substantial than 'Thank you' in response at some point, but I didn’t want to wait . . . to express appreciation for your detailed interaction with what I’ve written!"

— James McGrath, – June 2009
"Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work."

— Richard Carrier, – March 2014
"I always enjoy reading Neil’s blog because I think that he is careful, thorough, intellectually fair, and honest."

— April DeConick, – November 2007
"Note that I do not use the term ‘amateur’ pejoratively. . . . In fact, Godfrey is extremely well read and his librarian skills have brought many important academic works to my attention."

Raphael Lataster - August 2019
"I’d like to thank you for this very nice representation of what I was trying to show in the book. It’s always gratifying when a reader zeroes in on exactly those aspects I thought were most interesting and most central to my argument. Thank you for this careful and engaged reading of my work – much appreciated!"

— Eva Mroczek, – June 2017
It is worth saying another word of appreciation here for Neil Godfrey's effort to make Bruno Bauer accessible in English.

-- Peter Kirby, - May 2023
"Fantastic. I’m so glad you’re helping to spread these ideas!"

Nancy Fraser - June 2019 (personal email)
"Here I give an admittedly subjective short list, in random order, of useful, high level and regularly updated weblogs on the study of the Old Testament . . . ‘Vridar: Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science’ (http://vridar.org/) by Neil Godfrey"

-- Klaas Spronk, - Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXI, 3/4 (2014)
"I think you have a high quality blog that provides a positive public service by discussing academic topics within a wider audience."

— Russell Gmirkin, – October 2016
"Many thanks for this post, and for the quality of your blog."

— Philippe Wajdenbaum, – November 2018
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

-- Enrico Tuccinardi, - October 2022

ABuddhist on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “>Some interesting stories in the above, like the “a sramana who burned himself alive in Athens to demonstrate his faith”…” Sep 12, 00:07
ABuddhist on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “Fascianting. That would mean that the Berenike Buddha arose at the same time as many prominent early Mahayana Buddhist texts…” Sep 11, 23:57
ABuddhist on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “A prominent example from the website are to this Buddhist nonsensical. 1. The claim that Trinity derives from the Sanskrit…” Sep 11, 23:54
Andrew Dabrowski on Questioning the Identity/Historicity of the Apostle Paul: “When we’re addressing human behavior, nothing is really off the table, e.g. conspiracy theories entailing destruction, suppression, and/or concoction of…” Sep 11, 16:36
Neil Godfrey on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “Here is the link you spoke of: https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-egyptians/1st-century-buddha-statue-from-ancient-egypt-indicates-buddhists-lived-there-in-roman-times Dalrymple writes of the Berenike finds as you would expect. An earlier…” Sep 11, 06:39
Glynn Woodbury on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “I was researching Neoplatonism for a lecture at a local Philosophy Group, and noticed the rather close parallels between Plotinus’…” Sep 11, 05:09
Gordon Rouse on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “Takes only a little bit of lazy research raise your plausible to a highly likely! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_the_Roman_world Some interesting stories in…” Sep 10, 23:30
Neil Godfrey on Questioning the Identity/Historicity of the Apostle Paul: “Very true re the believer. But the same believer would not be interested in doing Bayes — would dismiss it…” Sep 10, 21:46
Neil Godfrey on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “So you are a fellow LNL Gladys/poddie? (Readers not familiar with the radio series Late Night Live will have no…” Sep 10, 20:30

Neil Godfrey

Latest posts by Neil Godfrey (see all)

Share this:

Like this:

3 thoughts on “At long last, another leader who won’t play with god”

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Discover more from Vridar