Author Archives: Jon Garvey

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About Jon Garvey

Training in medicine (which was my career), social psychology and theology. Interests in most things, but especially the science-faith interface. The rest of my time, though, is spent writing, playing and recording music.

The subtle art of distinguishing conspiracy theories from truth

Posted on 17/12/2023 by Jon Garvey

Another week, and another young sportsman has had an on-field cardiac arrest. In this case it was the 29 year old captain of Luton Town F.C., who apparently has a previous collapse on the pitch with atrial fibrillation, had it surgically ablated, and was passed fit for all activities again.

Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | 7 Comments

More on “Civilisational Christianity.”

Posted on 12/12/2023 by Jon Garvey

The two pieces I recently did, inspired by Bret Weinstein, were not intended to do him down, since the piece I quoted from him was essentially apologising to Christians that the New Atheism movement, by denigrating them, had sidelined important allies against the same enemies of truth and morality. My main point was that he has failed to recognise that faith in God is the foundation of that morality and truth, not an unfortunate superstitious add-on.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | Leave a comment

Christ and Creation in three prepositions

Posted on 11/12/2023 by Jon Garvey

Here’s a little hermeneutic gem from Richard Bauckham’s excellent book Jesus and the God of Israel.

Posted in Creation, Theology | Leave a comment

More on Bret Weinstein’s evolutionary distorting mirror

Posted on 08/12/2023 by Jon Garvey

Yesterday I critiqued Bret Weinstein’s proposed rapprochement of “science” with Christian morality, pointing out that he misunderstood the foundations of Christianity, and merely tried to replace them with an inferior, naturalistic evolutionary, narrative. In fact the problem is worse than that, because it’s not simply that his proposal hides the shaky metaphysical foundations of naturalism, but that even in materialist terms it is pseudoscientific. And that is because societal morals are demonstrably non-evolutionary. As I will now demonstrate.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | Leave a comment

Bret Weinstein’s evolutionary mirror

Posted on 07/12/2023 by Jon Garvey

Bret Weinstein has been one of the good guys regarding not only COVID, but the woke phenomenon that targeted him and his wife when he was working in academia. But he’s also an evolutionary biologist, and likes to frame everything from the viewpoint of random change and natural selection. That’s useful when dealing with the micro-evolution of viruses, but less so when dealing with human values.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 1 Comment

Unconstitutional monarchy

Posted on 02/12/2023 by Jon Garvey

I’m not a follower of royal news, certainly not when it involves Mickey Mouse accusations of family racism, and even more when our constitutionally constrained king chooses to speak at COP28, discarding the advice he received for the last such bash, that it would be political to attend, and therefore contradictory to his role to represent the whole British people and avoid politics.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology | 1 Comment

One of my occasional posts on occasionalism

Posted on 27/11/2023 by Jon Garvey

How God works in the world is often regarded (and is indeed) a deep philosophical question. But it actually matters in real life, which is why the Bible says a lot about it. Because it doesn’t do so in a systematic analytical way, but through narrative, poetry, historiography and so on, its importance is often missed by those academics who like systematics.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 6 Comments

Bad theology exposed in the tabloids

Posted on 24/11/2023 by Jon Garvey

A story in the Daily Mail today caught my attention. Essentially the piece is in the genre “human interest hit job on religious cult,” the cult in this case being “Bigoted Fundamentalist Christianity.” But I noticed it because the strapline included “Guildford County School for Girls,” in my hometown, so I wondered if the youth club that changed her life for the worse might be the one I went to.

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A perfect jihad

Posted on 20/11/2023 by Jon Garvey

Outside observers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Andy Ngo (now based in London) point out the perfect storm of violence and cultural disaster now brewing across Europe, not least in England. This has been brought into focus, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, by the crude antisemitism evident in the response in Britain to the current Middle East war, combined with the (to say the least) easy ride given to Hamas amongst our British intelligentsia. One concerning thing, to me, is how these attitudes are shared even by many in the sceptical community.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | 1 Comment

Book review: Busting Anti-Vax Myths

Posted on 19/11/2023 by Jon Garvey

I had higher than usual expectations whilst I was awaiting my free review copy of this 2022 book by Prof. Oisín MacAmadáin (Expert), not least because the author’s Dublin agent turns out to be related to me by a marriage in Queen Elizabeth I’s time. How unlikely is that? (Well, not that unlikely, since 20 generations ago both of us have 1 million ancestors, around the total population of Ireland at that time, though the fact that both ancestors were Archbishops of Armagh might change the odds a little). Still, that human connection with the author certainly warmed me to the book in advance.

Posted in Medicine, Science | Leave a comment