Blog
Religious glasnost
(16 June 13)by Greg Spearritt
The Age tells us that it will soon be law in Russia that anyone “ expressing clear disrespect for society” and “offending religious feelings of the faithful” can face up to a year in prison and a fine equivalent to almost $10,000 Australian. If you do it in a church it’s three years and around $16,000.
It’s no surprise given Russian history, and particularly with egotist and former KGB agent Putin in charge, that authoritarianism should be again ruling the roost in Moscow. Putin’s current collusion with the Russian Orthodox Church – an institution for so long ‘disrespected’ in the most thorough-going manner by the State – is of course ironic.
Dissent is not in Putin’s interest and any challenge to the new-found power of the Church is not taken kindly by its hierarchy. The two forces are aligning in ways that spell trouble for societal – and, I expect, for ecclesiastical – reform in Russia. A current example is the Canute-like push to repress gay rights: open discussion of homosexuality in public fora (or anywhere that children can access) will soon be a criminal offence.
The freedom to challenge authority has been one of the main factors in outing child sexual abuse in religious and other institutions in Australia. We should cherish the fact that Australian Churches and religious figures have by and large lost the authority they once had, and their influence on public policy is greatly diminished. Australian religious ‘glasnost’ – though still unpopular with some churches – is a civilising force: openness and transparency are antidotes to festering secrets and hidden social and political influence.
Religious groups and figures who support this openness – and there are many – are helping us forge a fairer, more decent society.
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Sham or shame?
(29 May 13)by Greg Spearritt
The use by anti-vaccination advocates of a reportedly “sham” religious group raises questions beyond the debate over vaccination.
The Church of Conscious Living (CCL) was apparently set up at least in part to allow parents who are anti-vaccination to claim religious exemption from government regulations. However, belief in a “Higher Power” is proclaimed on the Church’s website, as are “sacred laws” for adherents to follow. The CCL therefore meets the two criteria required by Australian law for a religious group: belief in a Supernatural Being, Thing or Principle, and the acceptance of canons of conduct in order to give effect to that belief.
Of course, being a religious group has a few well-known advantages in addition to an ability to claim conscientious objection, including exemption from income and capital gains tax provisions and access to fringe benefit tax rebates.
So is the CCL a “sham”, as News Ltd suggests? It seems hard to argue that case, given that it jumps through the same basic hoops as accepted religious groups like Scientology and The Free Daist Communion of Australia (both actually named as legitimate in Australian tax guides). Certainly it’s newer, but there’s no ‘test of time’ provision in Australian law.
Is it a ‘shame’ that just about anyone with enough gall can start a religious group and be recognised in Australia for tax (and other) purposes? Now that’s another question…
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Events
(27 May 13)by Greg Spearritt
An updated list of public lectures, seminars or conferences that might interest SoFiA members is now online. Check it out!
Signs and wonders
(23 May 13)by Greg Spearritt
The Australian Christian Lobby (“a voice for values”) boasts that it has recently
Played the major public role in defending marriage, including raising what must be one of the largest petitions by the church in Australia at 100,586 signatures.
Presumably this campaign involved what News Ltd is referring to in a recent article:
THE Australian Christian lobby has issued a bizarre statement arguing that same sex marriage could lead to a new "stolen generation", and would inevitably lead to children being taught the mechanics of homosexual sex in school sex education classes.
In a rambling statement, the Lobby's managing director Lyle Shelton said Kevin Rudd's overnight change-of-mind ignored the consequence of "robbing children of their biological identity through same-sex surrogacy and other assisted reproductive technologies".
The tide of history is clearly in the process of sweeping away these out-dated and unjust views, just as it swept away slavery, apartheid and an earth-centred cosmos, all of which have been staunchly defended by Christians (and based, as the ACL claims to be, on “a Biblical worldview”) at one time or another.
You’d think Bible-based Christians might be impressed by ‘signs and wonders’ such as the gay rainbow referred to by conservative New Zealand MP Maurice Williamson in his impressive speech supporting the NZ legislation in favour of gay marriage.
Again, New Zealand leads the way: how long before Australian politicians genuinely represent their electorates on the matter?
Vale Vatican II
(13 April 13)by Greg Spearritt
Archbishop Pell is reportedly amongst those appointed by Pope Francis to a permanent advisory committee to run and reform the Catholic Church. That doesn’t auger well for those hoping Francis might soften the hard-line conservative social and theological approach of the Vatican. No resurrection for Vatican II thinking, it seems.
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Wise words on witches
(28 March 13)by Greg Spearritt
Gary Bouma, Anglican priest and emeritus professor of sociology at Monash Uni, was recently reported commenting on the growing secularism of Australian society:
He recalls speaking to university students about religious diversity in Australia recently and telling them that four times as many people in the 2006 census said they were witches than Quakers. ''The looks on their faces showed something was wrong. I thought for a while … and then it dawned. I asked, 'does anybody know what a Quaker is?''' he said.
''There must have been 150 of them and not one hand went up. They knew all about witches, they'd all grown up with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the Quakers - perhaps an interesting sideline to older Christians - they're just not a part of their life experience.''
No doubt Bouma’s last sentence here was something of a throw-away line, but in one respect I’m willing to bet it’s wrong. Perhaps these uni students did believe they “knew all about witches”, however I expect their actual knowledge of Wicca and/or Neo-Paganism, let alone of the historical phenomenon of witchcraft and its persecutors in Christendom, would be virtually nil.
One way to catch up with an historical perspective on the question of witches (many of whom, it turns out, were male) is to read some of Philip Almond’s recent work, such as his 2012 book, The Lancashire Witches (I.B.Taurus). There’s more than historical interest here, too: it’s a cautionary tale for our own age, where the exercise of power has proved so very troublesome for priests and politicians alike.
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New articles online
(08 March 13)by Greg Spearritt
For your reading (or re-reading) pleasure, a new clutch of articles and reviews has been recently added to the SoFiA website. These are all items by SoFiA members and are sourced from The Bulletin, SoFiA’s regular newsletter. (If you haven’t already, you may like to subscribe.)
Articles
- ‘Mystical Experiences and Respect for the Whole Brain’ by Rev. Dr Ian Mavor
- ‘The Pale Blue Dot’ by Adrian Jones
- ‘Easter & Eggs, Heaven & Hell’ by Owen Ronalds
- ‘Faith or No Faith?’ by Chantal Babin
- ‘If Only’ by John D. Wessel
- ‘An Argument for Unbelief’ by David Milan
- ‘Iconography in Christianity’ by Peter Robinson
Reviews
- Love Upside Down by Steven Ogden (2010)
- The Gospel According to Woman by Karen Armstrong (1986)
- The Shack by William P. Young (2007)
- Poetic Tales: Logosofia Down to Earth by Dinah Livingstone (2010)
- Bite Your Tongue by Francesca Rendle-Short (2011)
- The Caged Virgin by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2006)
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Malcolm for PM
(04 March 13)by Greg Spearritt
No, not that Malcolm… the original one. Malcolm Fraser has again put our current (and some former) political leaders to shame on the question of asylum-seekers, and on the place of religion in Australia. Is it too late for a political comeback?
The conundrum of Catholicism
(02 March 13)by Greg Spearritt
There has been a lot of bad press lately for the Catholic Church. From badly-behaving archbishops and corrupt cardinals to criminal neglect and abuse to out and out paedophilia among clergy followed up by a callous insensitivity to victims of abuse, it’s a torrent of problems. In places the Church continues, nonetheless, to wield its power politically as though secular states should still be somehow beholden to its authority and accept its repressive nineteenth-century values.
On the other hand, many of the most enlightened, reasonable and tolerant religious voices I hear locally are Catholic ones (albeit mostly lay voices). Without the low-profile, consistent work of many Catholic social justice groups (there are examples all around Australia) this country would be a much less compassionate and civilised place.
A conundrum indeed, since any parish or bishop straying from official view or practice is quickly brought into line or shown the left foot of fellowship.
Will a new Pope make any difference?
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Muddling metaphysics
(20 February 13)by Greg Spearritt
Mathematician and theologian Neil Omerod criticises what he calls the “metaphysical muddle” apparent in Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss’s recent book A Universe from Nothing. Perhaps he has a point:
Much of Krauss' energy is expended telling us that "nothing" - in his sense of empty space - "is not nothing" at all, but a seething undercurrent of virtual particles which can "pop" into real existence through their interaction with powerful fields. Scientifically this may well be correct, but it clearly does not address the question of whether something can come from nothing, but tells us how some things can come from something else (that is, from empty space, which is not really empty at all).
We can witness here a basic confusion operating in Krauss' conception of "nothing." Nothing is not defined as the absence of existence or being, but as the emptiness of space and time. But at the same time, space "exists." The ontological status of space is thus confused for Krauss. One the one hand existence (being "something") occurs within space; on the other hand, space exists. Because space is actually never empty, even "nothing is something" as he states as the title of a chapter of his book. Krauss is in a metaphysical muddle, but seems completely unaware of the fact.
Ormerod’s article is well worth a read. I see two problems with it, however.
First, as usual when we come to speak of God as Cosmic First Cause the question of how that ‘God’ relates to the various Christian conceptions of the Divine goes begging. If God is the Necessity at the base of everything, it’s by no means plain that It (He?) gives a damn about earth creatures in general, let alone the millions of humans living in misery from congenital diseases and natural disasters, let alone the hairs on your head.
Second, I’m not persuaded that Ormerod’s apologetic aim of reclaiming the reality and necessity of God is well-served by his conclusion. Under the heading “Welcome to a fuller reality”, he says:
It goes without saying that you cannot prove the existence of God to a materialist without first converting the materialist away from materialism. In the present context, if we think of the real as an "already-out-there-now" real of extroverted consciousness, then God is not real. God becomes just a figment of the imagination, a fairy at the bottom of the garden, an invisible friend. However, if the real is constituted by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation, then reality suddenly becomes much richer, and the God-question takes on a different hue.
But it is not just the God-question that we can now begin to address more coherently. There are a whole range of other realities whose reality we can now affirm: interest rates, mortgages, contracts, vows, national constitutions, penal codes and so on. Where do interest rates "exist"? Not in banks, or financial institutions. Are they real when we cannot touch them or see them? We all spend so much time worrying about them - are we worrying about nothing? In fact, I'm sure we all worry much more about interest rates than about the existence or non-existence of the Higgs boson! Similarly, a contract is not just the piece of paper, but the meaning the paper embodies; likewise a national constitution or a penal code.
I have no hesitation in agreeing that God is real in the same way that interest rates, contracts or, say, the Tropic of Capricorn are real. As Don Cupitt has pointed out since the early 1980s, these are all human creations. You don’t sail across the Tropic of Capricorn and look over the side of the boat to see if you can spot the line: like ‘God’, it’s an idea, an entirely human construct which is useful but tells us nothing about some reality beyond human meaning and human language.
If there is an Ultimate Reality out there/in here/wherever we have absolutely no way of knowing about it other than by using categories (using Ormerod’s “intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation”) that lead us straight back to ourselves. Our world of meaning and inquiry is outsideless. As Cupitt says, if you wish to affirm a reality beyond language (in its broadest sense, as the interplay of meaning through signs), please convey it to us in something other than language. The moment you use language you’re back inside the bubble.
This is not to say there is no reality beyond the human thought-world, just that it is unknowable as it is in itself. In whatever sense we use the word ‘God’ we are talking about a human creation rather than, as Ormerod seems to want to do, an objectively-existing entity. I’m happy to stand corrected, but I very much doubt that Ormerod really wants to own theological non-realism.
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Speakers - Religion & Sex
(09 February 13)by Greg Spearritt
The list of topics and speakers for our 2013 SoFiA Conference, Religion & Sex, is now finalised:
See our events page for the registration form and more information.
‘The sexy ape’
Glen McBride
Professor Glen McBride is Emeritus Professor of Social Ethology in the Animal Behaviour Unit (Psychology Department) at the University of Queensland. Glen is author of The Genesis Chronicles: The evolution of humankind (Allen & Unwin, 2000) and in 2012 he published on the evolution of consciousness. He has also published a popular book for The Readers Digest on Animal Families.
‘Hope: the chequered history of sex and the Church’
Steven Ogden
Dr Steven Ogden is Principal of St Francis Theological College Brisbane, as well as an adjunct lecturer at Charles Sturt University. He is formerly Dean of St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide. His latest book is a popular work called Love Upside Down: Life, Love and the Subversive Jesus (O-Books, 2011). He is presently writing an academic work on freedom, power and the Church.
‘Trust betrayed: sexual abuse in religious settings’
Stephen Smallbone
Professor Stephen Smallbone is a psychologist and Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University, Director of Griffith Youth Forensic Service and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. He has authored and co-authored many articles and books concerned with understanding and preventing sexual violence and abuse against children. These include ‘Religious affiliations among adult sexual offenders’ (2006); Situational prevention of child sexual abuse (2006); Preventing Child Sexual Abuse: Evidence, policy and practice (2008); and Internet child pornography: Causes, investigation and prevention (2012).
‘Religion and sex in contemporary Australia’
Leslie Cannold
Dr Leslie Cannold is an award-wining author and columnist, as well as a qualified ethicist and researcher currently based at the Gender, Leadership and Social Sustainability Research Unit at Monash Uni. In 2011, Leslie won an EVA award for responsible media reporting and was honoured as Australian Humanist of the Year. Her latest book, now in its second printing, is an historical novel, The Book of Rachael (Text, 2012).
Register now!
The Judeo-Christian values smorgasbord
(26 January 13)by Greg Spearritt
Liberal Senator Cory Bernadi – he of the ‘gay-marriage-may-lead-to-bestiality’ claim – is first on the South Australian Liberal Senate ticket for the 2013 federal election.
Bernadi criticises the government for having “steadfastly refused to stop the flow of illegal arrivals and protect our borders, while rewarding the new arrivals with gift packs of whitegoods and welfare.” He lauds smaller government, lower taxes, the family as “the most important unit of society” and, wait for it… Judeo-Christian values. He's also been an international delegate of the American Legislative Exchange Council and has allegedly received payments from the Heartland Institute for travel and accommodation.
The values Bernadi promotes would include the values, surely, of one Jesus of Nazareth: the same Jesus who is reputed to have said "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26) and who refused a disciple’s request to be given time to bury his father (Matt 8:21-22); the same Jesus who was himself, as an infant, a refugee (Matt 2:13-23) and consistently stood up for outcasts and those in need. Hospitality for the stranger is, of course, a prominent theme in the Old Testament.
I don’t see much in the Bible about the right to bear arms or allow large corporations to make huge profits peddling goods that kill half those who use them as they’re intended to be used. There is quite a bit about honesty (Psalm 51:6, for instance, or Ephesians 4:25 or 1 Peter 3:10-12), which rather calls into question Bernadi’s description of asylum-seekers as “illegal arrivals”.
Perhaps it’s okay to be selective about Judeo-Christian values. You could, for instance, focus on the anti-gay bits without accepting slavery and refusing shellfish. Standing up for honesty and against exacerbating human misery seem a little more core-value, however.
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To celebrate or not to celebrate…
(25 January 13)by Greg Spearritt
A degree of ambivalence is in order, surely, for Australians on January 26.
We have a lot to celebrate, not least the evolution of a stable, reasonably egalitarian society from unimaginably violent beginnings where inequality and prejudice were entrenched. Inasmuch as we and our families or acquaintances have contributed to that, we can and should be proud.
But January 26 is also Invasion Day (or Survival Day), and the stats on indigenous disadvantage are still shameful in 2013. That said, the fact that there’s now a place for Bonita Mabo in our Australia Day honours list is a gratifying indication that progress, however slow, is being made.
Then there’s the problem of nationalism. Ben Groundwater puts it well:
I dislike the whole concept of nationhood, the way people support their country like it's a football team playing in a grand final. Like we have to choose sides. How much better would it be if we'd all stop taking pride in the little slices of the globe we happened to pop out in and starting just being citizens of the world?
Much of what we see around Oz on January 26 is nothing more than tribalism writ large. For some there’s a fervency about our national identity – at least as they define it – which borders on being religious. The fluttering of Aussie flags from our car doors (a sound appropriately reminiscent of flatulence) is one such sign, and is unwittingly ironic: it shows what good American citizens we are becoming.
For mine, a different date to celebrate would be a good start. Then ditch the car flags and leaven the outbursts of Aussie pride with some good old Aussie self-deprecating humour and even a little sober reflection on where we need to do better.
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Madly spiritual
(07 January 13)by Greg Spearritt
The SMH reports on a study by a group based around the Faculty of Brain Sciences at the University College London Medical School which investigated links between the mental health of people in England and their religious or spiritual beliefs. (35% of respondents in the study had a religious understanding of life, 19% were spiritual but not religious and 46% were neither religious nor spiritual.)
The conclusion? “People who have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework are vulnerable to mental disorder.”
Is there something about institutional religion and scepticism/disbelief that keeps people somehow ‘grounded’?
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Religion under attack
(29 December 12)by Greg Spearritt
Religion Under Attack, a recent book by Nigel Leaves explores – intelligently for a change, with nuance – those attacking religion and what the Church’s response ought to be. Cordelia Hull was impressed.
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Happy New Year
(28 December 12)by Greg Spearritt
“Don’t worry,” sang Bobby McFerrin in 1988; “be happy”. Leszek KoÅ‚akowski tells why none of us, bar the ignorant, can in fact have a Happy New Year – including God. His argument is persuasive.
Nonetheless, let’s make the most of the potential inherent in our New Year celebrations. The idea that things can be better than they are now has been one of the hallmarks of western thinking. In line with that tradition, a determination to make the world less miserable – by whatever means – would be a grand resolution. Maybe small-h ‘happy’ is do-able in 2013.
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Christmas angst
(13 December 12)by Greg Spearritt
People are outraged, if the News Ltd press is to be believed.
We’re outraged, for instance, that the Christmas season is being hijacked by creationists. Victorian schoolchildren – in Christian education classes, no less – are learning such pernicious numbers as ‘God Made Cows’ and ‘He Made Everything You See’. This item does make a valid point that ‘Creation Rap’ and ‘The Butterfly Song’ have turned up in end-of-year State School concerts which are presumably not just for those who attend RI classes. (I’ve long thought ‘The Butterfly Song’ was crying out for the Monty Python treatment.) Presumably any parents involved who felt aggrieved have voiced their outrage to local school decision-makers.
We’re also outraged that the thought police think they can knock Christmas on the head. We’re being made to feel guilty about celebrating Christmas. One munchkin had no nativity scenes at her school this Christmas and, if the photo is anything to go by, she’s Not Happy. No, says Victorian Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship Minister Nick Kotsiras: we should be proud to celebrate Christmas. The Minister was “swamped with support” for his brave stand. In other comment it’s been lamented that “a small, angry minority wants to rid our society of any religion or spirituality” and expunge any reference to a baby in a manger. We should “give some credence to the 66 per cent of the Australian population who choose to believe” (though exactly what they choose to believe is not made clear, nor is the source of the statistic.)
It’s not even Christmas yet – we have the rest of Advent to get through first. Our society is clearly going to pot over Christmas. Be prepared to be further outraged.
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Behind the abuse
(18 November 12)by Greg Spearritt
Hopefully one of things to come out of a royal commission into child sexual abuse will be an examination of the why as well as the what.
The inquiry will no doubt help us determine whether the Catholic Church is any more culpable than other religious and secular organisations, but there have been strong indications for quite some time that that is likely.
What factors could be at play? A few possibilities:
- One obvious element is the requirement for Catholic priests to be celibate. An end to mandatory celibacy amongst clergy has been called for in the current Victorian state inquiry as an interim protective measure against child abuse. The case has been argued recently using a comparison between Eastern Orthodox and western Catholic clergy.
- Catholic priestly formation (involving strict segregation from the opposite sex) began for many current priests when they were still just children themselves. It’s not so common these days, thank goodness.
- Don Cupitt in The Meaning of the West speaks of “the repressive boarding-school culture of the Church”. Absolute authority rules – at least where George Pell and the influence of the Vatican reign – and discipline is king. Anyone deviating the tiniest bit from prescribed belief or practice is demoted or shown the boot: Brisbane’s Peter Kennedy, Toowoomba’s Bill Morris and Melbourne’s Michael Morwood and Bob Maguire, for example. It’s the opposite of openness, and a culture in which secrets can easily fester. The Church is no democracy.
- An unwarranted respect in our society for authority – be it of the Bible, the Church or of tradition – has clearly contributed to abuse. Many victims have suffered through a misplaced trust that someone or something represents God to us and must therefore be believed and followed without question.
- A naïve attitude towards religious people, especially clergy, has also allowed many parents to put their children in harm’s way. The fact that someone is ordained or is particularly religious is (as we have seen) absolutely no guarantee that they won’t harm children.
There may be many other possible explanations for abuse and a lack of proper safeguards against it. Many of the factors here may apply just as much to bodies other than the Catholic Church, but all are particularly evident with respect to religion in general. Let’s hope the royal commission can shed some light and become a catalyst for change.
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‘An excuse to attack the Church’
(18 November 12)by Greg Spearritt
Alexander Downer is not against a royal commission into child sexual abuse. He warns, however, that it seems to be “an excuse for atheists to let loose against Christianity and sectarians to attack the church's beliefs and traditions”.
Unbelievably, Downer laments that public commentary has singled out the Catholic Church. He’s right, of course, that there is child abuse in other churches, religions and institutions. The evidence is strong, though, that the problem has been particularly rife within Catholicism.
The response of that Church, to boot – a Church which publicly preaches compassion and moral rectitude – has been hypocritical in the extreme. The effect of that response has been twofold: victims continue to suffer and those who damage children have been allowed to continue doing so.
Certainly it is to be hoped that the royal commission will leave no significant stones unturned, be they Hindu, Catholic or atheist. But a failure to focus on a particularly widespread and systemic source of abuse would be as morally bereft as the cover-ups perpetrated by a some of those in the Catholic hierarchy.
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Flood of revelations
(17 November 12)by Greg Spearritt
This week’s newspaper coverage of the impending Royal Commission into child sexual abuse has been amazing. The ‘Abuse’ section of Religion News Australia (SoFiA’s roundup of articles touching on religion from the Fairfax press, News Ltd and the ABC) normally features a few to a half dozen items. This week it’s over 120 - eight A4 pages’ worth!
Of course the issue has been building over time, but the floodgates are at last well and truly open. And if it’s a flood, it’s only because there have been (if you’ll pardon the pun) damning obstructions, most notably from some within the Catholic Church hierarchy.
George Pell complains of a smear campaign against the Church. Mike Carlton’s response is entirely appropriate:
To portray the church as a victim in this filthy business was an Orwellian reversal of the polarity of right and wrong, truth and fiction. With self-serving hypocrisy, Pell delivered yet another slap in the face to those hundreds if not thousands of children, and their families, who suffered abuse.
You don’t need to hear too many of the awful stories of those abused to know this is not the time that a man of genuine compassion would be defending the institution. (Even before the Royal Commission begins, the stories abound. For example… and also… and here…)
It’s another instance, in my view, of the tendency of institutional Christianity to do as it has almost always done: overturn the values of the one it claims as founder in favour of self-preservation. Of course within the Catholic Church there are the Bob Maguires (many of whom, like Bob, have been shown the left foot of fellowship) who have the integrity to make that very point and to work against the tendency.
Is it just the Catholic Church? Of course not, though the statistics suggest there’s a particular problem there. We’ve seen the same culture of cover-up in the ADF, the Murdoch press, the BBC, various police forces and innumerable governments: anywhere a lack of openness and inadequate checks and balances are evident.
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2012 SoFiA Conference Resources
(02 November 12)by Greg Spearritt
Two items newly posted at Eureka Street by Peter Kirkwood are well worth a look. They feature video of Adrian Pyle and Noel Preston from the 2012 SoFiA Conference:
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School-sponsored ignorance
(20 October 12)by Greg Spearritt
Ignorance is not bliss: it’s damaging, and at its worst, dangerous. The world of religion has shown us the truth of this in recent times.
The ignorance of the Catholic faithful, wilfully encouraged in an era of uncritical acceptance of authority, allowed terrible abuses to occur. As Alan Howe of the Herald Sun puts it, these are “days of shame” for Australia’s Catholic Church.
''Ignorant people are very dangerous things,'' say members of a Muslim family whose brother was killed in the Bali bombings. ''The thing is the degree of their knowledge - they don't question. You can move them to do dangerous things and kill beautiful people.''
You might think that ignorance was the very thing schools would be designed to overcome. Not, it seems, in the realm of religion. The Queensland Teachers’ Union, among others, makes the point that religion taught in State Schools should not just be about Christianity. Yet the only significant exposure to religion most students have is in two forms: through ‘religious instruction’ lessons usually delivered by fervent believers from local Churches who have next to no knowledge even about the complexities of their own faith let alone knowledge about other religions; and through contact, in Queensland at least, with Scripture Union-trained chaplains.
School chaplains in Queensland are expected by their employer to promote Bible-based Christian values and not to be shy in explaining their own (conservative-evangelical Christian) faith when opportunity knocks. Most parents know nothing about Scripture Union (SU) and assume that a Christian perspective from the ‘chappy’ can only be a good thing – isn’t it all warm fuzzy stuff about honesty and being good and loving your neighbour?
So what values and beliefs do chaplains bring to their work in our state schools? Here’s a brief selection:
Sex outside marriage amounts to sin. (See Acts 15:20; 1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:13, 18; 10:8; Galatians 5:19; Colossians 3:5; Hebrews 13:4 and more). De-facto relationships and living together before marriage are therefore morally wrong. To put this in perspective, the Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that in 2010 11% of all Australians aged 18 years and over were living in a de facto relationship and that 79% of married Australians had lived together before marrying.
Divorce: Matthew 5:32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. On this measure, a significant number of parents in any school community must be considered adulterers.
Homosexuality is immoral, an “abomination” (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, 1 Corinthians 6:9 etc.; see Genesis 19:4-8 for a real eye-opener on Biblical priorities). It’s also, according to Christians with links to SU (notably Jim Wallace, head of the Australian Christian Lobby), a lifestyle choice. In the 2011 Census 33,714 couples declared themselves to be same-sex couples. Between 2 and 15% of Australians report as same-sex attracted. At a large state high school, that means between 30 and 300 students – potential targets for ‘pastoral care’ from our chaplains – are likely to be same-sex attracted.
Headship (1 Corinthians 11:3: … the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man... Ephesians 5:22: Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife…). Are these sexist attitudes ones we would want inculcated in our sons and daughters?
Exclusivity (Acts 4:12: Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.) Salvation is only in Christ, therefore any Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist students or other members of the school community – let alone atheists – are destined not to be saved, i.e. they’ll go to hell. Australia, remember, is a multi-cultural society.
Creation. The earth and its inhabitants were created in 6 days rather than over billions of years. The theory of evolution, an idea that’s foundational to much of our science – and we’re talking about our fundamental educational institutions here – is repudiated by many “Bible-believing” Christians.
Arguably it’s ignorance that brings about the acceptance of such views, since people with sophisticated understandings of biblical texts – an understanding, for instance, of historical-critical approaches to the Bible – rarely take a literal view of the Christian scriptures. Unfortunately, SU does not advocate such an approach. It’s a business “focussed soley (sic) on Bible Engagement” and believes the Old and New Testaments to be “God-breathed” and “fully trustworthy in all that they affirm”.
It would be good – in the interests of reducing ignorance – for the Education Departments of the various State Governments in Australia to make parents more aware of the nature of the organisations (in Victoria it’s Access Ministries) that employ taxpayer-funded chaplains in our state schools. Perhaps then there’d be support for properly-trained student welfare workers instead of faith-based chaplains from evangelical organisations with key beliefs and values that are truly out of kilter with our society.
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New articles online
(23 September 12)by Greg Spearritt
You might like to view some items recently added to the SoFiA website…
- Beyond Difference, Beyond Belief – some talks and reflections from the 2012 SoFiA Conference
- The Quiet Revolution: The Emergence of Interfaith Consciousness – Peter Kirkwood’s keynote address to the 2012 SoFiA Conference
- Our Common Story: a 21st Century Spirituality for Humanity? – Noel Preston’s address to the 2012 SoFiA Conference
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Insulting Islam
(17 September 12)by Greg Spearritt
If it’s a beheading-kind of offence to insult the Prophet, surely it’s a criminal offence to carry signs (or worse, allow young children to carry signs) that insult our tolerant Australian culture by advocating murder. Not to mention the offence of engaging in violent protest against people who had nothing to do with, and didn’t even approve of, the offending anti-Islam film.
I’m probably going along with Andrew Bolt on this one (though I can’t be sure, as I’d rather gnaw off a finger than pay good money to read just about anything he says). I’m certainly in tune with Waleed Aly’s view that a serious conversation must be had in Australia, and before too long.
It’s the few extremists we saw in Sydney who were doing the insulting - not just of Australian society, but of the many good-hearted Australian Muslims with enough intelligence to know when something deserves to be utterly ignored.
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So much for Buddhist ‘cool’
(23 August 12)by Greg Spearritt
A not-so-detached Buddhist was upset recently by the actions of three French tourists pretending to kiss and emulate the pose of a statue of the Buddha. They sent their photos to him to be printed and he promptly called the police. The tourists have now been sentenced to 6 months’ jail, though the sentence has been suspended.
Admittedly this is Theravdan Sri Lanka, not Zen Japan where it might well be in order to refer to the Buddha as a bull-headed jail-keeper (or worse), and the Patriarchs as horse-faced old maids. Nonetheless, it seems a little over the top. I could imagine the antics of the tourists as just a little bit of fun without any intention to offend anyone (though I should make it clear that I don’t know the actual circumstances).
At least the Sri Lankan response is not the kind of vicious, malicious action we see in the case of the Downs Syndrome child prosecuted for blasphemy in Pakistan.
Anyone in Australia fooling around with a statue of Jesus might be considered to be behaving in bad taste, but no more than that. Or maybe not… with the ACT’s new discrimination laws, if it was alleged there was religious vilification going on a prosecution could indeed follow.
It’s common courtesy to respect the feelings of others. There’s little common courtesy when it comes to political feelings, however, as Federal Parliament demonstrates on a daily basis. Should we be so precious about religious feelings?
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Blokes believing blasphemy
(20 August 12)by Greg Spearritt
Blasphemy has been in the spotlight lately.
Russian protest group Pussy Riot face two years’ jail for a 30-second political performance against Putin in a church. According to an ABC report, the judge in that case noted that the female band members crossed into an area of the church forbidden to women and opined that "The girls' actions were sacrilegious, blasphemous and broke the church's rules."
Now an 11-year-old Pakistani girl with Downs Syndrome has been arrested for blasphemy on the grounds that she was found carrying a bag with burnt pages on which texts from the Koran were inscribed.
It all sounds a bit like 15th century Europe: as Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World describes it, the persecution of witches under Pope Innocent VIII was a free-for-all with those in power wreaking terrible havoc in the lives of anyone (especially women) they had some kind of set against. All, of course, ostensibly in the name of preserving the sanctity of true religion.
It’s another reason why we in Australia should struggle to achieve freedom from, as well as of, religion in our civic and political life. Superstition and abuse of power go far too easily hand-in-hand with religious fervour.
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A new progressive Christian voice
(19 August 12)by Greg Spearritt
The influence of conservative Christianity in Australian politics (especially through the Australian Christian Lobby) has been considerable in recent years. Some in society and in the media assume the ACL represents Christians generally, but in truth they speak for a small slice of Australian Christians.
A lobby group aiming to represent progressive Christian voices has just been formed, titled A Progressive Christian Voice (Australia). President Peter Catt (in the press release, below) outlines their aim:
‘We want to be an additional Christian voice in public discourse. We want to represent the voice of the Christians who are trying to view life from the future… In every age we are challenged to see which aspects of our living, which we assume to be foundational to society, are in fact unjust and rob people of the liberty to flourish.
The new body is seeking members: Ray Barraclough, Secretary of APCV can be contacted at dorray@westnet.com.au.
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Launch of A Progressive Christian Voice in Australia
A new cross-denomination Christian group has been formed to add to public discourse in Australia.
President of A Progressive Christian Voice (Australia), The Very Rev’d Dr Peter Catt, of Brisbane, said ‘We want to be an additional Christian voice in public discourse.
‘We want to represent the voice of the Christians who are trying to view life from the future.’
‘We want the Australian public to understand that conservative lobby groups might be one expression of the Christian faith, but they are by no means the only expression’, Dr Catt said.
‘The application of faith to life requires us to endeavour to look back from the future. To have an eye for how future generations will view our current actions.
‘It seems to me that the conservatism that is born of our tendency to be backward-glancing leaves the church playing catch up. For example, we find ourselves having to apologise to the women whose children were taken for forced adoption.'
'We also owe apologies to the woman who grew too old while waiting for the day when women could be ordained. We owe apologies to the divorced people who wanted to remarry in the days when the church held that marrying the wrong person was a mistake one had to live with.'
'And we owe apologies for counselling women to stay in abusive relationships to protect the ‘integrity and sanctity of marriage’.
‘The challenge before us, in my view, is for us to become more future-focused. We need to challenge ourselves to look for the next obstacle to overcome. In every age we are challenged to see which aspects of our living, which we assume to be foundational to society, are in fact unjust and rob people of the liberty to flourish. ‘
APCV hopes to be a positive contributor to the life of the churches and to the wider community.
The Very Rev’d Dr Peter Catt is President of the A Progressive Christian Voice (Australia) Inc
Contact: pcatt@anglicanbrisbane.org.au
Monday, 13 August, 2012
The new church of file sharing
(26 July 12)by Greg Spearritt
Kopimism is a newly-registered religious community in Sweden. Its principles?:
- All knowledge to all
- The search for knowledge is sacred
- The circulation of knowledge is sacred
- The act of copying is sacred.
Sounds rather like it’s in sympathy with SoFiA’s aim of ‘openly exploring’.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, philosophy student and co-founder Isak Gerson was asked whether he believed in God. His response: ''No, I just believe in our values. It's just a belief in holy values.''
There are Chapters of Kopimism around the world but not (as far as I know) in Oz. If it’s good enough for New Zealanders…
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New articles online
(21 July 12)by Greg Spearritt
You might like to view some items recently added to the SoFiA website…
- Should Always Forgive? Are We Obliged to Forgive? (Nigel Sinnott)
- Repairing the Fence: How Can People of Different Faiths Get Along? (Nicholas Rundle)
- Cupitt, Don - Theology's Strange Return (Book review by Peter Bore)
- Kristof, Nicholas & WuDunn, Sheryl - Half the Sky: How to Change the World (Book review by Chantal Babin)
- Suzuki, David & McConnell, Amanda - The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature (Book review by Chantal Babin)
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Chaplaincy Decision
(20 June 12)by Greg Spearritt
It’s official – the Chaplaincy program in schools begun by the Howard government and sustained by Labor is not in line with the Constitution. A brave and costly move by Toowoomba father Ron Williams to challenge the program has paid off. (Contributions to Ron’s costs may be made here.)
In the light of views aired in 2008 by the then head of Access Ministries, a major body sponsoring chaplains in schools, there has been concern about the real role of these chaplains. The 2008 speech was essentially a call to ‘make disciples’ of students, and the chaplains were acknowledged as a key part of that strategy.
In Queensland, Scripture Union is the major body employing school chaplains; its explicit aims (as taken from its website) are:
(1) to make God’s Good News known to children, young people and families and
(2) to encourage people of all ages to meet God daily through the Bible and prayer so that they may come to personal faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, grow in Christian maturity and become both committed church members and servants of a world in need.
There are equally explicit guidelines provided by the Queensland Education Department stating that there will be no evangelism or proselytism by school chaplains, a condition SU claims to accept. In practice, however (from my personal experience), these guidelines are not strictly followed and in some instances are blatantly ignored.
So where to from here?
Schools do need caring people on the ground who are free to be among and to support students in an informal way. These people should have basic counselling qualifications (as recommended by the Australian Psychological Society), but they should not have a religious (or other) agenda. Generous fringe benefit tax arrangements are one way that SU currently manages to have so many chaplains on the ground; if the government is serious about supporting students (as Minister Garrett claims to be), it may just have to bite the bullet and put in the money to do so.
One thing is clear: it is not acceptable to contract this important work out to organisations with a narrow religious (or come to that, secular) agenda. Children in state schools are our future citizens, not a crop ripe to harvest for the Lord.
Catholics and Catholics
(27 May 12)by Greg Spearritt
Is there a better Catholic Church out there than the one we usually see in the newspapers? Will Day says it well.
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Spiritual healing
(24 May 12)by Greg Spearritt
I recently heard a talk on ‘spiritual healing’. I assumed that ‘healing’ meant completely relieving a person of their ailment, so that someone with tennis elbow who is healed would no longer either have the condition or experience pain from it. On that basis I was very sceptical.
After a while, however, I came to see that the speaker was referring to ‘spiritual’ as against ‘physical’ healing. The physical ailment may or may not be healed in this process, but the subject is healed spiritually.
Spirituality is one of my pet hate words (as I’ve posted previously), but I could see some sense in this. Your local GP has a bare 10 minutes to deal with someone’s problem, and I believe it to be well-documented that spending time with people, listening and sympathising can have a powerful effect on well-being. Throw in the placebo effect that inevitably arises when someone who self-describes as a ‘healer’ is focussing on you and why would you not feel much better after a session, even if your tennis elbow pain is still there?
Provided this is not being done for the personal (monetary) gain of the healer, it seems to me pretty much a good thing. Particularly when, as with the person I heard, advice is given that any serious ailment should be taken to a doctor.
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The resurgence of religion?
(01 May 12)by Greg Spearritt
I was recently reminded by a clergyman that we in the West shouldn’t be too complacent in the face of growing secularism. It may be that almost a third of Australians fail to identify with any religion or spiritual belief, but religion (I was assured) is actually on the rise around the world.
In fact, the claim may not be true. Nonetheless, there are of course countries with a much higher proportion of religious believers than Australia, and some in which religious belief is growing. Let’s not be naïve, however: some of those in Australia most eager to point out the resilience/resurgence of religion, including my interlocutor, would actually be very reluctant to identify with many of these expressions of religious faith, even the ‘Christian’ ones.
From Zimbabwe, for example, we hear of pastors doing battle with demonic mermaids. Indeed, Africa in general shows the resilience of traditional beliefs even among Christians and Muslims, as the Pew Forum has reported.
In the Philippines, the country recently identified as the most religious in the world, religion practised by the rural and urban masses is described by the Asia Society as “folk Christianity, combining a surface veneer of Christian monotheism and dogma with indigenous animism”.
It would be fascinating to have a survey of church attenders in Australia to gauge their exact views on the key issues of Christian belief. I expect there are many in the pews who deviate considerably from the views expressed from the pulpit.
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Vale Scott
(12 April 12)by Greg Spearritt
Scott McKenzie, formerly a regular contributor to this weblog, editor of the SoFiA Bulletin and President of SoFiA 2006 - 2008 became ill about a year ago and passed away in March this year.
We are very much indebted to Scott for his efforts and his enthusiasm on behalf of SoFiA. He was a man of integrity, a truth-seeker with little time for pretence or prejudice. Our sympathies go to his family.
We’ll miss you, Scott.
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Why do atheists ridicule religion?
(04 March 12)by Greg Spearritt
Why, asks Steve Kryger in The Punch, does the 2012 Global Atheist Convention (GAC) have comedians constituting nearly a third of its speakers? Why must these atheists poke fun at religion? At the Christian conferences Steve goes to they apparently don’t spend time ridiculing atheism.
As one who attended the last (and inaugural) Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, I have to say there was a fair sprinkling of unfunny cheap shots at religion and put-downs of religious people, and one particularly obscene harangue which someone must have mistakenly thought could be classed as comedy. But there were also many well-considered, sober presentations; instances of speakers (notably Phillip Adams and Richard Dawkins) clearly giving appropriate respect to religion and religious people; and some clever and truly funny satire concerning religious themes and people.
I see three reasons why humour is so central to the atheist movement at this time.
First, humour is subversive. Although our society and political institutions are secular and even among Australians who self-identify as ‘religious’ barely a third are significantly involved in group religious practice (see here), religion retains its old public privileges. Churches don’t pay rates or taxes. They have legal access to public schools and cheerfully send people with no theological training or knowledge of other religious traditions to impose their naïve, uninformed views on unsuspecting school children, a system parents have to opt out of. Although we currently have an atheist as Prime Minister, daily sittings of Parliament begin with prayer.
So religion is still the default, long after most Australians have ceased to take it seriously. (If you doubt this last statement, see how many children of clergy you know regularly attend church or resist the urge to ‘shack up’ before marriage.) The atheist is still the underdog, still discriminated against in so many ways by the system. Humour as subversion is necessary in such a situation: it’s an effective way of jolting people out of the pro-religious assumptions that saturate our society.
Second, religion throws up a great deal that is truly laughable. A few recent examples:
- Jesus heals cancer
- Stuck in a drain by the grace of God
- Face of Jesus 'appears' in Pascoe Vale coffee cup
- Iran cracks down on moral peril of Barbie peddlers
- Religious police swoop on Valentine's Day lovers
Pastor Danny Nalliah (see here and here) is the poster-boy of what’s screwy about religion in Australia, but he’s certainly not alone. From the God-leads-to-success Hillsong Church to Catholic spies to the cringe-worthy and outrageously unoriginal slogan with its greengrocer’s apostrophe on the billboard outside your local church, there’s a lot to laugh at.
Not laughing when someone says or does something really wacky is doing no-one a favour. If the Emperor is standing there buck-naked, it doesn’t benefit him or anyone else to go around pretending he’s in his regal finery. That path leads to gullibility, fraud and abuse. Thinking critically is key to avoiding abuse of power and undue influence, and humour (as noted above) is an effective strategy in debunking such pretentiousness.
Third, humour is fun. To be sure, a part of the protest against religion is in deadly earnest, as it should be. There’s the abuse and distress occasioned by some religious thought and practice (the demeaning of women; priestly abuse of children; tearing of new-borns away from unwed mothers; imposition of guilt over normal human behaviours such as homosexuality and masturbation and so on and so on). And there’s the privileging of religious ideas and groups that makes little sense in an egalitarian society and a secular age (churches not having to pay their way on rates and taxes; entrenched privilege in private church schools which are in part publicly-funded; religious indoctrination, but not education, allowed in public schools; and much more). But many atheists think critically; perhaps they’re more prone than some religious folk to see the funny side of things. Like anyone, religious or not, they enjoy laughing.
Two questions.
Does the atheist movement in its piss-take on religion do justice to the breadth of religious thought and practice? Answer: no. Phillip Adams argued at the last GAC that atheists and religious folk need to get along when their agendas coincide (as often they do, especially on issues of social justice), but more than a few voices at the convention abjectly failed to recognise that some good things are achieved by religion or to acknowledge that there’s a range of sophisticated theological thought out there in believer-land. It’s far easier to laugh at Danny Nalliah or Archbishops Pell or Jensen than to deal with the subtle and mild-to-moderately progressive views of Fr Frank Brennan, erstwhile Toowoomba Catholic Bishop William Morris or the Rev'd Drs Stephen Ogden and Gregory Jenks of St Francis Theological College in Brisbane.
Are people deserving of respect even when they believe wacky things? There’s certainly some belittling and ridicule in the atheist impulse to laugh at religion.
My answer: it depends. If the wackiness results in harm, then probably not. I can’t find it in me, for example, to respect those currently in Afghanistan calling for (or causing) bloodshed because a book got inadvertently burned. On the other hand, a belief in the literal resurrection of Christ while in itself (in my view) silly, doesn’t necessarily cause the believer to go out and hurt people. Mind you, I wouldn’t respect those who hold this view because they hold it: indeed, there are aspects of their ability to reason that I could not respect.
I do hope, once the atheist movement in Australia has had time to mature and begins to see itself as on a more even footing with religion, that it will tone down the ridicule and begin to laugh at itself a little more. In the meantime, I say: bring on the jokes. I’m looking forward to a few good laughs at GAC mark II.
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Hypocritical heirarchy
(02 February 12)by Greg Spearritt
The Age religion journalist Barney Zwartz has delivered a blistering attack on the processes and people involved in the sacking of Toowoomba’s Bishop Morris. This is in the wake of two independent assessments of the Vatican's action which found that the decision flouted both natural justice and the Church’s own canon law.
(The irony of NSW judges starting their 2012 year with a ‘Red Mass’ at which Cardinal Pell was celebrant is clear: the mass is a chance for those “seeking or dispensing justice” to seek divine guidance.)
Zwartz rightly complains of the Catholic authorities that “[t]heir medieval attitudes to authority seem very distant from the biblical teachings of Christ.” Indeed, there’s a great deal about the Catholic Church (and other churches one might name) that fails to measure up to the teachings of the earthly Jesus…
- What might the biblical Jesus have to say about the immense wealth of such institutions in the face of enormous human need?
- What of their oppressive rules and strictures – man made for the Sabbath – which they themselves observe only when it suits?
- What of their hypocrisy in sacking/retiring bishops with the integrity of William Morris and Bob Maguire while they shuffle pedophile priests from parish to parish?
- What of their failure to observe decent contemporary societal standards in discriminating against women and gays while expecting society to provide the Church with the privilege of exemption from rates and taxes?
I hasten to make a distinction here between the institution and hierarchy of the Catholic Church and the many thoughtful Catholics who find these inconsistencies as appalling as I do.
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Religion v Society in Oz
(26 January 12)by Greg Spearritt
It seems to me there are only four points on which contemporary religion in Australia clashes in any significant way with the general Oz culture:
- the access of women to the full range of roles within the religion;
- the legitimacy of homosexuality and the rights of gay people to equal treatment;
- attitudes to how religious groups deal with abusive miscreants within their ranks; and
- the level of influence religion should have on the society and on public education in particular.
Interestingly, all four relate to the question of human rights.
There are of course other points of contention, but these seldom rise to public attention. They’d include the acceptability of cohabitation before marriage, public subsidy of religious groups (i.e. their tax-free and rates-free status) and treatment of asylum-seekers.
It should be noted that there are exceptions to most of these, with some individual religious groups pretty much matching society in general (for good or for ill) in their attitudes.
Have I missed any major points of contention?
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Is God necessary for meaning?
(25 December 11)by Greg Spearritt
For Christian apologist Alister McGrath (in a recent post on ABC's The Drum website) science is about explaining the world, but religion is where meaning comes into the picture. He seems to follow the traditional demarcation of science tackling the ‘how’ and religion the ‘why’.
In his argument, McGrath makes the extraordinary claim that God is “someone who makes sense of the puzzles and enigmas of life”.
Now perhaps a God could be posited who does do that – but it wouldn’t be the Christian God. Would an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God (and the God of Christian tradition must be all of these) create a world in which it is populations that matter, not individuals? From baby turtles to human sperm, it’s a numbers game, pure and simple: the species survives at the expense of huge numbers of individuals. The vast majority of creatures, to boot, die of starvation or of being eaten alive. Until very recently this included humans, and starvation still accounts for millions of human lives, especially young lives.
There’s much more. I recall a Larsen cartoon in which God as a kid tries to make a chicken in his room. 99% of all life forms which have ever existed on Earth are now extinct – were they the failed experiments of the (perfect) Christian God?
God does no better in accounting for the vicissitudes of human life. Virtue, as Job discovered and Ecclesiastes laments, is no guide at all as to who does well in this life and who suffers horrible misfortune. Hence the need to posit a future life of reward/punishment. Who can we blame, for instance, for children born with two heads, or no brain, or other serious congenital disorders (an estimated 3% of those born in the US alone, meaning on current figures around 120,000 a year)?
The God of the Christians simply does not make sense of any of this. A capricious God, or at least an indifferent one – now that might do the job. Even there, however, Laplace had it right: we have no need even of that hypothesis.
McGrath cites Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s view that science takes things apart to see how they work, and religion puts them back together again to see what they mean. But when Christianity is faced with the problem of theodicy, it baulks every time for fear of coming up with a theologically unacceptable conclusion. The mystery of God and His Will is invoked time and time again – hardly a satisfactory way of ‘making sense of the puzzles and enigmas of life’.
McGrath is right to suggest that science is about explaining and understanding, not about meaning as such. Meaning is something humans bring to any situation: it’s a cultural product. And it’s not just about ‘why’. Indeed, plenty of humans have concluded that there is no reason behind particular pieces of good or ill fortune or behind the adventure of life as a whole, yet they haven’t given up in despair as if life’s not worth living. Meaning that sustains life can be just as much about family and friends, about projects and passions, as about cosmic superannuation or a grand narrative dictating our place in the scheme of things.
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Ethics, Christian and Secular
(30 November 11)by Greg Spearritt
We have two very recent examples of religious bodies and individuals revealing how ethically inferior they are compared to the standards of contemporary secular society.
First, there’s the Civil Partnerships Bill passed last night by the Queensland Parliament. To their credit, a few Church leaders – notably Anglicans and Catholics – supported the principle of equity behind the legislation, as did the Brisbane Anglican Church’s Social Responsibilities Committee. Most of the opposition to the Bill, however, was religiously inspired, as my local member Kerry Shine (a Catholic) ruefully noted:
I believe the argument in favour of equality of rights is superior to whatever arguments have been used or put up against it. Most of the latter, if not all, relate to a religious prohibition. For my part, I believe that where the rights of others are unaffected, then the state should not legislate as to who can or should not cohabit or enter into a relationship. That is not to say that religious denominations and their followers cannot declare what is right or wrong for their followers. That is a matter for individual choice. It should not in the 21st century, with the benefits of the lessons of 500 years of religious differences including 100 years war (sic), be the subject of civil or state concern.
Indeed, the Member for Nicklin, independent MP Peter Wellington spoke of intimidation by conservative religious groups attempting to influence his vote on the issue. The Brisbane Catholic Diocese was against the proposal, and (of course) Australia’s most eminent Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, is on the record as supporting intervention to overturn civil unions legislation elsewhere in Australia. Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen is also, predictably, against the idea of equity on this issue. Thank goodness for the increasingly-outnumbered progressive Catholics and Anglicans out there.
A second example also involves our notorious Cardinal Pell. A report by Barney Zwartz in The Age tells the story:
A LEADING Catholic priest has criticised Cardinal George Pell for reserving a "grand apartment" for himself at the Australian church's new guest house in Rome, saying "the ethics of our secular state are higher than those of our church".
Father Eric Hodgens, of Melbourne, an elder statesman among the clergy, also savaged Australia's Catholic bishops for what he regards as an abject performance during their five-yearly visit to Rome last month, particularly in failing to stand up for Bill Morris, sacked earlier this year as bishop of Toowoomba.
"They eat their own when fingered by Rome," Father Hodgens wrote of the bishops in The Swag, the national journal of Catholic priests. "How can you trust them?
''They are reckless with our patrimony. They seem incapable of protecting their own rights, let alone ours, in a system which is corrupt by today's secular standards.”
This all lends support to the view expressed by Don Cupitt in his 2008 book, The Meaning of the West. Western secular humanitarianism is directly derived, says Cupitt, from Christian ethics. But what we see in society nowadays is definitely not the old Church-Christianity at work:
The Church clings to its old inefficiencies, discriminations and injustices, and repeatedly demands for itself opt-outs from legislation that would require it to get its treatment of its own employees, women, gays and other groups up to decent contemporary secular standards. (Meaning of the West, 34)
Organised Christian religion, always intended as a stop-gap measure, cannot let go of influence and power and deliver the final redemption from itself that it promised:
[I]n the traditional language of theology, Christ has returned and the Church is obsolete (though, as Dostoyevsky foresaw, the Grand Inquisitor is far from pleased; he loves the Church and spiritual power much more than he ever loved Christ). (Meaning of the West, 10)
No, says Cupitt, we have now what a dying Christian tradition has bequeathed: the secular West, vibrant, post-metaphysical, non-theistic and with a radical, ethical vision of the Kingdom of God.
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What Aussies believe about religion
(12 November 11)by Greg Spearritt
Christian organisation Olive Tree Media has recently released the results of a study into Australian attitudes to religion and to Christianity in particular. It intends to use the data for apologetics purposes. The results are indeed interesting; they include the following titbits:
· Overall, 1 in 2 Australians do not identify with a religion
· Over 30% of respondents did not identify with any religion or spiritual belief
· Almost 20% considered themselves ‘spiritual’ but had no main religion
· 34% of people who identify as ‘religious’ are significantly involved in group religious practice
· The top ten reasons “blocking” people from belief in Christianity were:
1. Church abuse
2. Hypocrisy
3. Judging others
4. Religious views
5. Suffering
6. Issues around money
7. Outdated
8. Hell & condemnation
9. Homosexuality
10. Exclusivity
A summary of the study can be found here.
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Scientific heresy
(03 November 11)by Scott McKenzie
Matt Ridley gave a lecture in Edinburgh recently in which he examined science/pseudoscience dichotomy. There are many examples currently active in our communities, and many more of historic interest. He spends quite a deal of time examining climate change checking its credentials as science or pseudo science. And he makes the point that sceptics are regarded as heretics in the same way as they have in other cases in our past.
This is quite an interesting piece – perhaps a controversial one.
It’s the End again – what to do?
(19 October 11)by Greg Spearritt
With the world about to end again tomorrow, what are your options? Here are a few to (quickly) consider.
· Drop Harold Camping an email to thank him for the heads-up.
· Follow Douglas Adams’s advice (i.e. don’t bother with the paper bag).
· Do something really, really nice for someone (on the off-chance it’ll go down well if there really is a Judgment looming).
· Dance like nobody’s watching, even if they’re watching.
· Do that Terrible Thing you’ve fantasised about (finally sort out the neighbour’s cat etc).
· Spend up big at the local liquor barn, hire a band and throw a party.
· Read the Bible/Koran/Rg Veda/Diamond Sutra/Karma Sutra. Probably forget the Form Guide.
· Send me all your money, since you won’t be needing it.
Of course, what you do will depend on how likely you think it is that you’re among the elite who’ll be raptured away from the carnage on the streets.
If it happens to be after October 21, 2011 and you’re reading this, there may be a few things in the above list you’ll wish you hadn’t done. Just thought I should warn you.
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Giving spirituality the chop
(01 October 11)by Greg Spearritt
John McDonald’s recent piece in the SMH on the Blake Prize is compelling. He says of the competition:
Instead of addressing ''religion'', which implies a structured set of beliefs; a collection of stories, rules and codes; a series of moral and spiritual disciplines that determine how people live their lives; it now celebrates the New Age self-indulgence of ''spirituality''.
McDonald goes on to make the point that ‘spirituality’ means anything from a walk in the bush to sitting cross-legged for hours on a mat to attending the footy (though he acknowledges footy can also be a religion).
A few of us came to the same conclusion at the recent SoFiA Conference in Brisbane on ‘Spirituality and the Arts’. A lively presentation about the Blake Prize at that event raised this very question: if this is ‘spiritual’ art, what on earth does ‘spirituality’ mean? Perhaps it does mean something, vaguely, but no-one seems able to explain quite what.
If instead we use words such as ‘aesthetics’, ‘emotion’ and ‘ethics’ (and for some, ‘supernaturalism’) we appear to cover the territory pretty well, and all these terms actually mean something.
Is it time to give ‘spirituality’ the chop?
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School funding and equity
(02 September 11)by Greg Spearritt
Chris Bonner (a fellow of the Centre for Policy Development) has a forthright piece on school funding in the SMH. SoFiA member Nigel Sinnott writes: I think the freethought movement has to be involved in the knotty question of school funding because the vast majority of private schools in Australia are either run by religious bodies or foundations, or else have a strong religious agenda. Non-sectarian private schools are rare, perhaps very rare, and the principles of secular education are already being badly eroded (by socially conservative politicians) in state schools. ………..
Is there a God?
(31 August 11)by Greg Spearritt
Here’s one to watch for: a debate between Peter Singer (Princeton bio-ethicist and atheist) and John Lennox (Oxford Maths Professor and Christian) on the grandest of the topics… Is there a God?
Big Ideas, ABC 1, Tues (6 Sept) or Wed (7 Sept) at 11am.
An agnostic viewpoint
(31 August 11)by Greg Spearritt
A comment from David Miller as a prelude to an upcoming Melbourne Sea of Faith discussion titled ‘Secular Atheism contra New Age Religion’:
Some New Age gurus tell me that the way to ascertain Truth is to meditate, stop thinking and ‘go within’. The originating alpha seers of the traditional religions used this, and other methods, to ascertain their Truths. And the rest of us, sheep-like, have followed the seers' visions. Secular religions have fared no better. Our Nationalist patriots tell us that our nation embodies Truth and Virtue and is therefore superior. The Communists tell us the same about our class. And the Fascists say the same about our race. Where have all these competing imaginary truth-claims got humanity? Into constant war and bloodshed!
Those amongst my Atheist colleagues who suffer from a bad dose of Scientism tell me that science answers everything. Science, they believe, is building the ‘rock of certainty’ on which they can securely stand. ‘We will soon know everything’, they intone.
My preferred stance is that of the Agnosticism. From the Agnostic viewpoint, Truth, Absolute Knowledge and Ultimate Reality are unattainable ideals. Nevertheless, the quest for these ideals is perpetrated by the 'agnostic' methodology of science. Out of our imagination, our fantasies, our intuitions, our hunches, our guesses and our speculation, together with observation and measurement, we hone hypotheses that can be put to the test. If these tests and experiments are successful, and can be replicated, they may in time achieve the status of becoming ‘scientific theories’. However, these theories are open to analysis, to challenge, to modification and to refutation, as well as to new discoveries.
Truth, as an ideal, may be unattainable. But the quest goes on.
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The passing of an evangelical stalwart
(06 August 11)by Greg Spearritt
Evangelical Christianity has lost one its most influential exponents.
John Stott’s Basic Christianity, among other writings, typifies for me the hubris behind the conservative-evangelical position: Christianity is rigidly defined along the narrow lines of the sin-redemption model, thus excluding many of the varied and subtle flavours of the faith that have existed from the days of the early church. It’s a message still being peddled by conservative churches and Alpha courses across the world.
Some argue, however, that love or loathe Stott’s theology/christology, there were in fact (if you’ll pardon the pun) some significant redeeming features in his contribution to evangelical Christianity. It seems he did genuinely ‘walk the walk’.
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Near Death Experiences
(04 August 11)by Scott McKenzie
It's one of life's biggest questions: What happens when you die?
An increasing number of near death experiences, or NDEs, are being reported thanks to advances in medical science and increased resuscitations of the dead.
And several survivors have come forward to share their glimpses of what they believe is a realm beyond this life.
Have a look at this report from Mail Online (US) that includes video-clips of NDE survivors
Faith by numbers: why religion still matters
(28 July 11)by Scott McKenzie
In the latest edition of IPSOS MORI's research journal, Understanding Society, Tony Blair talks about the central and growing importance of religion to global society. The reasoning is compelling. In a world that may seem increasingly secular to many of us, it is easy to forget that religious belief is a central part of life for hundreds of millions of people. MORI's study in 24 countries showed that 69 per cent say they have a religion -- and of these, 40 per cent say it is very important to them.
The end of evil?
(16 July 11)by Greg Spearritt
Is it time we consigned the idea of evil to the scrap-heap of confusing and unnecessary concepts? (A place some would see as the true home of the term ‘God’.)
No doubt most of those attending the biennial meeting of exorcists in Poland would demur. However, Simon Baron-Cohen has an interesting take on evil in his 2011 book Zero Degrees of Empathy: he says that empathy can usefully replace evil as a concept. The behaviour of someone who performs a cruel or repulsive act can be explained so much better in terms of lack of empathy than by simply calling them ‘evil’: there are hormonal, genetic and environmental factors at play which can be investigated and – who knows? – maybe even corrected.
Of course this doesn’t account for ‘natural evil’, the calamity and suffering wrought by Mother Nature. Even there, though, the term isn’t in common use. Natural disasters like the Christchurch or Japanese earthquakes are discussed in terms of ‘evil’ only by the far-right religious fringe.
Has ‘evil’ has its day?
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Extremism and atheists
(03 July 11)by Greg Spearritt
If Christians have to shoulder the burden of the Crusades and witch-burnings and Muslims are held to account for awful doings in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia, should atheists be expected to take some responsibility for the terrible deeds associated with Pol Pot and Chairman Mao?
Prominent atheist Dick Gross thinks so…
Christian v secular standards
(29 June 11)by Greg Spearritt
Modern secular standards in Australia seem to be so much more in line with the Jesus of the gospels than do many of those tagged as ‘Christian’.
For instance, can you imagine Jesus advocating that children be caned for misbehaviour? The little we see of his interaction with children shows anything but the Old Testament ‘spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child’ mentality. Yet here it is, still, in Queensland – and only in Christian schools.
Jesus accepted women and Samaritans as people of value. Which 21st-century employers are clamouring to exclude people based on their gender, sexual orientation or religious belief? Why, it’s the religious ones. Victoria, for example, has just passed laws allowing faith-based organisations the right to discriminate in their hiring of staff.
And while we’re on exclusivity, back to schools… many of the faith-based private schools in my town are well-known for their devotion to core Christian values such as privilege and status. World-class facilities are on offer, facilities not available to the also-rans at State Schools. Take all comers? Well, yes, provided you can pay and we’re happy that you’re the right sort of person. I hasten to add that these Christian principles don’t apply to all faith-based schooling locally: there are Catholic and other low-fee religious schools with values and practices far more genuinely compatible with those espoused by Jesus. And then, of course, there are the secular State Schools who take inclusivity seriously, regardless of economic circumstances and social background.
It’s probably true that Jesus was no democrat, however he does seem to have been able to tolerate significant variation on the received truths of his own faith, such as that the Sabbath laws were absolute. The imposition of hierarchically-ordained ‘orthodox’ views, of course, is a problem faced by many organisations, including secular ones. But which organisation has recently disgraced itself in spectacular fashion by forcing the resignation of a respected leader who simply pleaded for allowing ideas counter to current practice to be considered? (Not adopted, mind, just entertained.) Yes, it’s the good old Catholic Church. Any recourse to fair secular practices here, like due process? With Ratzinger as Pope and Pell pre-eminent in the Australian hierarchy it’s a rhetorical question.
And there’s much, much more. The Presbyterian Church precipitously sacks the board of a well-run local hospital (and installs yes-men with little experience) because they won’t toe the line on fundamentalist anti-abortion policies. It’s the rules, you see: forget compassion and individual circumstances. Enclaves of extreme minority religious belief are tax-payer funded through rate exemptions; they’re happy to accept a regular public hand-out from those they consider ‘unclean’ and destined for hell. Church leaders lobby against allowing students who opt out of religious instruction to be given lessons in ethics.
Of course Jesus had no intention of founding the Church. At least (arguably*) Christendom eventually self-secularised to produce modern secular humanism, so some genuine semblance of Jesus’ principles remains with us.
* This is Don Cupitt’s thesis in The Meaning of the West.
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Events of interest
(09 June 11)by Greg Spearritt
Our list of general-interest events related to religion, faith and meaning has (finally!) been updated. The events are mostly public lectures and conferences, on topics ranging from the Shroud of Turin to corporate ethics. Check out the list at www.sof-in-australia.org/general-interest-events.php Of course, don’t forget our own conference in Brisbane in September: Head, Heart, Body and Soul: Religion, Spirituality and the Arts …….
Hard-wired for God?
(24 May 11)by Scott McKenzie
Here's a report in the Sydney Morning Herald that asks "Are we hard-wired for God?" or at least for believing.
It comes from a global study "Explaining Religion" based in Oxford. This piece reports on three aspects of the report: (i) evolution of belief in the supernatural, (ii) the religious instinct, and (iii) the cognitive appeal of faith.
And there's more to come from this study next week (in the SMH) and perhaps here.
(Note that this report was referred to in the previous blog)
Religious belief is human nature
(14 May 11)by Scott McKenzie
Religion comes naturally, even instinctively, to human beings, a massive new study of cultures all around the world suggests.
"We tend to see purpose in the world," Oxford University professor Roger Trigg said Thursday. "We see agency. We think that something is there even if you can't see it. ... All this tends to build up to a religious way of thinking."
This is a quote from a piece reporting on a global study of human nature. It is a short report and I look forward to more details of the study.
So if you're religious you will probably say: "Of course, God made humans like that."
And if you're an atheist you'll likely say: "Well we'd better get over it."
What's your response?
Women are dangerous
(08 May 11)by Greg Spearritt
Paul Sheehan, writing in the SMH, claims (credibly in my view) that “repressing women is sharia's raison d'etre”. Toowoomba’s Catholic Bishop Bill Morris is shown the door for suggesting that the notion of female clergy should be considered – not necessarily adopted, mind, just considered.
And now the Israeli Hasidic newspaper Der Tzitung edits the only two women out of the famous White House Situation Room photo showing the President and advisors watching the raid on bin Laden’s compound. Too sexually provocative. Ah… come again? Hillary Clinton and counter-terrorism analyst Audrey Tomasen sexually provocative? We’re not talking bikinis here: Tomasen’s barely visible in the background and Clinton is wearing a long-sleeved coat.
What is it with hard-line religion on the subject of women?
It all makes Tamas Pataki’s take on religion the more credible: in his view there’s an unhealthy dose of narcissism involved. Keeping women in their place is a punishment and a safeguard, a way of dealing with deep-seated frustration and anxiety about mother who is needed and desirable yet ultimately unattainable.
Is there a better explanation for conservative religion’s need to repress women?
Toe the line... or hoof it
(05 May 11)by Greg Spearritt
The Catholic Church is up to its old tricks. No quarter given: toe the official line or else. So Toowoomba’s Bishop Morris must give up his position, apparently for some very tame comments some years ago in which he urges parishioners to “reflect carefully” on options for increasing the pool of available priests, including allowing married and female clergy.
We live in an era where many churches, including all the other ‘mainstream’ varieties, tolerate a good deal of progressive speculation from clergy regarding both doctrine and ecclesiology.
Perhaps this is the genius of the hard-line position held by the Vatican. In the marketplace, the Catholic brand is distinctive: it has come to be associated with authoritarian, black-and-white religion. It seems there is no shortage of takers.
The saddest part of the Toowoomba saga is that Catholics, up to now, have been amongst the town’s most thoughtful and even progressive Christians. Their choices are stark: toe the line or hoof it. The possibility of change from within seems as far away as it ever was before Vatican II.
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Why we don't change our minds in arguments
(21 April 11)by Scott McKenzie
How often have you gone into an ‘argument’ with someone holding other views saying to yourself “I’ve got the facts and I’ll convince him/her by the weight of my argument”?
And how often did this not work out that way?
Climate science is the example of this par excellence these days. People on both sides shake their heads that others can’t see the ‘truth’ as they see it. And they vilify the other side as money-wasters or planet destroyers.
We’ve read about how strong pre-existing views are held by others and how hard it is to get them to change their minds. Turns out it is almost impossible. And this even in the sciences where objective truth is supposed to be the norm.
In this piece the literature on psychology, neuroscience and related disciplines is mined deeply to show us what’s going on. Some fascinating experiments are reported.
What I’m now waiting for is a report on how we get to be as bloody-minded as we seem to end up. Is it genetic or cultural? How much of each? But that's another story. For the moment just how one-eyed we are in arguments or discussions.
Conservatives & liberals
(13 April 11)by Greg Spearritt
Why are some people religious conservatives and others liberal?
In his small book Against Religion, Tamas Pataki argues – persuasively, in my view – that narcissism may well be at the root of much religious fundamentalism. But there are plenty of people who can usefully be thought of as ‘conservative’ without being extreme when it comes to religious outlook. And there are religious liberals, too. Attitudes to authority, to scripture and to other faiths are among the issues that separate the two camps.
What if the difference is actually biological?
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A secular bible
(04 April 11)by Scott McKenzie
A.C.Grayling has finally finished a book he’s been working on for most of his life. What A.C. Grayling has written is a secular bible. The Good Book mirrors the Bible in both form and language, and is, as its author says, “ambitious and hubristic—a distillation of the best that has been thought and said by people who’ve really experienced life, and thought about it.” Drawing on classical secular texts from east and west, Grayling has done just what the Bible makers did with the sacred texts, reworking them into a great treasury of insight and consolation and inspiration and uplift and understanding in the great non-religious traditions of the world.
Religion in schools
(27 March 11)by Greg Spearritt
By 1895 all Australian colonies had adopted a system of primary education that was 'free, compulsory and secular'. The clout of the Catholic Church ensured not only the continuance of church-based schooling in parallel with the state system, but also access by churches to the ‘secular’ schools for the purpose of religious instruction.
116 years later, religion in schools is still a live issue. Last week was no exception…
- Yarralinda School in Mooroolbark, Victoria, which uses Applied Scholastics teaching materials based on the works of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, is accused of using slabs of government funding to pay debt related to the Church of Scientology headquarters in Ascot Vale.
- Concern in Bass Hill, NSW, has arisen about a costly government land deal involving allegations of religious prejudice over thwarted plans for a private Islamic school.
- Government funding for private schools – including some wealthy church schools – is yet again in the national spotlight.
- And in Victoria a claim has been lodged with the Equal Opportunity Commission concerning religious instruction as a form of systemic discrimination in state schools… see here, here and here.
There’s now a Humanist Society website specifically on the issue of religion in schools.
A number of commentators have pointed out that given the small proportion of families at state schools who attend church weekly (around 8%), those parents with a desire to have their children instructed in religion should look to their local Sunday school rather than a secular state school.
I suppose it would be a different matter if the religion classes were truly about education...
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God and natural disasters
(25 March 11)by Scott McKenzie
A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute (US) taken just a week after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan reveals some astounding beliefs held by Americans (at least astounding to me).
Does God cause these events to occur to send messages to us? 38% say yes.
Does God allow these events to occur to send such messages? 60% of evangelicals think so.
One wonders about the conception of God held by such people, and how this is possible among people in the most developed country in the world.
Atheists vs. the US Military
(21 March 11)by Scott McKenzie
You would probably expect that the US Military is tough, rough-talking, almost take-no-prisoners both collectively and in personal styles. That’s what I thought; they always seem to be in wars around the world, almost looking for the next one. Certainly sometimes they come to the aid of the marginalised and oppressed and we cheer – Afghanistan under the Taliban for example. Other times it’s not so clear e.g. Vietnam, Iraq.
But you don’t expect them to be an evangelical outfit, working towards making their members ‘born-again’.
Check this story out. And it’s by no means unique.
Respect and science
(04 March 11)by Greg Spearritt
I was discussing cross-cultural issues recently with a Murri. She was pointing out that Aboriginal people had lived sustainably in Australia before European settlement (let’s not mince words – invasion). I made the point that while that seemed to have been true for many thousands of years, there was some evidence for the idea that when people first came to this land a significant ecological adjustment took place. It’s understood, for example, that the megafauna died out around this time, and a link between the two events is not at all implausible.
My interlocutor’s response was to say that many Murri folk believe they’ve always been here.
Which brings me to the question of respect. It’s a touchy subject. Some of our assumptions regarding the first Australians (and people of other cultures too) are wrong, and sometimes offensively so. We should indeed strive to respect others, and being informed about their customs and beliefs, and about what they find acceptable, is part of that. As an Australian of European descent (a ‘Migaloo’, in Murri terms) it’s an especially tricky business, given the unarguable history of oppression visited by my mob on theirs.
What can I say, then, to claims that Murris have always been here? I want to insist that as much as I wish to respect cultural difference and the beliefs of others, it’s important to consider the evidence in a case like this. But is the scientific method with its reliance on evidence merely another (European) cultural belief, and (to boot) a tool with which the powerful continue to put the powerless in their place?
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Sam Harris replies...
(25 February 11)by Scott McKenzie
Sam Harris has written a book The Moral landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, which has received considerable negative attention. After all his is a big claim and the book is quite a bit turgid in places. But its an interesting idea: that "we can, in principle, think about moral truth in the context of science".
He replies to his critics in this piece.
Lent and the Age of Excess
(12 February 11)by Greg Spearritt
Self-denial is not in vogue these days. In an age of excess, does religion still have a role to play in helping us achieve a measure of self-control?
The season of Lent is fast approaching (March 9 – April 23, in fact). As with every other year, however, it will be completely ignored by most Australians, trivialised by any tiny bit of mainstream media attention it attracts, noticed but not considered by many church-attenders and devoutly observed by a few.
Is it time – even for the atheists among us – to reappraise Lenten discipline?
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Belief in numbers
(31 January 11)by Greg Spearritt
Dick Gross, author of the ‘Godless Gross’ column in the SMH, raises an interesting question in a recent post. How is a census (such as the one approaching) to frame a question that gives us any useful information on the status of religion in Oz? What does it mean, for example, to claim (as many atheists do) that religion has declined? Do the numbers tell the story? As Gross points out, even if the number of adherents doesn’t change much the content and intensity of their beliefs might have changed radically.
To be sure, both the Atheist Foundation of Australia and the Australian Christian Lobby will see huge significance in the numbers; expect them to come out spinning the moment new stats on religion are available.
What would be interesting also would be a question that somehow captures the extent of what many of us (blithely) call ‘fringe’ beliefs.
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Sorcery, demons, curses and angels… it’s all still happening, apparently, in 21st century Australia.
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And Jesus wept ......
(27 January 11)by Scott McKenzie
Gart Everson sent this piece to me. It seemed so significant that I've posted it to our blog.
Is this the modern day equivalent of Luther posting his 95 (?) theses to the door?
When will the Catholic Church come out of the 15th century?
Scott McK.
Am I my brother’s keeper?
(22 January 11)by Greg Spearritt
Owen Ronalds poses this question in relation to some of the religion he sees coming from the U.S.A.
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Trauma and comfort
(17 January 11)by Greg Spearritt
“It's just comfort,” says one lady attending a church service in the wake of the terrible floods in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley. No doubt her feelings are shared by many.
Why comfort, though? How does that work?
Is it the sense that a compassionate God shares your sorrow? Or the solidarity of fellow worshippers? Perhaps the two can’t be disentangled. And what of God’s omnipotence? Plenty of the faithful would want to avow that God could have acted to prevent disaster if He so chose. Or did God find Himself between a rock and a hard place?
Or is it that somehow, in the mysterious ways of the Lord, it all makes sense and serves a purpose? Though none but the loony fringe would baldly suggest at times of human trauma that ‘God did it’ the idea of a Plan is widely touted as comforting. How could anyone believe, however, that the End, however noble, truly justifies such horrifying means?
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USA - a most religious nation?
(09 January 11)by Scott McKenzie
When we take a good look at the way people live in the United States it's hard to believe that 90% believe in God, over half go to church regularly and most pray quite often
Why hard to believe? Have a look at the score-card of emeritus professor Bernard Starr of City University of New York.
Talk about practising what you preach?
The Once and Future Bible
(06 January 11)by Greg Spearritt
A new must-have for the bookshelves of anyone serious about the Bible is about to appear. Details below.
___________
Gregory C. Jenks
The Once and Future Bible
An introduction to the Bible for religious progressives.
Foreword by J. Harold Ellens
Wipf & Stock Publishers, January 2011.
ISBN 13: 978-1-60899-961-3
xxii + 246 pages (includes Indexes)
Early endorsements for The Once & Future Bible
Greg Jenks knows his Bible as “ancient texts that come from another world and another time,” wholly human in origin, sometimes mad, sometimes magnificent. He buries the notion of a supernatural “word of God,” only to affirm the continuing relevance of these words of yesterday’s men for today’s “religious progressives who live the questions, not dodge them.” A wonderful demonstration of how we might still find ways of singing the Lord’s song in the strange and brave new land of secular modernity.
—David Boulton
author Who on Earth was Jesus? and The Trouble with God.
I have read your book and find it superb. It is a volume that the market of lay persons of all religious persuasions, and those who do not have a significant religious perspective, urgently needs. It fills an obvious current vacuum, is highly readable, entertaining, and immensely informative.
—J. Harold Ellens
author Honest Faith for Our Time, The Healing Power of Spirituality and Miracles.
Greg Jenks takes his readers on a new journey through the Holy Scriptures, reclaiming them with keen scholarship for our post-religious world. After reading the work of this emerging progressive religious thinker, the Bible will shine with a new luster.
—John Shelby Spong
author Eternal Hope: A New Vision and Jesus for the Non-Religious.
Ordering information
The book is due to be released in late January 2011, at a list price of $29.00 (US dollars).
Once published the book can be ordered direct from Wipf & Stock Publishers or via online retailers such as Amazon.com
Wipf and Stock offer publisher discounts for orders placed directly with them:
- For orders of 1 to 4 copies, there will be 20% discount off the retail price.
- For 5 or more copies, there will be a 40% discount.
Australian and New Zealand customers
Orders from Australia and New Zealand may also be placed direct with the author, trading as FAITHFUTURES (ABN 66 595 705 410). The publisher's discount will be matched for all orders placed directly with FAITHFUTURES. Local ordering will also provide significant savings on postage charges as well as offering shorter delivery times.
- For orders of 1 to 4 copies, there will be 20% discount off the retail price.
- For 5 or more copies, there will be a 40% discount.
- For early bird orders (placed before 31 January 2011) there will be a 25% discount on orders for 1 to 4 copies, while orders for 5 or more copies will get free postage in addition to the 40% discount.
Order online via PayPal :: http://www.faithfutures.org/support.html#OFB
Download order form for postal orders :: http://www.faithfutures.org/OrderForm.pdf
Happy New Year!
(30 December 10)by Scott McKenzie
Happy New Year! As we greet family and friends with this seasonal blessing, what a joy it can be to know we are part of a global tradition both ancient and ongoing. The history of humankind reveals a basic need to celebrate the changing of the seasons. For many cultures, the “return” of the sun at the Winter Solstice has marked the beginning of the New Year. With the gradual increase of daylight comes the promise of new life—both plant life and the animal and human life that depend on it. For millennia, people all over the globe have ritually rejoiced in this reassuring cosmic phenomenon.
First intelligent design now intelligent falling (gravity)!
(25 December 10)by Scott McKenzie
If you thought intelligent design as the evangelical/fundamentalist alternative to evolution by natural selection was a bit contrived, have a look at intelligent falling as the alternative to the theory of gravity (Newton and Einstein). I wasn’t sure when I first read this if it was satire. What do you think?
Room at the Inn?
(18 December 10)by Greg Spearritt
Malcolm Farr’s analysis of the asylum-seeker issue in Australia, as given to Geraldine Doogue on Radio National, is superb. The problem, he says, is overwhelmingly political; the cultural, demographic or employment consequences of so-called “illegal” boat arrivals are negligible.
Hugh Mackay calls it a moral issue that’s been politicised.
It’s about Australians who begrudge generosity where they feel it’s unwarranted (despite us proudly singing “we’ve boundless plains to share”), and politicians taking advantage of that miserly mood.
Has One Nation small-mindedness become mainstream? Is there room at the inn this Christmas?
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Why religion makes people happier
(11 December 10)by Scott McKenzie
Religious people are more satisfied with their lives than nonbelievers, but a new study finds it's not a relationship with God that makes the devout happy. Instead, the satisfaction boost may come from closer ties to earthly neighbors.
….. the satisfaction couldn't be attributed to factors like individual prayer, strength of belief, or subjective feelings of God's love or presence. Instead, satisfaction was tied to the number of close friends people said they had in their religious congregation. People with more than 10 friends in their congregation were almost twice as satisfied with life as people with no friends in their congregation.
Perhaps belonging to a secular friend group that engages in meaningful activities and shares a social identity might also boost life satisfaction?
A new deity ariseth in the land
(10 December 10)by Greg Spearritt
Is this the pathetic result of the decline in organised religion? The crowd, including our own PM, went bananas for Oprah in Melbourne yesterday. The pseudo-science-peddling small-screen queen bestows mystical experience upon the faithful: ''The universe is bringing her to me,'' one adoring fan is quoted as saying.
Perhaps GK Chesterton is right after all: when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything.
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WikiLeaks and faith in government
(07 December 10)by Greg Spearritt
SoFiA is about openly exploring religion, faith and meaning. WikiLeaks has enhanced our ability to openly explore the faith we place (and are urged to place) in governments, chiefly that of the USA but also our own. The reaction of some politicians and commentators as the hornet’s nest is stirred is further evidence that trust in these governments is barely warranted.
Adding a comment to the open letter which appeared yesterday on The Drum (thank the gods for Aunty!) is one way to show support for openness and to affirm access to information (where’s that report on the NBN, Julia?) as a key plank in the ever-leaky raft we call democracy.
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How Should Religion Behave in Public?
(03 December 10)by Scott McKenzie
This piece from The Huffington Post (28 November 2010) considers mainly the question of “being good without God”. Where does our morality come from if we don’t believe in God? As well it makes reference to people whose religious beliefs impact social and/or political decisions, referring to the case of the US Congressman now appointed to chair a committee on energy use who believes that God will decide what happens to the world not whether we introduce more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere!
Atheists and the Sublime
(16 November 10)by Greg Spearritt
David Miller writes:
When the conversation between the ABC 'Encounter' presenter Florence Spurling and Professor Donna Orwin on Leo Tolstoy reached the point at which they were discussing the relationship between atheism, nihilism and despair, I had to fight off the desire to switch them off. I did not know whether to laugh, cry or vomit. Yet I desperately wanted to respond. So I continued listening in fascinated horror, waiting for a peg on which to hang my response. Suddenly they presented it to me. They began discussing Hadji Murad and the 'Sublime'. Amazingly, they were doing it in a non-supernaturalist way. And I agreed with them. I had found my peg!
Let me start by asserting that everyone of us, believer as well as non-believer, yearns for the Sublime. If that is too wild an assertion, then let me merely say that most of us are often overwhelmed by the Sublime.
The Sublime comprises our highest values (truth, beauty and goodness), our loftiest ideals (love, compassion, mercy, perfection, justice, freedom, creativity, etc), our peak experiences (wonder, awe, mystery, gratitude, uniqueness, oneness, interconnectedness, etc) and our areas of ultimate concern (self, family, community, nation, humanity, nature, planet, universe, etc).
We place the Sublime above and beyond ourselves. It is 'out there'. We give it allegiance. We serve it. We are subservient to it. It is our lord and master. We are its slave. If necessary we are prepared to die for it. We will even kill for it. In return it gives us meaning and purpose. It gives us something with which to identify. It takes us out of ourselves, beyond ourselves, to a greater purpose.
Unfortunately, most people throughout history have preferred to symbolise the Sublime in the form of a supernatural metaphorical personification. I say 'unfortunately' because, for me as an Atheist, the symbolising of the Sublime as gods, tooth fairies and imaginary friends is an infantile besmirching and befouling of the Sublime. It is the Sublime that makes us human. I am angered and frightened by the constant assumption by believers in the supernatural that we non-believers do not have a Sublime dimension.
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With God on Our Side
(12 November 10)by Scott McKenzie
A new documentary from the United States throws some light on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East, illustrating the role of a large percentage of the Christian Right’s involvement in supporting the Israeli side. They do this as they support Biblical injunctions about the people and land of Israel in what only can be described as blind arrogance.
Frank Schaeffer gives a comprehensive review of the documentary and some important background information about this disgraceful act of “un-Christian” behaviour on the part of those involved.
Have you heard the good news?
(08 November 10)by Scott McKenzie
This is a YouTube piece that quite cleverly reminds us of the absurdity of the central tenets of traditional Christianity.
I don't believe in agnostics
(06 November 10)by Greg Spearritt
Atheist Malcolm Knox gives 10 reasons why he has his children involved in religion. They’re well worth considering.
Along the way, Knox makes the claim that
If you're unsure whether there's a God or not, it means either you are not living with belief in God, which means you are an atheist, or that you fear that there might be a God and want to leave that option open, in which case what you really are is a believer. There's no neutral position.
I’m inclined to agree. Agnosticism, in my view, is the only respectable philosophical position. In practice, however, either you are a fool (like me) who says in his heart that there is no God or your heart tells you there may indeed be God. If you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor, it’s a matter of what ‘rings true’ where the rubber hits the road. Deep down, away from the armchair musings, we believe or we don’t. (And it’s clearly not a matter of choice, as though you could decide at breakfast to be a believer or an atheist.)
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Religion and the Liberal State
(05 November 10)by Scott McKenzie
The age of colonial imperialism is over: taking your laws somewhere else and imposing them on those already there and those who come thereafter is gone. More relevantly these days is the question of migrants asking that their home laws be applied in their new country of residence, for example sharia law among Turks in Germany, and other Muslims in Britain and France.
Stanley Fish has written an interesting piece in the New York Times "Religion and the Liberal State Once Again". We will see more and more of this debate I believe.
A science of morality?
(21 October 10)by Scott McKenzie
Frans de Waal, the famous primatologist writes about human behaviour and primate behaviour in the New York Times, exploring the idea that humans ‘can be good without God’. The way the primate brain shades slowly over (evolutionary) time into the human brain supports the general idea that while we are special we aren’t all that unique. However de Waal stops short of suggesting that his science is able, or will ever be able, to provide a basis for morality i.e. establish moral laws from a scientific investigation of human beings.
This is Sam Harris’ project in his latest book ‘The Moral Landscape”. You can get some idea of his viewpoint by reading some reviews on Amazon.
Evolving morality
(18 October 10)by Greg Spearritt
Emeritus Professor Lloyd Geering’s address to the 2010 National Conference of SoFiA is now on the SoFiA website: ‘The Changing Moral Imperative: From gods to God to Gaia’.
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In defence of secularism
(09 October 10)by Scott McKenzie
The visit of Benedict XVI has not only highlighted the role of religion in British society, but also displayed how a secular society is far healthier in terms of debating controversial issues, argues Michele Monni.
Climate change and morality
(08 October 10)by Greg Spearritt
John Birmingham has just reviewed two new additions to the climate debate, both of which take seriously Kevin Rudd’s grand statement that the issue is the “greatest moral challenge” of our time.
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Business as usual?
(08 October 10)by Greg Spearritt
Is organised religion really on the decline? The Age reports on a new study (more here) which seems to suggest it’s business as usual in Australia, with Gen Y (born 1982 – 2000) pretty much on a par with the Baby Boomers:
The research finds that 42.6 per cent had prayed in the preceding month - little different to the 43.6 per cent of Baby Boomers. It also finds 29.6 per cent attended a place of worship and 21.3 per cent read spiritual books, while 13.9 per cent had practised yoga and 12 per cent meditation - little different from the older generations.
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In the know… or not
(02 October 10)by Greg Spearritt
Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.
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So says the summary from the latest Pew Forum research project, the US Religious Knowledge Survey.
How would Australian atheists and religious folk fare, I wonder?
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Dangerous ideas
(02 October 10)by Greg Spearritt
Dangerous ideas are so important there’s a festival dedicated to them, a two-day event at the Sydney Opera House this weekend. The point, say the organisers, is not to push particular ideas, but to broaden our minds and to make us think.
Openness… it’s what SoFiA stands for.
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Euthanasia in the Netherlands
(24 September 10)by Scott McKenzie
The recent SoFiA National conference on the Sunshine Coast featured Marshall Perron, former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, talking about voluntary euthanasia as a solution to the dilemma of ‘dying with dignity’. Ian Mavor wrote about palliative care as another solution to this dilemma in the July 2010 edition of SoFiA Bulletin.
Brian Wilder has sent a link to a study in the Netherlands of a couple of decades of dealing with voluntary euthanasia including the more recent legislation that gave certainty.
As we Baby Boomers get older (not forgetting also an earlier generation!) this becomes a more significant issue – a dilemma for all of us.
More information is available from Exit International and Dying with Dignity.
Mystery and evidence
(10 September 10)by Scott McKenzie
Laurel Sommerfield drew this piece to my attention, a piece by Professor Tim Crane of Cambridge University, posted to the New York Times Online on September 5.
Professor Crane looks at the difference between evidence in science and that in religion, making the very valid point that we don't need to hold religion to the same epistemological standards as we do science.
That's OK - but what about the idiotic and infantile claims made in some religions?
Surely there's a role for common-sense here.
Do we need religions that make such extraordinary claims as: given that humankind is so sinful God needs to send his son to Earth to die an agonizing death so that he (God) can forgive them for their sins?
And this happened at a particular time in history: what about the humans who lived for a couple of hundred thousand years before this?
And so on.
Beats me.
I think Professor Crane has more thinking to do in this matter.
Hawking on God (Part 2)
(06 September 10)by Scott McKenzie
Stephen Hawking will launch his new book The Grand Design on Thursday (September 9). It’s already received quite a deal of publicity (as he hoped I’m sure) as it calls the existence of God into question. For many this seems a turn-about for Hawking as he seemed to support the idea of God in his 1988 best-seller A Brief History of Time.
Here’s a piece from the Economist about the book and also Roger Penrose’s review in the Financial Times.
School chaplaincy – a challenge
(04 September 10)by Greg Spearritt
School chaplains, in my own experience as a parent and a teacher, can make a positive difference to a school community. That experience is limited to one school, however, where the chaplain is willing to follow the guidelines about proselytism and happens to have some positive personal qualities that seem to allow him to fulfil his task well.
That doesn’t appear to be the case everywhere; indeed, the concern is such in some schools, by some parents, that a constitutional challenge [direct link here] to the school chaplaincy program is shortly to come before the High Court. The Australian Psychological Society, apparently, also has serious concerns about the lack of requirement for chaplains to have any kind of qualifications relating to counselling or mental health.
Chrys Stevenson on her blog (Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear) puts a forthright view as to why the school chaplaincy program is a very bad thing. She makes some good points.
I have a question, however, which goes to the core of the status of religion in our society. At least in primary schools in Queensland (and I’ve worked in a good many), atheism just isn’t considered polite to mention. It’s as if it would frighten the children. The official line, if there is one, emanating from the school administration is mildly pro-religion. Religious instruction and school chaplaincy are encouraged; talk about God and occasional prayers on school assemblies and at camps are not uncommon. Never once have I heard atheism alluded to, let alone directly mentioned except in private conversations among staff or parents.
By virtue of this residual respect for religion in schools – which remains, despite the multitude of scandals involving clergy – a chaplain has immediate and largely unquestioned esteem in the school community. If chaplains were replaced by qualified counsellors I expect those counsellors would blend into the mix of professionals – teachers, support staff, guidance officers – and have a very hard job attaining the same status and visibility as the much less-qualified chaplains currently do. Perceived motivation is surely part of this mix: the ‘chappie’ is seen as having a deep personal commitment to the kids and parents (even if ultimately it’s about subtle evangelism) rather than being there chiefly for the promise of a regular pay-packet.
Given this, is there a way to adequately replace chaplains with someone non-religious and qualified who can be seen as worthwhile and effective to do the job of ‘being there’ to support students and parents? It wouldn’t be very financially rewarding; would there be enough takers to want to do it (in the absence of some religious motivation)? Would humanists step up to the plate?
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Faith and false festivals
(04 September 10)by Greg Spearritt
Finally, some sanity on the “false festival” of Fathers’ Day. Philosopher Damon Young has a thought-provoking take on the issue in today’s SMH:
The problem inherent in mass modern festivals is irrelevance. In many cases, they're unrelated to the cadence of ordinary life. As a nation, we're not close-knit villagers, united by faith, overcooked mutton and the scent of dung. We don't have common rhythms or rituals.
Festivals like Father's Day become superimposed, abstract ideals, commandeered by retailers. The vacuum left by lost religion or secular intimacy is filled by what now comes naturally at every major event: buying crap.
Does the declining popularity of our once-potent Father in Heaven help explain why we’ve become such dedicated and consummate consumers?
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Why is there something?
(02 September 10)by Greg Spearritt
The old question has a new answer. Why is there something rather than nothing? According to Stephen Hawking’s new book, the answer is… gravity. He may as well as have said ‘42’. Scientists – even eminent ones – don’t seem to be especially good at distinguishing ‘how’ questions from ‘why’ ones. Even if the spontaneous arising of the universe can be explained by gravity, it still doesn’t (and can’t) address whether some incorporeal Designer intended it or created the law of gravity. The why question is about purpose and meaning, not about mechanism. (The answer, of course, may be: ‘no reason, that’s just the way it is’.) ……..
Those devilish Greens
(28 August 10)by Greg Spearritt
Archbishop Pell’s advice to avoid voting for the Greens ("sweet camouflaged poison", as he described them) doesn’t seem to have had much effect on the national election results. Or maybe it has… they won their first ever Lower House seat, scored a record 11+% of the vote nationally and will now hold the balance of power in the Senate.
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Youth & religion in the US
(13 August 10)by Scott McKenzie
Only about one in four teens now participate in church youth groups, considered the hallmark of involvement; numbers have been flat since 1999. Other measures of religiosity — prayer, Bible reading and going to church — lag as well, according to Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif., evangelical research company. This all has churches canceling their summer teen camps and youth pastors looking worriedly toward the fall, when school-year youth groups kick in.
72% say they are more spiritual than religious
Churches have responded with internet sites that are fully interactive, with a dedicated Internet pastor, live chat in an online "lobby," Bible study, one-on-one prayer through IM and communion, according to this report.
What does this mean for the church in the US in the long term?
Sign of the times?
(12 August 10)by Greg Spearritt
When it hits commercial TV, is it confirmation (so to speak) of religious decline? Are christenings a thing of the past?
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The Crusades again - in Africa this time.
(23 July 10)by Scott McKenzie
Ralph Peters writing in the New York Post outlines a case for the next Crusades. Again Christians vs. Moslems, but this time in Africa.
We hear a bit about the rise of Christianity in Africa, particularly of the Anglicans in Nigeria and their threat to leave the Anglican Communion.
But this piece gives some overall views of religion in Africa, and of a coming clash between the two: Christianity and Islam. There is an inevitability about it.
Faith and facts
(21 July 10)by Greg Spearritt
It seems that contradicting firmly-held beliefs with facts may be less than effective. In fact, it can be counter-productive, resulting in those beliefs being held even more strongly. That’s the conclusion of researchers at the University of Michigan. This finding has implications for the political process as Julia and Tony struggle to shape public opinion in the lead to Australia’s polls on August 21. It also rings true, surely, for religious belief... ……………
Our explanation of reality challenged
(21 July 10)by Scott McKenzie
We tend to think that we can explain our reality by using scientific models, theories and laws - that is until we begin to talk about 'subjective experience' and 'consciousness'. What brain scientists call 'the hard problem of consciousness', that is how we can explain our thoughts and our subjective experience as a result of physical processes in the brain, has failed to submit to satisfactory explanation.
And at the atomic level and below that level, quantum mechanics is also finding it difficult to use known physical processes to explain the behaviour of matter.
And then there's the question of where the laws came from, and how matter 'knows' to follow these laws.
Todd Duncan writing for The Global Spiral, a publication of the Metanexus Institute tries to untangle this problem. Worth a look.
Terrible sins: paedophilia & priesting women
(17 July 10)by Greg Spearritt
It takes your breath away. The ordination of women, apparently, is on some kind of a par with child abuse by clergy.
Is it any wonder the Catholic Church is both on the nose and increasingly irrelevant in the 21st century? It’s truly unfortunate, because there are very many forward-thinking Catholics who become more and more marginalised and demoralised as Rome (with Sydney in tow) continues its long-term lurch to the right.
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Gays and marriage
(17 July 10)by Greg Spearritt
Wow – here’s one out of left-field from a commentator known for his reactionary views… It was wrong of me to oppose gay marriage.
He makes some good points, including about our current (soon to be erstwhile?) atheistic Prime Minister’s views.
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The Church of England - a benign relic?
(10 July 10)by Scott McKenzie
England's state religion is an accident sustained by apathy: lacking any logical existence at the heart of the nation, it survives because it is already there. No one would campaign to create an official Church of England, if we had not inherited one; other parts of the country do without it. Non-believers, when they think of the English church at all, tend to see a benign relic, the keeper of country churchyards, a modest, often helpful and mostly inoffensive part of the national fabric. Its rituals involve a declining number of citizens and its tortured internal politics are a mystery, but it is still an important – and often profound – part of many English lives. The fact that the monarch is also its supreme governor, that some of its bishops sit in parliament, and that its senior clerics are appointed by the prime minister is both indefensible and profoundly unexciting. This tolerant indulgence, though, is being strained.
What now for religion in politics?
(26 June 10)by Greg Spearritt
Faith in politics may not be dead under non-practising Baptist Julia Gillard but it is certain to take on an altogether different meaning. So says Joel Gibson, writing in the SMH. Let’s hope the change is for the better.
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Science and bunkum
(26 June 10)by Greg Spearritt
The New Scientist website features a review of Massimo Pigliucci’s book Nonsense on Stilts: How to tell science from bunk. (Thanks to Nigel Sinnot for the heads up on this.)
The review (and, one assumes, the book itself) is well worth a look. Some interesting questions are tackled, such as why quantum mysticism is in the ‘bunk’ category and string theory is considered ‘science’ (or ‘almost science’).
Reviewer Amanda Gefter says at one point:
The idea that science can't tell us anything about the objective world just because it is a human activity fraught with human flaws and biases is easily refuted the minute that planes fly or atomic bombs explode. Scientists, meanwhile, do us a disservice when they promote scientism - the idea that science can answer every meaningful question we might ask about the world.
I’d have to agree with this in principle, though the idea of science as a cultural activity is more complex and nuanced than Gefter allows here. Philosophers (Don Cupitt, for one) have no illusions about the usefulness of science, but they raise genuine epistemological issues that should force us to question the all-too-common assumption that we can grasp ‘reality itself’ in some magically unmediated way through science. The fact that we just can’t get a handle on the logic behind aspects of quantum physics is, I’d suggest, an illustration of this: our language-derived tools are indeed useful, but they don’t allow a seamless one-to-one mapping of what’s actually going on. In some sense, we are always ‘making it up’ or creating the reality we claim to ‘find’.
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Religion 'fading fast' in the US?
(26 June 10)by Scott McKenzie
Only 15 percent of emerging adults (between 18 and 29) in the USA have a strong personal faith and practise it regularly, a new poll shows. About 30 percent are engaged inconsistently or only loosely affiliated with a religious tradition. One in four is indifferent toward religion, while 15 percent are open to spiritual or religious matters but haven't made a personal commitment. The remaining 15 percent have little or no connection to religion, or hold negative attitudes toward it.
(Newsline is a newsletter of the National Secular Society [UK])
Religion still matters
(24 June 10)by Greg Spearritt
Religion still matters, says Gerard Henderson. The evidence? Unlike the “sneering secularists” who “frequent taxpayer subsidised literary festivals”, our erstwhile PM and the Opposition Leader thought religion important enough to speak to a recent gathering of Christian leaders, an event which was also apparently webcast to “thousands of Christians at hundreds of churches”. (What Gerard meant to say was “taxpayer subsidised churches”, but he’s a busy man.)
Religion does still matter. In some cases it’s a force for progressive thought and worthwhile social action. In others – arguably the majority, and typified by the organiser of the event just mentioned, the Australian Christian Lobby – it’s a force for conservatism which would rather see asylum seekers turned away or locked up on Nauru than given a fair go.
I expect compassion for asylum-seekers and refugees didn’t feature too prominently in either K. Rudd’s or A. Abbott’s visions of the values that should define Australia after the election.
One wonders what J. Gillard would have to say on the matter… and whether she’d bother attending such a function. Time will tell.
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Would you believe it?
(19 June 10)by Scott McKenzie
Some religious laws are so strange, so stupid and lead to such ridiculous outcomes that you would think that they'd change the laws.
Try this one from Saudi Arabia.
And it's the 21st century remember.
(I know we in SoFiA want to be tolerant of religious beliefs and customs, but really ... you judge for yourself if I'm being intolerant).
Why the Catholic Church must be destroyed
(18 June 10)by Scott McKenzie
Gregory Paul is an independent researcher interested in informing the public about little known yet important aspects of the complex interactions between religion, secularism, culture, economics, politics and societal conditions. In this article he argues for the destruction of the Catholic Church, saying:
“The Roman Church keeps getting away with its endless transgressions because most of their allies and even many critics take each failing in isolation, limiting their understanding of the pervasive scope of the corruption. The international press has been perpetually slack in putting the string of problems into its broader and damning context. As a result too few comprehend that the Catholic problem is so chronic and deep set that it is incurable.”
There are four pages to this lengthy but enlightening account.
Religious tolerance endangered by ethics trials?
(05 June 10)by Greg Spearritt
Moore College theology lecturer Michael Jensen (son of Archbishop Peter – in case the Moore College reference doesn’t place him well enough) has been continuing the campaign by conservative Christians against ethics classes in NSW State Schools.
The trial of ethics classes, he says, is diminishing the role for Special Religious Education and therefore endangering religious tolerance:
[I]f the option for SRE is diluted, or even removed, religious people will continue to withdraw their children from government schools and seek to educate their children in religious schools where they will only interact with children of their own faith.
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Jensen goes on to claim that
Government schools are a unique opportunity for our society to inculcate our values of diversity, tolerance and friendship across cultural and religious divides. SRE facilitates these objectives wonderfully well.
Could this be true? Would ethics classes spell the end of SRE? And does SRE thus enhance religious tolerance?
Jensen could be right on the first question, if enough parents opt to send their children to the ethics classes instead of RE. (And if they do, then that’s what they want for their children, even if it’s not what the churches want. Who should have the greater say?) SRE might wither away for lack of patronage… though it sounds unlikely. There’s no proposal to remove it. And, unlike the case of the ethics trials, there are no wealthy, highly-organized groups campaigning to get rid of it.
So would the fervent faithful then take their children to faith-based schools, depriving them of interaction with children of other faiths and none? These will be the church/mosque/synagogue-attending families whose kids already get extended sessions of instruction, worship and socialising with their faith community in the evenings or at weekends. Would half an hour of (often poorly-organised) SRE really make that much difference? If so, surely these families will already have jumped ship.
On the second question: the actual SRE classes, if anything, are working against tolerance of religious diversity. The largely conservative-evangelical material commonly used (much of it emanating from Sydney Anglicanism) is not exactly big on affirming other religious points of view. The Bible, meaning a conservative Christian interpretation of it, is right, and that’s that. It’s hard to see how RE lessons – as opposed to secular ethics classes – can be promoting religious tolerance.
Jensen’s curious argument is another indication of how desperate the churches are in an increasingly secular era to retain their historical privileges.
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It makes you wonder ....
(28 May 10)by Scott McKenzie
Nicholas Kristoff writing in the New York Times of 28 May tells the story of Sister Margaret of St Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.
Sister Margaret was described by many as 'saintly' and 'close to God'.
But she took a decision that led to her automatic excommunication by a local bishop of the Roman Cathlolic Church. Much to the outrage of most who knew her and her decision.
Read Sister Margaret's story here. I makes me wonder - what about you?
New articles online
(24 May 10)by Greg Spearritt
You might like to view some items recently added to the SoFiA website…
- A Debate on Dawkins
- What is Spiritualism?
- If Only… (a reflection on prayer)
- A review of Adrian Cooper’s Places of Pilgrimage and Healing
- A review of A.C. Grayling’s Towards the Light: The Struggle for Liberty and Rights that Made the Modern West
- A Sporting Chance of Being Religious
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Why atheism will replace religion.
(22 May 10)by Scott McKenzie
Quite a provocative title.
Nigel Barber Ph.D. writing in a recent edition of Psychology Today argues that people in developed countries tend to believe that they have more control over their lives and are therefore less in need of religion.
Barber also argues that sport fulfils a role something akin to religion in many developed countries with sporting events becoming quite ritualistic. It’s interesting that Western Europe provides an environment in which both factors are very strong, and that it’s in such countries that atheism is at its highest eg Sweden 64% nonbelievers.
Synthetic life - threat or blessing?
(22 May 10)by Greg Spearritt
The creation by scientists of synthetic life is certainly a milestone, and probably more than just a scientific one.
Enter the Italian bishops. While they’re apparently worried about man ‘playing God’, it’s good to see they’re not just following a knee-jerk oppositional line.
The argument that we don’t know where this will lead is a valid one: I, for one, regret that we were ever able to discover the secret power of atoms.
However, any complaint that humanity may use its new-found powers of creating life for dastardly ends doesn’t stack up if it’s assumed we’re usurping the powers of an almighty, beneficent Creator. God, after all, has given us Ebola virus, Loa loa and Pol Pot. Not to mention John Howard and Kevin Rudd.
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The Catholic Church - today and tomorrow
(09 May 10)by Scott McKenzie
For centuries, the Catholic Church was unquestionably strongest in Europe. In 1900, the continent accounted for perhaps two-thirds of the Church's nearly 270 million members. Latin America had another 70 million believers, while Africa barely appeared on the map, with about two million followers. As Anglo-French sage Hilaire Belloc proclaimed in 1920, “The Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith.”
Since then, and especially since the 1960s, Catholicism has been moving south. Partly, this is due to evangelism sponsored by the Church and its religious orders; new conversions, for instance, have surged in Africa. But shifting demographics have also played its part: While populations have increased modestly in Europe, they have boomed across the global south—and Catholic numbers have grown apace. Today, the world has 900 million more Catholics than it did in 1900, but only 100 hundred million of those new additions are Europeans.
So reports Philip Jenkins in a recent report for The New Republic. This is an insightful analysis of the condition of the global Catholic Church of today – and of tomorrow.
An ethical choice
(08 May 10)by Greg Spearritt
The ethics classes being trialed in ten NSW state schools are apparently proving popular; so much so that the Sydney Anglicans are squealing again.
The classes are being offered for those who don’t attend Scripture lessons, but it’s claimed there’s been a drain on Scripture classes of almost 50%.
Many of those protesting the ethics classes trial would be amongst the first to join the Howard-era chant of personal choice in any other sphere: indeed, in education itself, where they argue for government funding of wealthy private schools that have no obligation to take all comers.
When it comes to learning about the Church-version of Jesus, however, parents apparently should have no right to choose.
Clearly, parents want that right.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that interest would be sustained at high levels if ethics classes became an ongoing weekly event: as Neil Ormerod points out, over time there would repetition and recycling of material and the novelty element would fade.
Nonetheless, it’s the principle of the thing: by all means have Scripture classes as an option, but in secular 21st-century Australia how can it be the only real option?
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A cult in Brisbane
(01 May 10)by Scott McKenzie
Just in case you think there aren’t any really vile religious cults in Australia here’s a case study of one. It was written by Chrys Stevenson an active members of Brisbane Atheists.
It’s really sad to think that human beings could be so stupid as to behave as do the leaders of this Brisbane cult.
Isn’t there something we in SoFiA can do to let our voices be heard against this inhuman behaviour?
“A Path to Sustainable Energy.”
(29 April 10)by Scott McKenzie
Many of us are struggling to work out our positions in relation to global warming as well as to how we replace energy generated at present by coal-fired power stations. A couple of US professors wrote a paper for Scientific American in November last year called “A Path to Sustainable Energy” in which they claimed that the science and engineering suggested that it was possible “to re-power America with 100 percent carbon-free electricity within 10 years.” It was duly published and read by millions. How many woke up to the fact that it was a spoof is not clear, but Howard Hayden, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Connecticut did. It’s worth reading his report here.
I’ve never known a problem in science or technology on which the “truth” was so difficult to ascertain.
Not with a bang...
(29 April 10)by Greg Spearritt
Is this the end of religion-as-we-know-it? What about in Oz? Is it why Peter Jensen is so afraid that NSW parents will jump ship and send their children to secular ethics classes if they’re given a choice?
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Ethics: religious or secular?
(29 April 10)by Greg Spearritt
Neil Ormerod has argued in Eureka Street for the superiority of religious as opposed to secular ethics. To derive an ‘ought’ from ‘what is’ (that is, to use reason as the basis for ethics), he says there must be purpose:
The question is, do human beings have a purpose? Is there a point to being human, some goal towards which we 'ought' to move? Richard Dawkins repeatedly proclaims that there is no purpose beyond what we ourselves might create. Evolution is blind and purposeless and even morality can be reduced to this blind watchmaker implanting something within us.
But if the only purpose is the purpose I create for myself then ethics is irreducibly individualistic. You have yours and I have mine. Our ethics then boils down to a set of arbitrary (and hence non-rational) personal preferences.
It seems to me Ormerod is reading way too much Christian individualism into the issue. Christianity is very much a ‘me’ religion, where the essential ingredient is the individual’s relationship with God and assent to His gratuitous offer of pardon/forgiveness. Each person must make their own decision for the Lord.
A secular ethics, by contrast, does not have to be about “personal preferences” at all. Humans are social beings. Living as we do in community, our determination of what ought to be can be determined on such well-known and rational principles as the common-wealth, or what is good for the community/society. That is a genuine purpose: the well-being and betterment of the human group.
I suggest it may be better for our society - a la the NSW ethics classes trials in schools - to have children learn to genuinely listen to other views and rationally evaluate and discuss them than to teach an absolute ethic based on an ancient scripture (the ethics embodied in which are in any case morally suspect by any enlightened contemporary standards). This will teach, if nothing else, respect for diversity, an ethically attractive attitude which is missing from much of the religious instruction/indoctrination that masquerades in NSW schools as religious ‘education’.
(Thanks to Nigel Sinnott for alerting us to the article mentioned here.)
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Hans Kung’s open letter to the bishops
(24 April 10)by Scott McKenzie
The Catholic Church has reverted to type so slowly since the Second Vatican Council over 40 years ago that it’s not easy to see it happening. But this reversion has speeded up under the new Pope, and he has come under huge scrutiny for his action/inactions as a bishop and cardinal.
Hans Kung has written this open letter to the bishops. It draws out the reversions since the Second Council and Ratzinger’s own hastening of this process as well as his behaviour in the face of reports of child abuse by his priests.
Well worth a look – could be the epitaph for the Catholic Church.
It’s those women again
(19 April 10)by Greg Spearritt
When they’re naughty, they make the earth move. So says Iranian cleric
Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The exact link between leading innocent young men astray and earthquakes isn’t spelled out in the article. One is left to assume it’s Allah, blessed be His name, punishing everyone for the misdemeanours of a few.
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The ethics of ethics trials
(12 April 10)by Greg Spearritt
The unseemly and breathtaking hypocrisy of Sydney Anglicanism is currently on display over the trial of ethics classes in NSW schools.
Archbishop Peter Jensen – who reportedly refused to meet in the initial consultation phase with those from the St James Ethics Centre who will conduct the trial – complains that if the course continues after the trial, it will “jeopardise religious education in public schools.'' ''Without such a religious component, public schools will cease to be inclusive of all children,'' he says.
There are three problems with Dr Jensen’s one-eyed and immoderate views.
First, it’s not ‘religious education’ and never has been. Education would expose children to a range of faiths and deal with facts, not doctrines. It’s actually religious instruction, ‘RI’, aka religious indoctrination, delivered largely by fervent faithful who wouldn’t know the first thing about the true history of the ‘scripture’ they’re ‘teaching’.
Second, if religion is so foundational and valuable to our society, why is the Arch concerned that a secular alternative to religion classes would spell the end of RI? Aren’t there enough parents who would want it to continue? I don’t hear those arguing for ethics classes baying for the complete demise of choice – which is what Dr Jensen is doing.
Which brings us to the third point: public schools are not inclusive now. What currently happens to children whose parents don’t want their children learning church doctrine from uninformed volunteers? There’s no genuine alternative.
So, Dr Jensen: do you want choice, or don’t you? Is it fair – or ‘Christian’ – to force everyone to fit the religious model or ‘sit out’ for those lessons? Is it, indeed, ethical?
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O sinner man
(11 April 10)by Greg Spearritt
Looks like the sinners have indeed been running to the Lord, or at least to places of worship, in recent times – and not necessarily to repent. According to the Daily Telegraph, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research has released data showing that almost eight times as many people were charged with offences in churches, synagogues and the like as in strip clubs, brothels and gaming establishments in 2008.
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It's only right
(11 April 10)by Greg Spearritt
The counter-attack of the conservative religious and faux-religious right is apparently underway. Its mission? To save us from uncertainty, immorality and utter dissolution. Imagine it: George Pell, Geoffrey Blainey, John Howard, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Hugh Morgan, Donald McGauchie and more under the emceeship of Mr Right himself, Andrew Bolt.
The message from this august event was reportedly that we mustn’t let godless secularism hold sway: that way lies the pit of meaninglessness. What, then, would prevent “lies, cheating, harm and swindling”?
It’s not clear whether Australian Christian Lobby managing director Jim Wallace got an invite, but he’s obviously on song. Secular ethics classes in schools? It’s an oxymoron for Jim. How can you have love for neighbour, self-sacrifice and help for the poor without the Bible?
Clearly, we need to rewind to a more certain, Christian, pre-post-modern Australia. Reverence for the authority of bishops and bible is the answer. There may of course be the reinstatement of the White Australia policy and chinamen again swinging in the breeze, there may be rampant sexual abuse of children by clergy, harassment of gays, the uprooting and relegation of aborigines to reserves and women would have to relearn their way to the kitchen. But at least there wouldn’t be any “lies, cheating, harm and swindling” going on. Would there?
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This makes my blood boil
(01 April 10)by Scott McKenzie
All of us will have come across reports in recent times (and for years also in the past), of Catholic priests who molested (I’m too disgusted to use stronger and more appropriate terms) boys and girls, young and old, for years and years.
But we might not have read of the depth of this problem, of the significance of the sacraments that were abused in the process, and of the current Pope’s complicity in this sorry matter.
Three news reports have come to light that address these matters:
Christopher Hitchens writing in Slate clearly shows the complicity of the Pope in his piece The Pope is Not above the Law.
Michael Murphy asks in The Independent How could Catholics do Such a Thing? in an insightful and heart-rending analysis of “he who is in a state of grace” as the perpetrator of such evil.
And finally India Knight, long-time Catholic (of sorts), writes in TimesOnline from a personal perspective Holy Father I can no longer stay in this Church of Disgust.
Probably not the end of the Catholic Church (it’s proved remarkably resilient) but another nail in the coffin – as a mass movement at least.
Peas in a pod: authority and abuse
(31 March 10)by Greg Spearritt
Pope Benedict says he won’t be intimidated “by the chatter of dominant opinions”, in clear reference to the matter of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy.
More realistic assessments of the situation, however, abound. According to NY Times writer Maureen Dowd, for example, the Catholic Church gave up its credibility for Lent. Retired Aussie Bishop Geoffrey Robinson foresees a significantly diminished Church at least in the West largely as a result of the abuse crisis.
Surely, what it boils down to – the abuse itself, that is, together with the morally bankrupt response to it – is the issue of authority. Bishops and popes are not in fact gracious, excellent or reverent any more than your local ‘Honorable Member’ is honorable. Nor, in the case of (most) Catholic clergy, are they fathers. They’re fallible human beings with egos and libidos who have no right to be put on a pedestal or given special pseudo-family relationship rights – other than by dint of their character.
Maybe ditching the ludicrous titles would be a starting place for churches to regain some credibility.
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My tribe, your tribe
(26 March 10)by Greg Spearritt
If religion is not, at base, tribalism writ large, it is at least one of the handiest tools in the box for reinforcing group identity. The vigorous assertion of identity through religious violence seems to be characteristic of our age, and now even the Buddhists are at it.
If Australia is not so beset by these religious ructions, perhaps that underlines the connection between religion and tribalism. The bitter sectarianism of an earlier, more religious Australia - with Catholics and Protestants energetically harassing and excluding each other everywhere from the schoolyard to big business - should not be forgotten. Our growing secularism has largely put paid to that reprehensible phase of our national life.
Maybe our innate need to form groups and protect them from outsiders has found new expressions. It’s doubtful, however, that there are many mechanisms more powerful for indulging that propensity than religion.
I have sincere respect for the enlightened thought and ritual that goes on in some liberal and progressive religious communities. This is what some people mean when they use the term ‘religion’ (or ‘true religion’), but it seems to me that it’s very much a minority expression. It’s laudable, but is it enough to save ‘religion’ from the dark side?
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What the devil is going on?
(21 March 10)by Greg Spearritt
We expect to hear the ‘D’ word from the likes of Pat Robertson whenever something goes wrong in the world. (Haiti, we’re told, had sworn a "pact to the devil" and thus brought the recent earthquake upon itself.)
Not that we in Oz can mock. We have our own Pastor Danny and his 2009 mass exorcism of Canberra. (Did it work?... hard to tell… Oh, of course, Peter Costello’s gone…)
Serious talk of the Devil is nothing new in Catholicism either: the Vatican, as you’d expect, sets the pace. But we now have the home-grown spectacle of the Sydney Catholic Diocese appointing a new exorcist, who warns that Harry Potter and vampire stories may be trojan horses for the world of demons.
What’s really been demonising our children, though, is not some metaphysical boogie man. It turns out to have been men in frocks. But it’s not really their fault, don’t you see? Satan did it.
Could it be, in fact, that the real monster is religion? Or is it society itself?
I’m damned if I know.
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Global atheism in the news
(20 March 10)by Greg Spearritt
What the newspapers say about the recent Global Atheist Convention…
By their fruit shall ye know them (The Age, Melbourne)
Mar 9 – (Barney Zwartz) The jury is coming in on the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne last December: it has produced some good fruit, and may produce more.
Dawkins derides sainthood as Pythonesque (Sydney Morning Herald)
Mar 15 – (Jacqueline Maley) THE creation of saints is "pure Monty Python" and the Family First senator Steve Fielding is more stupid than an earthworm, says the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
Mysterious rituals of the atheists (The Age, Melbourne)
Mar 15 – (Stephen Bullivant And Lois Lee) Those declaring themselves godless provide a fascinating study for sociologists.
Celebrating life beyond belief (The Australian)
Mar 15 – (Miriam Cosic) THEY came from everywhere, the true unbelievers: from Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, New Zealand and beyond.
Atheists’ ridicule won’t win friends and influence people (The Age, Melbourne)
Mar 16 – (Barney Zwartz) If the meek really do inherit the earth, it won’t be the atheists who turned out in force in Melbourne at the weekend for what organisers believe to be the world’s biggest atheist conference.
Dawkins preaches to the deluded against the divine (The Australian)
Mar 16 – (Melanie Phillips) LIKE revivalists from an alternative universe, 2500 hardcore believers in the absence of religion packed into the Global Atheists Convention in Melbourne last weekend to give a hero's welcome to the high priest of belief in unbelief, Richard Dawkins.
Atheism is a broad church (Sydney Morning Herald)
Mar 17 – (Catherine Deveny) WHAT were we going to talk about all weekend? Nothing? Could we scientifically prove the existence of Richard Dawkins?
The atheist delusion (ABC News)
Mar 19 – (Phillip Adams) When I was a child I was the only person who didn't believe in God that I knew.
Atheism: the good, the bad and the ugly (The Age, Melbourne)
Mar 21 – (Michael Coulter) There's more to the meaning of life than proving God does (or doesn't) exist.
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Cult survivor relives history of servitude
(20 March 10)by Scott McKenzie
'Helen Pomery and David Lowe remember a former life of servitude. "I had to submit and be obedient to my husband," Ms Pomery, a 60-year-old Brisbane mother, claims. "I had to submit and be obedient to the church elders and I had to cut off my daughter." This, she was assured, was key to her eternal salvation. "We lived at Samford on acreage. We were ordinary. We just happened to go to an extraordinary church..."
The church - the Brisbane Christian Fellowship (BCF) - nestled in the Samford Valley in Brisbane's north, has a loyal following. Church elders preach sacrifice, submission and obedience, she claimed. To the church faithful, they are God's messengers. But beyond the public face of the church, strategically hidden from the congregation, is human devastation.' (Brisbane Times, 19 March 2010)
This is unbelievable in this day and age. Read more of the story.
Global Atheism, Melbourne-style
(16 March 10)by Greg Spearritt
Cordelia Hull gives us a view on the recent Global Atheist Convention held in Melbourne. I was there also, and though I’d diverge from Cordelia’s assessment on a few points, in general I reckon she’s got it about right.
The 2,500-strong crowd was ready for some anti-religion mass-think and even some hero-worship (with Mr Dawkins on the bill), but to the credit of the organisers and several speakers (notably Phillip Adams and Richard Dawkins himself) the event wasn’t allowed to become an unthinking anti-religion rally.
Some speakers were terrific, some were ordinary and the odd one awful – but such variation is an unavoidable risk in these kinds of events. There were more than 25 speakers in all, so lots of perspectives were presented.
My only real criticism (apart from frustration at the Convention Centre staff who didn’t seem to know that those on stage needed some simple audio foldback to hear questions from the audience) is that there was no direction or overall theme to the Convention. This is perhaps understandable for the first event of its type in Oz; hopefully the next one (which I’ll be trying to attend) will be a tad more focused.
Overall, congratulations to the Atheist Foundation of Australia and Atheist Alliance International for a stimulating weekend.
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The GAC – harbinger of balance?
(10 March 10)by Greg Spearritt
I’m one of a number of SoFers who are tripping off to the Melbourne Convention Centre this weekend for the Global Atheist Convention.
I expect the fears of those like Barney Zwartz will be realised: there is bound to be some triumphalist, fundamentalist atheism on display. Apparently blind adherence to the doctrine that religion is baaad and atheism good, with no shades of grey – a la (for the most part) Richard Dawkins and Tamas Pataki, who are both on the bill – is no better than its polar opposite in the many conservative churches and mosques around Australia.
I doubt, though, that the event as a whole will be able to be easily dismissed. There are some incisive thinkers there (A.C. Grayling, for one) and they have a genuine point to make.
Being ‘religious’ (whatever that means!) is the default mode in our society. Belief in God is socially acceptable; atheism is somehow dangerous, and will frighten the children. We’ll all fall apart morally if atheism gets a proper look in, so best not to mention it let alone have Global Conventions about it.
Yet the evidence is clear: religion, for all that it is lauded in every way (including through generous tax exemptions) has been implicit in pretty bad stuff even in Oz in very recent times, whether that’s intolerance and injustice toward GBLT folk or sexual abuse of children. The small-minded racism that can be encountered even within your bland, apparently inoffensive local Anglican congregation (as I know from 40 years’ experience) exists just as surely as true compassion and a passion for justice.
The Global Atheist Convention, as I see it, is a small, long-overdue measure towards achieving some balance. Religion needs to earn its place. It should not be allowed to maintain its present position of privilege by divine right.
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Did Jesus really exist?
(27 February 10)by Scott McKenzie
I was a bit surprised to hear during one of Peter Kennedy’s interviews this week he said in reference to Jesus “if he ever really existed”. I’ve heard Peter say that some years ago but was nevertheless surprised that he continues to do so. So when I came upon a piece that outlines the argument against the existence of Jesus I thought it might be appropriate to bring it again to our attention. This is an article of some age and which has been superseded by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy’s The Laughing Jesus of 2005 (which I learned about from Peter Kennedy), but remains a fundamental resource about this matter.
Of course in many ways it doesn't matter a hoot whether Jesus actually existed.
On PK (the threat to Rome)
(24 February 10)by Greg Spearritt
A couple of worthy media items on Peter Kennedy, leader of the St Mary’s-in-Exile community:
- Phillip Adams recent LNL interview.
- Andrew Hamilton of the United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne (and consulting editor for Eureka Street) offers a thoughtful review of Peter Kennedy: The Man Who Threatened Rome
Wotnews also has a Peter Kennedy page.
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'If God Exists, He Wouldn't Want This'
(19 February 10)by Scott McKenzie
The community of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel is half a million strong and growing. They live in a parallel universe cut off from the modern world in tight-knit communities where everything revolves around religion. Only a few dare to abandon this life -- and the price for doing so is high.
This piece from Spiegel Online International tells the stories of two who defected.
Ethics and euthanasia
(18 February 10)by Greg Spearritt
The Age tells us that “prominent ethicist” Nicholas Tonti-Filippini of the Pope John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family is calling for voluntary euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke to be prosecuted over deaths caused by the use of Nembutal. Ethicist Leslie Cannold disagrees: for her, Nitschke, like the back-yard abortionist, is meeting a need that will be met in one way or another, regardless of what the law says.
Somehow (for colour perhaps?) Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby also snuck into the Age article. He’s not a noted ethicist, though undoubtedly the former brigadier’s military career presented him with the odd ethical dilemma. Without the least hint of irony, he’s reported as saying: “Nitschke and his ilk are fundamentalists of the worst type”.
Ethics informed by religion seem usually to be anti-voluntary euthanasia. It’s worth noting, however, that a sample of SoFiA members in a recent poll, 88% of whom were raised in a Christian church, was 66% in favour of VE.
I wonder how those attending next month’s Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne would vote on the issue.
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Religion and evolution - a God gene?
(12 February 10)by Scott McKenzie
The New York Times published "The Evolution of the God Gene" by Nicholas Wade in which we are told that, "religion has the hallmarks of an evolved behavior, meaning it exists because it was favored by natural selection." We are further informed that religion is "universal because it was wired into our neural circuitry before the ancestral human population dispersed from its African homeland." There is a certain plausibility to Wade's arguments that religion is hard-wired into our brain via natural selection, making it almost 'natural'.
Jeff Schweitzer, a neurobiologist, takes issue with Wade's interpretation in a Huffington Post piece. This is entitled "The Fallacy of the God Gene".
Not a world-shaking argument, but one worth our consideration
New articles & reviews
(07 February 10)by Greg Spearritt
A new set of articles and reviews has been added to the SoFiA collection:
Malcolm Brown reflects on the meaning of islam and debunks some of our preconceptions.
John Wessel describes what contemporary prayer might mean.
Chantal Babin reviews a 2009 collection of essays.
Peter Hooton argues the case for belief in God.
Why is There Not Just Nothing?
Laurel Sommerfeld tackles one of the big questions.
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Human rights and justice, Christian-style
(04 February 10)by Greg Spearritt
The Pope (along with Anglican bishops in the UK) apparently has a problem with new legislation reform concerning human rights and equality in Britain. Churches and schools under these reforms would no longer be able to use arguments based on religious freedom to justify their refusal to employ gay people.
The Sydney Morning Herald tells us:
The Pope urged Catholics in Britain to fight back against the legislation with ''missionary zeal'' in a speech delivered on Monday during a visit to Rome of the 35 Catholic bishops of England and Wales.
The article goes on to quote from Pope Benedict’s oration:
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“Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet, as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs.”
It’s true, of course. This legislation would impose such limitations, in the same way that the ability of white supremacists to “act in accordance with their beliefs” by not employing people of colour is limited. An “unjust” limitation, though? Surely not.
It’s yet another example of Don Cupitt’s point from his 2008 book, The Meaning of the West (SCM, p.34):
The Church clings to its old inefficiencies, discriminations and injustices, and repeatedly demands for itself opt-outs from legislation that would require it to get its treatment of its own employees, women, gays and other groups up to decent contemporary secular standards. (34)
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I believe... in evolution
(30 January 10)by Greg Spearritt
We have a Prime Minister and Opposition Leader who both believe in evolution despite being Christians.
The only real (sad) question is why this fact is in the least bit newsworthy.
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Events
(24 January 10)by Greg Spearritt
An updated list of non-SoF public lectures, seminars or conferences that might interest SoFiA members is now online.
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Confirmation bias – a BIG problem
(12 January 10)by Scott McKenzie
How do we respond when confronted with information that agrees with what we already believe – think about that – how do you? If you’re like me you take it in quickly and smile inwardly. "I’ve been confirmed in my thinking".
What about when the information is against what you already believe – recall this happening – how did you respond? If you’re like me you reject it or forget it or say it’s wrong, and feel a bit dark about it. "That’s not what I wanted to read".
The climate change debate is one area in which this phenomenon is almost epidemic. Most of us have a point of view but two types of argument – for and against – appear regularly before us.
Kevin Dunbar has been studying how scientists REALLY behave in the laboratory and his research has revealed some interesting things about a part of our brain called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that has evolved to suppress, yes suppress, incoming information that we don’t want to hear. Wired magazine has an excellent article, quite readable, about Dunbar’s research.
Confirmation bias is a BIG problem for us.
Atheist attitudes to religion
(10 January 10)by Greg Spearritt
Albert Camus, via David Burchell, gives some thoughtful advice about the approach atheists might usefully take to religious folk:
Speaking to a group of Dominican friars in 1948, Camus suggested three cardinal principles for unbelieving philosophers such as himself. First, it wasn't his business to reproach Christians for failing to keep higher moral standards than his own. Second, "I should never start from the supposition that Christian truth is illusory, but merely from the fact I cannot accept it."
And third, "I shall not try to change anything that I think or anything that you think: the only possible dialogue is between people who remain what they are and speak their minds."
It all sounds good to me, except for that last point: if we think we’re not trying to convert others to our own point of view, at least on issues that mean something significant to us, we’re kidding ourselves.
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Is atheism a religion?
(08 January 10)by Greg Spearritt
David Burchell, writing in The Australian, has an interesting observation about the nature of atheism:
At a talk in Canberra a couple of years back, the Italian bishop Bruno Forte suggested unbelief ought properly to be seen as another kind of religious journey: "It is a passion for truth that pays a personal price for the bitter courage of not believing."
To be sure, equating atheism with religion is far too simplistic a move, as the popular atheist retort illustrates: ‘Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby.’ (Anyone know the original source for this saying?)
As the front page of the Atheist Foundation of Australia website shows, however, some atheists will go to great lengths to avoid using the word ‘belief’ of their own beliefs (their position is an “acceptance”, not a “belief”).
Surely, though, the kind of crusading atheism we are now seeing develop (on display, for example, at the upcoming Rise of Atheism conference) has a good deal in common with the evangelical fervour of some religions.
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Mission possible
(08 January 10)by Greg Spearritt
On the face of it, at least, the story of Evergreen in China sounds like a very positive example of contemporary Christian missionary activity, the more so for the acknowledgement by Evergreen head Finn Torjesen that
Westerners... often embrace a black-and-white, systematic position on what the Bible says, "like book-keeping". But Chinese people tend to take a more multidimensional approach to their faith.
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Who on Earth was Jesus? - audio
(01 January 10)by Greg Spearritt
David Boulton’s talk for the 2009 Queensland SoFiA Conference, ‘Who on earth was Jesus?: The Scholarship and Research’, is now available as an audio download.
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Another Catholic disgrace
(01 January 10)by Scott McKenzie
In another expose of the disgraceful behaviour of the Catholic Church in protecting pedophiles and sadists in their schools in Ireland, Paula Kirby has contributed a sad piece in the Washington Times (28 December) that considers the Ryan Report and the Murphy Report, both released in Ireland in 2009.
There are also some interesting posts from readers especially an early one from a lay person who chaired a committee reviewing the Church’s investigations of sexual abuse in San Francisco. Jim Jenkins resigned from this position after considering the less than satisfactory investigations that were conducted.
This sexual abuse and sadistic behaviour is a disgrace, but covering up is perhaps even worse.
SoFiA Religion Poll results
(01 January 10)by Greg Spearritt
The survey of attitudes on various religious and other matters from the 2009 Toowoomba SoFiA Conference is now available in full online.
Climate Heresy 2
(27 December 09)by Scott McKenzie
On 27 November Greg Spearritt posted an item entitled “Climate Heresy” to which I made some comments and he replied. What might well appear in the annals of science as the greatest hoax or blunder or mistake since the Piltdown Man of 1905 seemed destined to pass us by almost un-noticed.
For a couple of months now I’ve been chasing down websites around the world for more and more reliable information about AGW (anthropogenic global warming) i.e. the proposition that it is the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that give rise to global warming and its alleged consequences.
It has to be the internet as the source since most media (for a variety of reasons) seem to avoid publishing anything that remotely challenges the received wisdom of the climate change proponents.
And I’ve found some good ones:
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html
This one is the easiest to read and most comprehensive and fair-minded that I came across.
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/contact-us
Click on “Temperate Facts” to find a primer of information about climate change and AGW etc. The daily newsletter provides a daily glimpse of anti-climate change activities and publications globally.
So does this site.
There are many others, most accessible via the three mentioned above.
I don’t know for sure that AGW is nonsense. However:
- the physics, quite simple physics in fact, as explained in the first site above, makes it clear that carbon dioxide is quite unable to absorb enough heat to cause the temperature rises that are claimed
- solar cycles are more likely to explain the heating of the atmosphere
- the unscientific behaviour of the ‘climate scientists’ who worked with the UN IPCC is quite astounding, and the ideology-driven behaviour of many UN bureaucrats and national politicians is deplorable.
However it’s up to you to decide for yourself.
What are they saying about Christmas?
(23 December 09)by Greg Spearritt
From the smorgasbord of Christmas views (News Ltd and Fairfax offerings)…
The obligatory conservative apologetics (the Bible really is true, you know):
Despite the sceptics, there is real truth in the story of Christmas
And more:
The obligatory withering atheist satire:
On looking beyond the incredible ‘facts’ of the Christmas story:
The Christmas call to fulfilment
An Aussie Muslim reflects:
Christmas, curry and many faiths
An atheist philosopher on celebrating at Christmas:
An enriching, illuminating, bonding, godless Christmas
Amateur project naively accepts birth narratives as history:
Stop the presses: the day Jesus appeared in the Birth Notices
Consumption and the Reason for the Season:
Did Jesus make us fat and greedy?
The ways we secular Aussies all ‘believe’ at Christmas:
The relevance of Christmas (chiefly editorials):
Christmas story still resonates in a troubled world
The Christmas message of hope is as powerful as ever
A time to slow down and enjoy each other
Goodwill is so common in adversity
From the clergy:
That simple birth in a stable was God's great gift to the world
Leaders urge faith, hope and charity in times of struggle
Human life must be our top priority
Now is the time to forgive, say church leaders
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God Talk
(21 December 09)by Scott McKenzie
One of my hot buttons is the use of the word ‘God’. I’m a non-theist, perhaps even an atheist. I have great difficulty understanding what religious people think they are doing when they pray to, or worship, God. Yet deep within me there is a sense that without some feeling for the sacred we live less than full lives.
I have found Don Cupitt’s writing helpful if a bit theoretical. So my search continues.
Now comes this morning from The Centre for Progressive Christianity in the US, a newsletter featuring two very interesting pieces about ‘God Talk'.
Fred Plumer, president of TCPC, has written a very interesting piece ‘God Talk’,
and Michael Morwood, another interesting piece ‘Progressive Christians and God Talk’.
These are well worth reading and thinking about. I’ll be doing that and, perhaps, coming to some conclusions about the sacred for me.
Scott
The LOLcat Bible
(21 December 09)by Greg Spearritt
If you’re into cats, you’re probably familiar by now with the Icanhascheezburger site. And, therefore, with kittyspeak.
But now we have… the LOLcat Bible translation project.
(Mor on thiz viytl projek at Lingua Franca.)
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Miraculous Mary
(21 December 09)by Greg Spearritt
All power to the celebration of Mary MacKillop as a fighter for social justice who was willing to stand up to those wielding power in the Catholic Church. (An attitude Archbishop Pell says we should emulate, though he didn’t seem to appreciate that approach from the St Mary’s South Brisbane mob.)
However, to credit Mary Mac with the posthumous miracle of curing cancer raises the question of why she won’t do it for every cancer sufferer. How many faithful Catholics (and others – presumably a saint-in-waiting isn’t picky) have prayed to her for a cure? And what’s her strike rate? Since it took this long to get her to the canonisation starting gate, one assumes it’s not been overly high.
Interestingly, even the Arch himself acknowledges prayer-induced cancer cures are “a long shot”. Does that mean Mother Mary is in fact picky as to who she’ll reprieve? Doesn’t sound very saintly, does it?
I’m with Dick “Godless” Gross on this one.
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What Aussies believe
(19 December 09)by Greg Spearritt
A new Neilsen Poll (Faith in Australia 2009) adds to polls over many decades showing a gradual decline of belief in traditional Christian doctrine. That’s not to say there’s a gradual decline in belief in general, though. God, miracles, angels, ESP, astrology: you name it, we Aussies seem to believe in it.
There are some items of particular interest, including significant differences between men and women (e.g. men were twice as likely as women to say they did not believe in God).
The variety of ways the data is reported is also interesting. For mine, the David Marr piece says it well. Your options include:
- APN papers: Australians believe in God: poll
- The Age: God is still tops but angels rate well
- Sydney Morning Herald (David Marr): Our faith today
- Herald Sun: We believe in God, UFOs and astrology
Also see, from WAToday.com.au: Faith sometimes divides us, but that's OK (“Australia's secular status is not threatened by the resilience of religious traditions.”)
Perhaps, since we’re apparently so confused about what we believe, Tony Abbott is on the right track: compulsory school classes on Christian belief and the Bible might be the go!
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Is religion healthy for society?
(13 December 09)by Greg Spearritt
From Sue Blackmore (writing in the UK Guardian) we learn that recent sociological research seems to suggest that, at least in the ‘developed’ world, the healthiest nations are also the least religious. The question of cause and effect, however, is a complicated one.
(Thanks to Jim Norman for alerting us to this item.)
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Catering for youth
(12 December 09)by Greg Spearritt
It’s often lamented that the under 40s demographic in Australia seems to have little interest in religious participation. Increasing secularisation plus factors such as family breakdown mean that membership of religious groups, and especially of the mainstream Christian churches, is inexorably aging.
Gens X, Y and Z have often had only a cursory contact with religion. To boot, this has largely been through the naïve Sunday-school lens of conservative-evangelical religious instruction at school or cuddly-Jesus Christmas Carol theology in the park. No wonder they’re just not that interested.
It’s not only Australian Christianity that’s affected: Buddhist monks in Japan are apparently resorting to manga images and rap music to be heard amidst the ‘buzz’ of life.
So what’s happening? ‘Cult’ groups like Hillsong may be filling the gap to a small extent, but what other organised social options do our young people have to be engaged in wrestling with the great issues and building character?
Involvement in that great Aussie obsession, sport, may be one answer, but failing a resurgence of religion in mainstream Australian life where else are young folk to go? Melbourne will host the Global Atheist Convention in 2010, but where in Oz are the secular/humanist successors to the churches?
Must we face the fact that communal activity will die with organised religion?
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Climate heresy
(27 November 09)by Greg Spearritt
There are plenty of people now arguing that that global warming is not happening, or that it’s not caused by humans: Clive James, Andrew Bolt, Ian Plimer, the whole of the National Party and most of the Libs among them. Is this a heresy? And does it matter?
It is, and it does.
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Religion and violence
(24 November 09)by Greg Spearritt
Is religious violence inherently to do with the nature of religion?
Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and confreres would have us believe so. Barney Zwartz, columnist with the Melbourne Age, disagrees:
My argument amounts to this: religion is practised by people. It is therefore as ambiguous, messy, prone to both moral heights and depths, as people themselves are. It has been used for good and for harm. My own view is that the scales are weighted firmly on the side of good by making people morally aware of the “other”, but I know many disagree. I think Richard Neibuhr put it particularly well: “Religion makes good people better and bad people worse.”
(Zwartz gives the topic a longer treatment here.)
I have some sympathy with Zwartz’s view. However, on balance I’d want to disagree.
Historically, religion has been primarily tribal, and that remains largely true today. It’s about identity, about distinguishing one ethnic or belief group from others, and usually about privileging that group.
It’s an obvious point, surely. If you are Shiite you are emphatically not Sunni; Mahayana Buddhism has traditionally called Theravada the “lesser vehicle” and itself the “greater”; Protestant and Catholic were hard at the exclusion game as little as a few decades ago in Australia.
Even today the Christian denominations represent varying degrees of exclusivity, from Exclusive Brethren through Catholic to the tolerant old non-Sydney Anglicans. (But even the Anglicans are proud of their identity; their tolerance sets them apart.)
The earthly Jesus attempted to turn the urge to tribalism and exclusivity on its head, supping with sinners and smiling on Samaritans. But the Church wasted little time in righting the ship again.
In this light, it’s not surprising to see so much violence in the name of religion: religion has always been a powerful tool for asserting identity. It may not meet with approval from enlightened religious folk in these enlightened times, but us-them religion remains a prominent feature of twenty-first century life. Ask the Taliban. Or the folk from St Mary’s-in-Exile.
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Evolution of religion
(24 November 09)by Scott McKenzie
There were two pieces in the New York Times in mid-November that addressed the question of the origin and evolution of religion, and how pervasive religion is among ancient (and not so ancient) cultures. Both emanated from consideration of Nicholas Wade’s new book “The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures”. The first was the author’s own summary of the book and the second was by a colleague John Tierney who wrote a review.
These pieces suggest that religion evolves i.e. that a religion changes to better meet the needs and expectations of the people it serves. Some of us find this hard to believe when we look at Christianity today but change has already occurred and more is on the way according to our progressives. But that’s another story.
Magical realism
(21 November 09)by Greg Spearritt
Whether it’s vampires, sorcery or talking animals, you’ve probably had your shot (and perhaps your fill?) of magical realism through popular culture in recent times.
Some might be inclined to dismiss it as fantasy, but Melbourne playwright Ricci-Jane Adams urges us to look again at what magical realism has to offer. She calls it “the portal between the mundane and the extraordinary.”
In art and literature – and, I’d argue, religion – magical realism is a way of allowing us to see afresh the mundane: to find new value, new meaning and new possibilities in the everyday.
CS Lewis used it. Phillip Pullman uses it in spades.
Magical realism in religion can boost our esteem for everyday life and for other people; it can give us a glimpse of an alternative reality that could enhance life on our planet. Provided, that is, that we can distinguish the fantasy from the real.
If you go to church you’ve probably been imbibing magical-realist stories of a dying-rising, divine-human god. Or in the local mosque (and in many Sydney Anglican churches) you may celebrate a perfect text that dropped from the sky.
When these imaginative tales are transformed into Truth, the power of magical realism is commandeered by the urge to control and dictate. That’s the beauty of art and literature: it’s immeasurably enriching, but we know it’s fiction.
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Festival of peaceful slaughter
(18 November 09)by Greg Spearritt
1200-odd police, many of them armed, will descend on the village of Bariyapur in Nepal next week for the Hindu festival of Gadhimai. The festival involves the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of buffaloes, goats, chickens, and other animals.
Why are the police necessary? It seems they’re to enforce an alcohol ban among the million or so people attending the event. Such a move is necessary, according to chief district officer Tara Nath Gautam, so that (as the ABC reports) “people can carry out their religious activities in peace."
One can imagine what a peaceful couple of days it will be!
Despite the protestations of pesky animal rights activists, the Nepalese government won’t stop the festival. It’s a centuries-old religious tradition, don’t you know. And, of course, it’s peaceful. Who could possibly object?
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Who on earth was Jesus - and does it matter?
(11 November 09)by Greg Spearritt
The text of David Boulton’s two addresses to the 2009 South-East Queensland Conference are now online:
Who on Earth was Jesus: The Scholarship and the Research
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A non-pandering pollie: hallelujah!
(09 November 09)by Greg Spearritt
If his proposed speech to the Sydney Institute is anything to go by, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey’s take on religion – and perhaps even his political integrity – is quite an improvement on that of a prominent former Liberal Treasurer (and not a few other pollies and former pollies of both persuasions).
A politician publicly having no truck with biblical literalism is a brave move, even in secular old Oz.
One suspects Hockey won’t come to be known anytime soon as one who “soaked up a rapturous welcome from 20,000 followers of the Hillsong Church”.
Update: Joe Hockey’s opinion piece.
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God endures, even as religion wanes
(02 November 09)by Scott McKenzie
The nature of the American religious experience is changing as a rising number of people report having no formal religious affiliation, even though the number of Americans who say they pray is increasing, according to a new survey.
Those twin trends suggest a growing number of people are “spiritual but not religious,” says study author Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. The report, “Religious Change Around the World,” found that in addition to an increased number of people who pray, a growing number believe in the afterlife.
The complete 364-page report Religious Change around the World, by Tom W. Smith of the University of Chicago was released on October 23, 2009. It is a report prepared for the Templeton Foundation.
Who Speaks for Christians?
(31 October 09)by Greg Spearritt
Lyle Shelton of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has complained about a group calling itself Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Euthanasia. It seems the CSCVE group had the temerity to campaign about VE legislation before Parliament last week in Adelaide.
How dare these people purport to be Christians? According to the ABC, Lyle is certain that Christians don’t support VE.
Two-thirds (67%) of those attending the recent SoFiA Conference in Toowoomba described themselves as Christian. And two-thirds (66%) of those attending were in favour of voluntary euthanasia. Sounds rather like there was at least some overlap…
Could it be that Lyle and the ACL, despite the hubris underlying the name they chose for their organisation, do not in fact represent the thinking of each and every Christian in Australia?
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Religion: society's saviour or nemesis?
(28 October 09)by Greg Spearritt
In the wake of Christopher Hitchens’s visit to Oz, and more especially in the lead-up to the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne next March, the argument about whether religion is society’s saviour or its nemesis is likely to hit our shores with renewed vigour.
Two such salvos have just been fired in The Age: Jew Dvir Abramovich vents at the hypocrisy of anti-religion writers like Dawkins and Hitchens, and atheist James Richmond presents a lively rebuttal.
So is religion good or bad on balance? In a poll of SoFiA members at the recent Toowoomba Conference the results were pretty even: 26% saw religion as a force for good, 21% as a force for evil and 53% felt it was neutral.
James Jupp, editor of the newly-published Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia, says of that volume in The Australian:
If you go through the whole book the general message is that religion in Australia is fairly benign. Most of the things the religions do here are socially desirable and relatively benign.
(Jupp, by the way, says he is “not a person of faith”, though he won’t lay claim to being an atheist either. Phillip Adams has recently interviewed Jupp and two other contributors about The Encyclopedia of Religion In Australia.)
There is, surely, no objective way of judging the question. ‘Religion’ is far too broad a category to say anything much that is coherent about its virtues or vices. Personal experience counts for a lot in this debate, and evidence heavily skewed to a sample of one just doesn’t stack up in the reasoned argument stakes.
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Climate Justice
(22 October 09)by Greg Spearritt
The fundamental religious and ethical dimension of Climate Change is clearly enunciated by Desmond Tutu. In a word, it’s about justice: Africa’s poorest will be among those to suffer worst from changes that are probably in large part the legacy of the way rich Australians, Americans and Europeans have lived and continue to live.
In the lead-up to Copenhagen, when real-world politics will face a critical test of ethics and possibly even the long-term survival of humanity, every attempt should be made to prod the Australian Government into real action (a genuine carbon tax, for instance, as opposed to its weak-kneed ETS). Perhaps Saturday, 24 October – the International Day of Climate Action – is an opportunity to ring or send a message to a politician. (Some sound advice on getting the attention of pollies is presented on the ‘Electronic Frontiers Australia’ website).
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Is God unhappy?
(21 October 09)by Greg Spearritt
Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney Anglican Diocese, has been doing some soul-searching. He suspects God’s not happy. How else to account for the plunge of around $160 million in Sydney Diocese investments?
Jensen is quoted by the Oz as telling the Sydney Diocesan Synod that the church was "up against a large challenge and there is no guarantee whatever that we will survive except as a small but wealthy cult". (As opposed to what it has been, of course: a moderately large and very wealthy cult.)
So what on earth did God have in mind? To his credit, Jensen has apparently considered whether the Almighty might not approve of the Sydney stance on gay priests. (Don’t hold your breath for that horse to come home.)
He’s also canvassed the possibility that the Lord may not actually be “directly speaking to us through these large losses”. For folk who believe God acts through history and freely intervenes in human affairs, though, that’s a big ask.
Since the Archbishop is floundering, he might appreciate some suggestions to ponder. I have a couple to get the ball rolling:
- The Diocese could try giving a great deal more of its wealth to the poor and following Jesus
- Perhaps it’s a sign biblical literalism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
Any more ideas?
2010 Global Atheist Convention
(06 October 09)by Greg Spearritt
Richard Dawkins, AC Grayling, Peter Singer, Phillip Adams and Catherine Deveny are among the speakers at next year’s Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne. The Convention runs from 12 - 14 March, 2010.
Atheism in Australia, according to Deveny, is “going off like a frog in a sock”, and the clear intention of the organisers (the Atheist Foundation of Australia and Atheist Alliance International) is to ‘sock it to ‘em’ and show some atheist muscle.
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Religions don't deserve special treatment
(04 October 09)by Scott McKenzie
Religions don't deserve special treatment
“It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect.
It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect, and that it should be handled with kid gloves and protected by custom and in some cases law against criticism and ridicule.”
So writes AC Grayling in The Guardian on 19 October 2006. Well worth a look.
The pros and cons of discrimination
(04 October 09)by Greg Spearritt
The recent debate in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald about the Victorian Attorney-General’s decision to exempt religious groups/schools from aspects of anti-discrimination law has raised much food for thought. Here are the contributions, by date:
(Sept 29 –John Mcintyre, Anglican Bishop of Gippsland)
Christians should support equality and human rights laws, not seek exemptions.
(Sept 29 – Dick Gross, atheist blogger)
The right wing bit of our broad church of the religious community has done it again. It has actively campaigned on promoting prejudice and bigotry and won.
Freedom of religion is also a basic right
(Sept 30 – Rob Ward, Victorian Director of The Australian Christian Lobby)
Telling a church or a mosque it can't employ people who share its ethos is a bit like telling the Labor Party it must employ Liberals.
Why the Bishop is wrong on faith and rights
(Sept 30 – Kevin Donnelly, former Liberal staffer and Executive Director of Melbourne-based consulting group Education Strategies)
Bishop John McIntyre criticises the decision by Attorney-General Rob Hulls to continue to allow faith-based schools to discriminate in terms of who they employ.
Balancing religion and rights: the case against discrimination
(Oct 4 – Margaret Thornton, professor of law at the Australian National University)
Allowing religious organisations to discriminate runs contrary to community standards.
Balancing religion and rights: the case for discrimination
(Oct 4 – Denis Hart, Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne)
Religious organisations must have the right to act in ways consistent with their beliefs.
Hulls' lack of courage leaves discrimination entrenched
(Oct 4 – Editorial)
We must be cautious about allowing any group the right to discriminate.
Teacher scorned for 'chosen lifestyle'
(Oct 4 – news item, Melissa Fyfe, journalist)
This is an example of the largely unseen discrimination that will be allowed to continue under last week's decision by Attorney-General Rob Hulls to grant religious organisations the right to continue to reject employees on the grounds of sex, sexuality, marital and parental status and gender identity.
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A discriminating decision
(29 September 09)by Greg Spearritt
In the recent action of Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls we see more confirmation of the irrelevance of some churches: it’s exactly as Don Cupitt observes in his 2008 book The Meaning of the West (SCM, p.34):
The Church clings to its old inefficiencies, discriminations and injustices, and repeatedly demands for itself opt-outs from legislation that would require it to get its treatment of its own employees, women, gays and other groups up to decent contemporary secular standards.
Hold on a minute, though: before we tar all Church leaders with the same brush, let’s give credit where it’s due. The Anglican Bishop of Gippsland, John McIntyre, has made a spirited objection to Hull’s actions which ought to give hope to progressive Christians everywhere. He says, in part:
How bizarre that the followers of Jesus Christ would oppose, and ask for exemptions from, a legal instrument that has at its heart a declaration of the dignity and value of every human life and the basic rights of every person. Jesus of all people, would champion an affirmation of fundamental human rights, which especially benefits marginalised groups in society and those least able to protect themselves.
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Who do Americans mistrust the most?
(28 September 09)by Scott McKenzie
A recent piece in Psychology Today reports on yet another study that finds Atheists to be "the most mistrusted group" in the United States.
When asked in a national survey to identify segments of the population which did "not all agree with my vision of American society," ten groups were listed. Some were religious -- Christians, Muslims and Jews -- while others covered ethnic categories (Asians, blacks). Still others were traditional targets of popular animus, such as homosexuals and immigrants. The category which elicited the most opprobrium, however, was Atheists. When it came to marriage and other indicators of social acceptance, the godless were the most despised, marginalized and excluded.
Psychology Today contributor Gad Saad observed, "This might be one of the saddest scientific findings I have ever read." He cited a roll-call of famous luminaries including Albert Einstein, Francis Crick, Linus Pauling, Bertrand Russell and others who fall into the Atheist or non-believer category. There have been Atheist men and women who have made astounding contributions to the welfare of humanity, who have fought for civil liberties and individual rights, who have struggled against considerable odds to make the world a more peaceful, tolerant and nourishing space -- and to no avail, at least, it appears, to the average American.
Religious Instruction
(25 September 09)by Greg Spearritt
A good number of children in Australian state schools spend half an hour each week in exile from the classroom because their parents can’t abide the thought of them being subjected to the naively-realist conservative religious propaganda that the Religious Instruction program serves up.
The Talking Squid backs up my own experiences as a parent and a teacher concerning the materials that are used (often emanating from Sydney Anglican Diocese). I’d add to that the selection (usually self-selection) of people who deliver the program: enthusiastic, usually well-meaning people of faith with little or no theological education who take this state-sanctioned opportunity to promote biblical literalism and pump sacrificial atonement theory into the kids for all they’re worth.
At least the Queensland Education system has had the grace to switch back to calling the program “RI”: at one stage it was known as Religious Education, which in 99% of cases it most certainly was not.
An alternative that encourages children to explore issues ethically without the baggage of uncritical, conservative religion makes a lot of sense: but not, apparently, to the NSW State Government’s religious education advisory panel.
A good place to start would be with the work of Professor Phillip Cam, renowned for bringing quality philosophy programs into primary schools. (There’s an example on You-Tube of Cam’s work.)
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Religion ain't what it used to be
(24 September 09)by Greg Spearritt
Nicholas Rundle (our man in Adelaide) points us to an stimulating article on the Social Science Research Council website in the US.
‘Rethinking secularism and religion in the global age’ is a discussion with sociologist of religion, Robert Bellah about the place of ritual vis-à-vis thought or theory in religion. Has religion ‘evolved’ into philosophy out of ritual beginnings? And if so, is this necessarily a move toward secularism?
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Books for the Boys in Blue
(05 September 09)by Greg Spearritt
Good news! Every policeman graduating from the police academy in Goulbourn will now be offered a Bible – but not just any old Holy Writ. It’s the new policeman-blue version especially designed by the Bible Society for the wallopers of NSW.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, these new Bibles
contain the police prayer and images of police on the beat. They also feature ''situational'' chapters with specific readings on grief, ethics, integrity, leadership, sin and, perhaps less practically for police, forgiveness.
We’re assured that it’s the Bible Society, not the NSW taxpayer footing the bill for this innovation (though it’s not clear whether tax-deductibility comes into it).
Now who’ll step up to offer a cop-coloured Koran? Or the Blue Books version of Bertrand Russell’s ‘Why I am Not a Christian’?
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Don't Mention the... Church
(02 September 09)by Greg Spearritt
It’s September, so be prepared. Over the next 6 weeks, 90% of you – if all goes to plan – will be seeing a prime-time ad or billboard about Jesus at least ten times, courtesy of the Bible Society, local churches (including Catholics, Brethren and Hillsong) and a largely-tax-deductable $1.8 million. You might even be lucky enough to cop the “viral internet component” of the campaign.
One marker of success, as Bible Society chief executive Daniel Willis told The Age, will be a boost to regular church attendance in Australia (currently around 8%).
And yet the campaign (“Jesus. All about life”) was apparently designed to take our minds off church. Willis admitted:
Research showed us that people were not really happy about the church. When we started this research in 2003, all the problems that were associated with the church were being raised, and there was a lot of bad press. The church was anathema but Jesus was fine.
So be prepared to hear about “who Jesus is and what he actually said” and “the truth of the Bible” without, presumably, much mention of church (or of the Jesus Seminar, for that matter).
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Conversation or Conversion?
(21 August 09)by Greg Spearritt
Anglican Bishop Tom Frame is Director of St Mark's National Theological Centre and head of the School of Theology at Charles Sturt University. He has a new book out, reportedly lamenting the weakness of the Churches and their message in Australia.
In Losing My Religion: Unbelief In Australia he says:
The Christianity that most Australians have encountered is weak and insipid and in more than a few instances uninspiring and unintelligible, and the majority have no idea of what the Christian religion is offering.
It seems that among the factors contributing to a decline in faith in Australia is an inability among Christians to stand up and express clearly and resolutely what they believe.
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But Frame makes clear in an interview on Radio National Breakfast that he’s not promoting bible-bashing. He argues that Christianity should engage with non- (or tepidly-) religious Australians, but that the encounter should be in the form of conversation, not point-scoring debate.
It sounds good at first blush. However, ‘conversation’ here has a very clear sub-text: to whit, conversion. Frame himself has a firm view of his own faith, based as it is on what he considers “strong and compelling” evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. My question is whether there can really be genuine conversation if one party has a position fixed in the cement of fervent religious belief (or unbelief, for that matter) and, to boot, a hope that the other party will come round to their way of thinking.
It’s a bit like the situation in anthropology:
In their studies of the cultures of other people, even those anthropologists who sincerely love the people they study almost never think they are learning something about the way the world really is.
(Riesman, quoted in Bernard McGrane, Beyond Anthropology [Columbia Uni Press, 1989] 128)
In ‘conversation’ of the kind Frame envisages, can the Christians – the ones firm in their faith, the ones Frame believes need to engage with non-believers – engage so that they are genuinely open to the possibility that their faith may not after all be justified? If their position is not in the teensiest bit provisional, how can the conversation be genuine?
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Reconciling science and religion?
(18 August 09)by Scott McKenzie
Jerry Coyne, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, has written an excellent analysis of efforts to effect a reconciliation between science and religion. He has done this by way of reviewing two new books by scientists who are practising Christians, both of whom attempt to demonstration the needed reconciliation.
Coyne shows the failure in their attempts, and in the process examines the many aspects of the science-religion conflict. It is a 12 page piece but well worth the read to find Coyne's view that the reconciliation is impossible, at least with traditional Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
The article was published in The New Republic in February this year.
One in the Eye for Dawkins?
(15 August 09)by Greg Spearritt
Karen Armstrong has responded to Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion with a new book. Peter Kirkwood’s review suggests that The Case for God: What Religion Really Means is much more than a cogent refutation of simple-minded atheism.
Evidently, Armstrong quotes Einstein:
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself to us as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our full faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms -- this knowledge, this feeling is at the centre of all true religiousness.
Having read a couple of previous Armstrong books, I have no doubt she could make a compelling case for religion. To be fair to Dawkins, though, I do wonder whether what she describes in The Case for God bears much resemblance to religion as it is actually practiced by the naively-realist 95% of pew- or prayer-mat-warmers.
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Profiles of the Godless
(05 August 09)by Scott McKenzie
Last year the Center for Inquiry asked members to participate in a ground-breaking, first-of-its-kind survey of nonbelievers. Thousands responded and the results are in!
Luke Galen, associate professor of psychology at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, has released the findings of his study and published an article summarizing the results in the most recent issue of Free Inquiry magazine, the flagship publication of CFI's sister organization, the Council for Secular Humanism.
In his article, Galen notes that other researchers have collected mountains of data about the attitudes and characteristics of believers, but there's far less information about nonbelievers. Even worse, what little data does exist has often been collected accidentally.
Galen's study is the first to direct a full range of sociological survey questions specifically at our population of "nones" (as nonbelievers have usually been identified by pollsters).
In addition - and perhaps most significantly - Galen's data calls into question the oft-reported link between strong religious belief and mental health.
The Divine Dumbledore
(03 August 09)by Greg Spearritt
The Harry Potter Alliance is a group dedicated to creative and innovative action on social justice issues. Whether it’s raising money for victims of oppression in Darfur and Burma, supporting local food banks or promoting equal marriage for LGBT folk, members of the HPA draw their inspiration from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels and in particular from the character Albus Dumbledore.
Are we seeing the rise of a genuinely secular, this-worldly religion?:
What Would Dumbledore Do?: 100 Lessons on Living from the World’s Greatest Wizard
While this project has been coordinated by the HP Alliance, it is happening because of the entire Harry Potter fandom and our love for a fictional character who continues to serve us as a real teacher in transforming our lives and our world to be based on love.
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Living in Sin
(29 July 09)by Greg Spearritt
Though the Church of England says it’s not condoning sex before marriage, it’s taken the step of introducing a double whammy of a service: the ‘hatch ‘n’ match’, or marriage for a de facto couple plus baptism of their children.
Such a ceremony is opposed by those few whose mouths morph into a cat’s bum at the very mention of the phrase ‘living together’, but there can be no doubt that cohabitation is no longer seriously considered ‘living in sin’ in our society.
Not so long ago it was scandalous behaviour. So have the clergy and the religiously devout acquired tolerance on this issue, or have they simply had no choice but to accommodate to the way we live nowadays? Or does it indicate the irrelevance of old-style religious moralising in an increasingly secular society?
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A Speck in the Sea of Existence
(22 July 09)by Greg Spearritt
Does the immensity of the universe – or perhaps even the multiverse – inspire religious terror, wonder… or just more hubris based on an inflated view of our significance in it?
Marcia Bartusiak argues that it’s not all about us.
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A Future for Progressive Christianity?
(21 July 09)by Greg Spearritt
SoFiA member Jim Norman has alerted us to a thought-provoking article by Rita Nakashima Brock on the website of The Centre for Progressive Christianity. It’s titled ‘We Might Need the End of Progressive Christianity’ and, being written by an ‘insider’, pulls no punches. For instance:
Most progressive Christians don't even know the strand of their own tradition well enough to have a clue about the vast and profound cultural differences involved in encountering another religion. Instead, they like to dabble in an eclectic "spirituality." This same tolerance applies to their view of race: side-by-side, respectful, and profoundly unintegrated and unengaged, so they tend to be kindly and paternalistic or admiring and fawning.
Can progressive Christians escape the ‘woolly-thinker’ label for so long associated with religious liberalism and find a way forward?
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Scaling Sacred Heights
(20 July 09)by Greg Spearritt
The Chaser team has hit the news (again) for attempting to scale the spire of St John’s Anglican Church in Canberra while K. Rudd & spouse were at Holy Communion. This, of course, at a time when a draft management plan calls for a ban on people climbing Uluru. The Prime Minister apparently wants the climb to remain open.
The Federal Government’s Environment website, however, makes it plain that
[t]he traditional owners of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park ask visitors not to climb Uluru because of its spiritual significance as the traditional route of the ancestral Mala men on their arrival at Uluru.
Respect is surely the keyword for dealing with sensitive cultural and religious matters. Respecting the religious tradition of the local Aborigines should therefore mean not climbing. But what if climbing Uluru is a ‘spiritual’ experience for some of those who do it?
(A useful presentation of pros and cons for climbing can be found here.)
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Women are People, Too
(15 July 09)by Greg Spearritt
Long-time Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter has explained his (biblically-underpinned) reasons for cutting ties with the Southern Baptist Convention. His enlightened rant points out the need for all faiths to respect people regardless of sex/gender:
The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.
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Insecurity and Religious Belief
(07 July 09)by Greg Spearritt
Tomas James Rees, writing in the Journal of Religion and Society, investigates a possible link between personal insecurity and the intensity of religious belief. He considers the puzzle of why modernisation is linked to increased secularisation in some countries but not in others.
Though he doesn’t specifically mention Australia, our situation is clearly in keeping with his thesis.
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The Good Ol’ Days
(05 July 09)by Greg Spearritt
According to art critic/”cultural commentator” Giles Auty, postmodernism has usurped communism as “Christianity's most persistent and relentless recent foe”:
Now postmodernism in all its largely Marxist-inspired guises - political correctness, gender theory, feminism, post-colonialism, determinism, deconstruction, relativism, structuralism, historical revisionism - has become a stealthier and thus even more sinister adversary that flourishes, generally unremarked, in our midst.
It’s a topic Giles has been banging on about for years. Especially in the arts and in education, it seems, an evil plot is unfolding, driven by the Devil’s Left-hand men (and, as even Giles would acknowledge, women).
Giles pines for the days when ‘the truth’ was singular and tradition ruled the roost: a time of “truth, honour, objectivity, altruism, justice and religious faith”.
Like, for instance, when priests were revered by a submissive public and merely shuffled from parish to parish if their proclivities for sex with little boys became inconvenient. A time when homosexuals were justly persecuted, when men altruistically barred women from tertiary education and the professions, and theft was uncommon (unless you counted the theft of country and children from heathen indigenous folk).
Ah, the good old days of traditional Christian authoritarianism. Don’t you miss ‘em?
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Belief and 'g'
(28 June 09)by Greg Spearritt
In The Chronicle of Higher Education, associate professor in the department of behavioural and applied sciences at Texas A&M International University, Christopher J. Ferguson, dismisses Howard Gardner's influential theory of multiple intelligences. There’s just one intelligence, says Ferguson, ‘g’, and either you’ve got it or you haven’t.
One must assume that the vast majority of medical students have it. Yet a surprising number of those I’ve known personally have had a conservative, even fundamentalist, approach to religion.
I’ve thought the idea of multiple intelligences might help to account for this: maybe lots of med students are ‘logical-mathematical’ thinkers instead of ‘verbal-linguistic’, for instance. Medicine requires ingesting and regurgitating a large quantity of facts, where an Arts degree demands critical analysis and synthesis of ideas. Perhaps the critical thinking skills required to question received religious doctrines are just poorly developed in many of these students.
Ferguson argues that the ‘multiple intelligences’ theory “fundamentally conflates intelligence and motivation”. So perhaps the intelligent, educated students who read sacred texts literally are simply motivated to do so in ways that over-ride the application of their intelligence to their beliefs.
Whatever the answer, belief, and religious belief in particular, is a complex phenomenon. There seems to be a lot more going on than ‘g’.
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God and Science don't mix
(26 June 09)by Scott McKenzie
Lawrence Krauss, who sme of us met in Melbourne at the SoFiA Conference last year, has written a piece for the Wall Street Journal "God and Science don't mix". He reports some esults of a panel he was on that addressed this sort of topic, with scientists of both persuasions (atheist and Christian) speaking.
Krauss points out, as many of us do from time to time, the disconnect between what Christians believe and say, and how they behave, in relation to God' concern for4 each of us as individuals. He starts off noting that scientists do their work assuming that God (or his agents) won't interfere in any way. Sounds reasonable?
But in other aspects such as health we insure against ill-health rather than trust in God, or go to a doctor rather than praying for help. Is there a disconnect here?
Don Cupitt talks about the end of Christianity starting when a couple of otherwise religious Scots businessmen insured their cargoes from abroad against loss at sea several hundred years ago. Niall Ferguson made reference to thsi event during hs "Ascent of Money" episode a couple of mweeks ago. Why if you trust in God, do you insure anything against loss?
The Faith-Healing Flaw
(18 June 09)by Greg Spearritt
I recall Don Cupitt suggesting that the death of God should be traced to the time when life insurance entered the scene.
This excerpt from thehistoryof.net points up this connection (and contains a delicious irony):
The first American insurance corporation was sponsored by a church – the Presbyterian Synod of Philadelphia – for their ministers and their dependents. Then other needs for insurance were discovered and, in the 1830s, the practice of classifying risks was begun. Although there was religious prejudice against the practice of insurance by a church, after 1840 it declined and life insurance boomed.
It makes sense: if God is in fact who many contemporary conservative-evangelical Christians claim Him to be, insurance is nothing but evidence of a lack of faith. And surely the same should apply to medicine.
Unfortunately, a couple in the US is facing up to 10 years’ jail for manslaughter for holding this very view. Instead of seeking medical help, they relied on prayer as their daughter died of pneumonia.
Most conservative Christians would not hold views as extreme as this. The question is: why not? Nothing in the Bible suggests seeking a physician is an important adjunct to faith healing. And does God answer prayer, or not?
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The Pope's Physician Hits the News
(16 June 09)by Greg Spearritt
What do Australians – or, at least, Australian newspapers – find newsworthy about religion?
After a year and a half of trawling through the websites of ABC News Online and the major Fairfax and News Ltd papers in search of articles about religious topics, I find some interesting facts emerging. Interesting, but probably not so very surprising.
If (God forbid) you were to rely on these news sources for a snapshot of our society, you would probably believe that Catholics and Muslims are the only religious people doing anything really worth reporting on, both in Australia and overseas. And much of what they’re up to is bad.
(The figures, very roughly, are these. In almost 70 weeks of reporting, here are the number of weeks in which the following are mentioned at least once:
Muslims 68, Catholics 67, Anglicans 60, Jews 45, Buddhists 43, Scientologists 24, Atheists 21, Orthodox/Eastern 20, Uniting Church 18, Exclusive Brethren 17, Baha'i 16, Witchcraft 15, Mormons 14, Hindus 14, Baptists 11, Hillsong 11, Salvation Army 11, Pagans 10, Sikhs 7, Lutherans 4, Presbyterians 4, Jehovah’s Witness 3, Seventh-Day Adventist 3, Spiritualists 2, Zoroastrians 1.
In a given week, however, there are usually far more articles about Muslims and Catholics than about any of the others.)
Why so much on Muslims and Catholics?
Religious violence, of course, accounts for many of the articles mentioning Islam. General reference to the Middle East accounts for many more. In articles about events in Australia, controversy over different cultural standards and issues like opposition to Islamic schools – as well as terrorism trials – feature strongly.
For the Catholics, child sexual abuse is right up there with the doings of the Pope. In reporting on Australia, sexual abuse by Catholic clergy again features, as does the Pope. In fact, whatever the Pope does seems to be considered newsworthy – did you know, for instance, that he just changed his doctor?
It should not be surprising, I suggest, that our news media especially pick up on the violent, abusive, outdated, intolerant, intransigent and illiberal aspects of religion. Certainly, there are articles which paint religion in a much more favourable light, but clearly these don’t sell newspapers. Nothing sells like controversy, and in the world of religion today, the Catholics and Muslims seem to have cornered the market on it.
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In God Our Pollies Trust
(09 June 09)by Greg Spearritt
We expect religion to feature in US politics, but why in Australia, where God-bothering is an even more marginal sport than soccer? In a new article, Anna Crabb examines the increasing prominence of religion in Australian politics.
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New articles and reviews
(02 June 09)by Greg Spearritt
In our newest set of online articles and reviews:
- Peter Bore muses about the big questions and in particular the biggest of all: ‘how should we live?’.
- Religion writer Alison Cotes reviews the latest Dan Brown movie, ‘Angels and Demons’;
- Greg Spearritt looks at Don Cupitt’s recent book The Meaning of the West in which Cupitt claims the long-promised Kingdom is finally manifest here on earth;
- Rodney Eivers assesses Who On Earth Was Jesus?, the latest book by our 2009 Conference speaker David Boulton; and
- Judith Bore looks with tenderness on Don Cupitt’s Impossible Loves.
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Angels, Demons and Fatwas
(01 June 09)by
The review of ‘Angels and Demons’ that is reproduced in this month’s Sea of Faith Bulletin includes these words: ‘Rushdie’s life was endangered when the Ayatollah Khomeini imposed a fatwa, or sentence of death.’ The review was taken from the American Atheist News, I enjoyed reading (most of) it, and – I want to emphasise this point – it was entirely appropriate to reproduce it in the Bulletin.
So, what’s my problem? Simply this: a fatwa is not a sentence of death, and never has been. A fatwa is a legal opinion, issued by a suitably qualified Islamic jurist. Usuli Shi’a Muslims – such as the majority in Iran – are expected to follow the fatwas of a living mujtahid (jurist capable of exercising independent legal judgement). Khomeinin died some 20 years ago, so he doesn’t count any more!
One of the most notable Sunni fatwas on the twentieth century was the Al-Azhar Shi’a Fatwa, an exemplary piece of Islamic ecumenism. A recent one forbids the use of weapons of mass destruction, reportedly because they endanger the lives of Muslims as well as non-Muslims, but I haven’t yet seen the text (which I would expect to value the lives of non-Muslims as well). The same scholar, Ali Gomaa, has issued a fatwa forbidding female genital mutilation, which he describes as ‘a deplorable custom’ with ‘no written grounds in the Qur’an’.
Is life sacred?
(01 June 09)by Scott McKenzie
Universal moral precepts are finding it difficult to survive in a postmodern world where all standards appear to be relative to one’s point of view. Here, Peter Kuttner reflects on his own personal encounter with the question of whether life really is sacred.
This is a question that we might well all face eventually as overpopulation and diminishing resources, together with life-lengthening advances in medicine, conspire to confront us with this question.
Those Godless Clergy
(26 May 09)by Greg Spearritt
It’s a never-ending source of media fascination: the clergy who doubt the out-there divinity thing.
At one end of the spectrum is outrage, for example in Tess Livingstone’s Australian opinion piece condemning Fr Peter Kennedy for doubting the existence of Jesus. How hypocritical of him to celebrate the Eucharist each Sunday! (See Australian Story or ABC TV iview for more on what Kennedy believes – or doesn’t.)
A much more sympathetic hearing is given to former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway by Andrew West of the Sydney Morning Herald. Holloway, who’s in Australia promoting Between The Monster And The Saint, his most recent book about the Church, also still presides at Holy Communion, despite being an avowed agnostic.
You have to concede that the Livingstones of the world have a point. None of Kennedy’s doubts were voiced in any significant public way while he was at St Mary’s Catholic Church. Obviously, they would have constituted far too much of a challenge to orthodox Catholic teaching to be acceptable to the Catholic Powers that Be. Holloway, too, has become far more vocal on such matters as a retired bishop. In his case, articulating some of his ideas may not have been fatal to his career, but they’d certainly have made it rockier.
Did Holloway and Kennedy – like the significant minority of clergy still on the job who have similar doubts – fail their congregations by keeping schtum?
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Onward Christian Soldiers
(20 May 09)by Scott McKenzie
Let me predict here and now an enormous outrage among Muslim nations as news of the material I am about to show you filters out around the world. I was gradually more and more stunned as I turned the pages.
Journalist Robert Douglas has obtained a set of cover sheets for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a classified daily briefing that was hand delivered (only 16 copies made) to George Bush and selected White House aides.
Why Should an Atheist be Ethical?
(19 May 09)by Greg Spearritt
Dr John Dickson, director of the conservative-evangelical Centre for Public Christianity, asks in an opinion piece on the ABC news site:
What is there in the atheist's perspective that can rationally inspire love and discourage hate?... On what grounds can the atheist speak rationally of the high and equal value of the poor or the weak or the asylum seeker?
Most atheists in our society do choose love over hate, he acknowledges, but queries whether this choice is “anything more than a mere preference, a product of 'feelings' as atheist Bertrand Russell famously acknowledged”.
The agnostic Bishop Richard Holloway seems to confirm Dickson’s point. He begins with a quote from Spanish philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno:
'Man is perishing, that may be, but if it is nothingness that await us, let us perish resisting and let us so live that it will be an unjust fate.' I want people to live as though life had eternal meaning. Even if you don't believe in a God of unconditional love, choose to live as though there were.
Is ethical behaviour, though, a clear-cut case of rational Christian action and ‘mere preference’ for atheists?
If the Christian theist’s actions are influenced by the idea of a loving God – as Dickson’s article implies – why is that ‘rational’ rather than ‘emotional’? A desire to please God is logical if you have a fear of hell or desire for heaven, but otherwise surely it’s a product of ‘feelings’ just as much as Russell’s atheistic ethical actions.
The hope of cosmic superannuation might rationally inspire good behaviour, but I think even Dickson would find that an unpalatable motive.
Surely, too, there are ‘rational’ reasons for atheists to act morally: for example, a society that cares about the poor and disadvantaged and values human worth is logically likely to have lower rates of social alienation and therefore less crime.
This very question, the warrant for ethical behaviour in a post-Christian age, will be the theme of the 2010 National SoFiA Conference in Brisbane. Keep an eye on our main page for links to the details as they come to hand.
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The Call of Islam
(19 May 09)by
Liberation theology, inter-religious solidarity, feminism, justice for people with AIDS.
Not words you will often hear associated with Islam. However, leading South African Muslim Farid Esack has brought them together in his reflections on the Muslim role in the anti-apartheid struggle, and its relevance for today. His website includes articles on these issues, and more. It also has information about his books, including “On Being a Muslim”, and the excellent “Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism”.
Here’s a snippet: “I can use Islam and its text, the Qur’an, to re-enforce all my prejudices, to shed them or to re-work them.”
Sound familiar?
Cupitt for Archbishop!
(15 May 09)by
Whenever I read Don Cupitt, I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with about half of what he says, and violently disagreeing with the other half. I wouldn’t have it any other way. So, how could I resist this petition on Facebook?
“Don Cupitt for Archbishop of Canterbury
“Don Cupitt is England's (forgotten?) theological genius. It is my belief that the only way to correct such sinful neglect is by enthroning him as the next Archbishop of Canterbury - or, as a compromise measure, working alongside Rowan in a job share.
“Join this group now and help put radical liberal theology back where it belongs - Lambeth Palace.”
I love the job share idea. As long as he works on the days that I agree with him.
Religion That Moves With the Times
(13 May 09)by Greg Spearritt
Commenting on the current situation in Pakistan, Tanveer Ahmed writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Laws that were designed to protect women in the tribal clans of the sixth century now hold back the aspirations of half the population. What women now need protecting from, within Islam, is the idea that they need so much protection.
It’s another case of human customs, developed for a specific cultural and social context, becoming set in the cement of religion. Even in Australia, where real religious fervour has ebbed to a record low, ideas once enshrined in religious text or edict continue to have a powerful effect. Whether the issue is homosexuality, the roles and rights of women or voluntary euthanasia, we still have centuries-old views from entirely different cultural contexts exerting their influence by dint of their association with religion.
‘Progressive religion’, however, is not an oxymoron. Religion that can move with times and distinguish custom from substance and principle is happening more and more (and now more!) in Australia - and even in America.
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New articles and reviews
(09 May 09)by Greg Spearritt
A new set of articles and reviews is now online:
- The Noah Assignment – how did Noah manage it?
- Spiritual Experiences in a Secular World – ideas and experiences from one of the local Brisbane SoF groups.
- Seriously Secular – has religion had its day?
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – revisited after all these years
- Reviews of Don Cupitt’s Above Us Only Sky, Michael Hampson’s God Without God? and Peter Kirkwood’s The Quiet Revolution.
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Why we believe in Gods!
(02 May 09)by Scott McKenzie
Brian Wilder sent in this YouTube piece of Andrew Thomson presenting a talk on "Why We Believe in Gods" at the American Atheist Convention 2009 in Atlanta Georgia.
This talk (all 54 minutes of it) draws on a wide range of studies in neuroscience in particular but also in evolutionary psychology and related disciplines, to explain how our brains evolved in such a way as to make us susceptible (vulnerable?) to belief in the supernatural.
Justin Barrett covers similar territory in Why Would Anyone Believe in God? (AltaMira Press, 2004)
You need to set aside almost an hour to watch Thomson's quite interesting address which is well supported with PP slides. Interested? Click here.
Humanitarian Religion
(24 April 09)by Greg Spearritt
It’s refreshing to see a religious point of view reported in the Australian press that clearly has compassion – rather than self-righteous judgement – at its root.
Darwin imam Adam Konda has a response to the recent arrival and disastrous experience of Afghan and Iranian asylum-seekers aboard SIEV 36 that suggests a very humane and laudable perspective on Islam.
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Science & Religion: Hear, Hear!
(23 April 09)by Greg Spearritt
Some audio snippets from the plenary session of the 2008 SoFiA National Conference are now available online.
Physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss and philosopher with a special interest in evolution John Wilkins respond to these questions:
· Is organised religion helpful or unhelpful to science?
· Is there any value in scientists engaging with religious fundamentalists?
· Why are you, or are you not, religious?
· What do you think of Richard Dawkins’ approach to religion?
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Defending the Offensive
(21 April 09)by Greg Spearritt
I seldom agree with much that Australian columnist Jane Albrechtsen has to say, but on the issue of free speech I’m behind her 100 per cent. (Her contribution and that of David Marr’s to the recent IQ2 debate on this topic are well worth hearing.)
‘Openness’ is prized by the Sea of Faith Network because it is a necessary condition for allowing genuine autonomy of thought – that is, for treating people as grown-ups capable of deciding for themselves what they should think. It means being able to hear and assess all points of view, whether ridiculous, sublime, unorthodox or even offensive. No topic should be taboo for us.
For centuries we in the West have been – as Don Cupitt puts it in The Meaning of the West – outgrowing “the repressive boarding-school culture of the Church”. Now the State, if Albrechtsen and other commentators are to be believed, is showing signs of stepping into the breach.
BTW, Cupitt has an interesting sidelight to this free speech issue:
Blasphemy used to be an offence directly against God, and God punished it with suitable thunderbolts; but today blasphemy is an offence against human religious susceptibilities, and no more than that. With the disappearance of the sacred, blasphemy has come down in the world.
(The Meaning of the West, SCM 2008, p.129)
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The Jesus Vote
(17 April 09)by Greg Spearritt
Would Jesus vote for the British National Party?
Despite sentiment such as that from eleven C of E bishops in the UK who said in 2004 that “voting for or supporting a political party that offers racist policies is like spitting in the face of God", the BNP has apparently recruited Jesus in the lead-up to June 2009 elections for the European Parliament.
I suppose it’s fair enough. Jesus no longer has a US election to distract him, and he won’t have to choose between Kevin from Heaven and Mal from H...eavens knows where for another couple of years.
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Believers are away with the fairies
(12 April 09)by Scott McKenzie
We'd be better off without religion, argues AC Grayling, who is a keynote speaker in a major debate on the futility of faith in London tomorrow (30 March 2007) He says:
"There is an increasingly noisy and bad-tempered quarrel between religious people and non-religious people in contemporary society.
It has flared up in the past few years, and has quickly taken a bitter turn. Why is this so?"
Grayling makes an important point about faith-based schools (and in particular, government funding of them) that we need to take well into account. This is of signifixcance to me since I chair the board of one such school.
Rudd, Recession & Religious Rhetoric
(09 April 09)by Greg Spearritt
David Burchell, writing in The Australian, takes Kevin Rudd and Gordon Brown to task for their bout of “windy semonising” at St Paul’s Cathedral during the G20 Summit:
When Rudd crafted a word-picture of modern society torn between rival and incompatible doctrines - one of Friedrich von Hayek-style naked greed, the other on the model of Christian kindness - he revealed a striking lack of interest in the ethics of politics, as opposed to the transcendental morality of the churches. By the same token, when Brown spoke to the assembled prelates at St Paul's about the need for the West to rediscover its moral compass… he revealed only the capacity of windy moralism to obscure the most troubling facts about our economic predicament.
Mutuality à la Adam Smith, not economics based on Christian benevolence or moralising from on high, suggests Burchell, is the way out of the GFC maze.
Regardless of the value of his economic argument, however, in this entertaining article Burchell has some interesting side-swipes at the churches - which today “not uncommonly occupy what we might call an ethical niche-market, with a speciality in the rhetoric of moral reproach.”
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CPX - Conservative Propaganda for Christianity?
(09 April 09)by Greg Spearritt
The Centre for Public Christianity (CPX) has been embraced with worrying enthusiasm by the mainstream Australian media (notably the Fairfax press and that bastion of critical thought, the ABC) and glowingly endorsed by our highest publicly-elected official. What CPX comes out with is portrayed as “the Christian” point of view, and one bolstered by rigorous scholarship to boot.
According to co-founder and director Dr John Dickson, CPX aims to “promote the public understanding of the Christian faith [meaning good ‘ol Nicean orthodoxy, of course] using the best of scholarship by the best of media, which basically means a lot of good, intelligent noise for Christianity in the public sphere”.
Best of scholarship? What he actually means is the best of scholarship that a Moore Theological College-trained Sydney Anglican can bring himself to accept.
You won’t find any of that Jesus Seminar, Spong or FaithFutures nonsense underpinning CPX thinking.
A sample of what you can expect from CPX – the “best of scholarship”:
- Speaking to John Cleary on the ABC, Dickson claims: “The historical core of the birth narratives is a Bethlehem birth.” (This is well-known to be considered of dubious historicity among biblical scholars.)
- “Bizarrely, 31% of Australians think that Jesus lived ‘B.C’—before he was born, so to speak.” - From a CPX press release. (Scholarly consensus is that Jesus was in fact born around 4 or 5 BCE.)
· Teaching about world religions at Macquarie Christian Studies Institute in 2008, Dickson avers that in Australia “over 70% of the population describes itself as ‘Christian' ”. 2006 Census figures published in 2007 show that the actual figure is 64%.
- Dr John in this film trailer proclaims that “around 5%” of people are atheists. It may (or may not) be true worldwide, but it’s well and truly wide of the mark for most Western countries. Adherents.com gives figures of over 20% for more than 30 countries, including Australia (at 24-25%). Other sources, too, give figures for places like Australia that are much higher than 5%. What ‘atheist’ means is a moot point, of course, but in the 2006 Australian Census, 19% stated “no religion”.
CPX has given us an Easter present: a documentary titled Life of Jesus, due to be aired on Channel 7 at 1pm on Good Friday.
It beings with the question: “What happens when the theologians hand over the New Testament to the historians?”. The answers to that, if the trailer is anything to go by, suggest the historians in question (including Dr John himself) might also happen to be Christians. There seems to be a tendency to blur theology (or Christology) and history.
Co-founder and co-director of CPX, Greg Clarke had this to say about Life of Jesus in an opinion piece on the ABC news site:
There is a Jesus who can be explored through history. I have just finished working with colleagues on a six-episode documentary on the life of Jesus, filmed in Israel, that looks at what mainstream historians agree upon in the historical record of Jesus and there's plenty. In fact, in The Historical Figure of Jesus, Duke University historian, Professor EP Sanders goes so far as to say: "There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus' life" (p.11). I do wish the outspoken atheists of our time would give a little respect to the historians on this question.
Perhaps the outspoken Christians of CPX need to give a little more respect to what Sanders has to say elsewhere in The Historical Figure. For example, about the gospels: “There are no sources that give us the ‘unvarnished truth’; the varnish of faith in Jesus covers everything” (p. 73).
They could also give a little more respect to the Australian public – who subsidise the ‘Centre’ through the tax deductibility of donations to it – by not pretending that all Christians think alike. Theologically and socially conservative Christians are but one strand in Australian Christianity.
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New Articles & Reviews
(01 April 09)by Greg Spearritt
A new crop of articles and reviews from our newsletter is now online. (You can, of course, receive such items hot off the press, along with a myriad of other news, ideas and information by becoming a SoFiA member and receiving our monthly Bulletin.)
New Articles
- The Failings of Religion
- Is Science the New Religion?
- What’s Wrong with Buddhism?: An Atheist’s Perspective
- Nor Certitude
- A Psychological Approach to the Experience of Spirituality
- The Origin of Religion
New Reviews
- Karen Armstrong On the Bible
- David Mills Atheist Universe
- Fisk, Robert The Great War for Civilisation & Hamid, Mohsin The Reluctant Fundamentalist
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The Catholic Mass and the St Mary's Saga
(29 March 09)by Greg Spearritt
What is the meaning of the Catholic Mass? Donna Garibaldi sees this as a crucial question in the current furore over St Mary's Catholic Church, South Brisbane:
[For the latest development see Rebel priest to lead Catholic 'community in exile' - ABC News]
Fr Tom Elich, Director of the Liturgical Commission in Brisbane, in his article in The Catholic Leader on March 8, came closest to pointing out the real problem with St. Mary's. The secular media had been caught up in the peripheral issues and focussed on such things as the unfairness of treating an obviously socially aware priest, as Fr Kennedy seems to be, so badly. After all, didn't he look after the disadvantaged and run a very inclusive community? Why then should how he celebrates Mass matter? More…
Science - don't be too dogmatic
(22 March 09)by Scott McKenzie
Harry Collins, a philosopher and sociologist of science in the UK has contributed an interesting piece in Nature that illustrates the difficulties of: 1. treating scientific knowledge as if it provides universal truths 2. emphasizing the 'post-modern' perspective on the social constructivist nature of scientific knowledge. A position somewhere between these is probably more appropriate, Collins claims. This piece is worth reading for its balance, redressing the extremes of Dawkins for example. ……………..
The deification of stupidity
(21 March 09)by Scott McKenzie
AC Grayling writing in the Guardian about the attempt by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to make criticism of religion a case of defamation, points to some of the terrible examples of religious stupidity both Christian and Islamic, that it would be illegal to make comment on.
One recent example of the Christian variety comes from Africa where the Pope has recently fulminated against condoms as exacerbating the spread of HIV/AIDS. Protecting the Pope against criticism for such an absurd position by making it illegal to criticise religion would take us back many centuries in common sense.
Grayling gives examples also from Islamic nations - some of which beggar belief. But it appears that the OIC is pressing hard on this at the United Nations Council on Human Rights in Geneva. That such a group might well be successful in their endeavours is frightening.
Only in America ...
(16 March 09)by Scott McKenzie
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE 1ST SESSION OF THE 52ND OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE:
THAT the Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma.
THAT the Oklahoma House of Representatives encourages the University of Oklahoma to engage in an open, dignified, and fair discussion of the Darwinian theory of evolution and all other scientific theories which is the approach that a public institution should be engaged in and which represents the desire and interest of the citizens of Oklahoma.
America - Land of the Free Thinkers
(14 March 09)by Jim Norman
America, Land of the Free Thinkers
Meerkat or ostrich, what's your style? Consider the meerkat, standing vigilant astride its burrow. Then the ostrich - well, everyone knows what ostriches do. Two long-running studies of Americans' religious alignment exemplify these styles. Which is doing the better job of capturing today's religious landscape?
Standing with the meerkats we find Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College. Since 1990 they've helmed the American Religious Identification Study (ARIS). The third of their massive, methodologically consistent surveys was released this week.
ARIS 2008 finds Roman Catholicism in near-collapse across the Northeast. The church of Rome now draws its numbers largely from Hispanics across the South and West. Denominational Protestantism, too, is in decline. Mainline Protestant denominations claimed 17.2 percent of Americans in 2001, just 12.9 percent in 2008. Even Baptists declined as a portion of population. In their place have surged generic or nondenominational evangelical Christian groups (for example, megachurches): 5 percent of Americans in 1990, 11.8 percent today.
Meanwhile, America's fastest-growing religion is ... no religion at all.
Read the rest in the Washington Post's On Faith blog.
Economic Growth: Cancer or Cure?
(12 March 09)by Greg Spearritt
New York Time columnist Tom Friedman, building on the thinking of Paul Gilding, has a crucial question for us.
What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall – when Mother Nature and the market both said: ‘No more.’
Is it in fact a time “when both Mother Nature and Father Greed have hit the wall at once”? Or should we, as Kevin Rudd, Barack Obama and many others are attempting to do, get the whole endless-growth-through-consumer-frenzy going again? What other choices do we have?
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God-Spot Scepticism
(10 March 09)by Greg Spearritt
MRI scans, it seems, are all the rage. And they seem to be telling us we have God hard-wired into our brains, as Leigh Dayton (rather vaguely) suggests in a recent article in the Oz. But is MRI all it’s cracked up to be? Sceptic Michael Shermer brings us back to earth with some common sense. .
Helping or Hindering?
(07 March 09)by Greg Spearritt
In part because of our Christian heritage, we in the West consider it our humanitarian duty to help people in need. Trouble is, we don’t always do it in a discriminating or particularly intelligent manner.
Noel Pearson, among others, speaks of the need to cure Aboriginal communities in Australia of welfare dependency. Now Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo (as Damien Murphy in the Sydney Morning Herald observes) has made the same point about aid for Africa.
Surely the issue is not so much aid per se, but the form in which it is delivered. The huge ‘Band-Aid’ style projects do not, apparently, result in well-targeted aid. Groups such as Oxfam which focus on helping local communities become healthier and more self-sufficient seem to me a better bet for Western philanthropists.
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Tide of Unbelief
(02 March 09)by Greg Spearritt
In a recent article – and in her usual incisive manner – Geraldine Doogue assesses the times and impact of Billy Graham’s 1959 tour of Oz. His Southern Cross Crusade saw 130,000 Australians come forward to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal saviour.
However, while there are many personal stories of the long-lasting influence of that event (for example on the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Diocese, Peter Jensen), it seems Billy did little in the long run to stave off a steadily advancing secularism:
The statistics on Christian affiliation and practice in this country reveal a steady decline from the 1950s to the present, and show that the Graham crusade did not have a marked effect on Christian belief.
Perhaps, though, it hasn’t been an unremitting tide of secular unbelief. Where have all the Christians gone? Maybe they’re Buddhists now, or into crystals.
Death Throes of the Church?
(24 February 09)by Greg Spearritt
In his latest book, The Meaning of the West: An Apologia for Secular Christianity, radical theologian Don Cupitt argues that Western culture simply is Christianity nowadays. It’s in secular, humanitarian Western society that the outsider is welcomed (e.g. gays), the poor and the weak are cared for (e.g. through aid budgets) and human life is respected and celebrated (at funerals we honour Jill’s life rather than pray for her soul).
God’s creative, compassionate powers have become incarnate in humanity, and the Church’s mission is fulfilled: it’s the Kingdom of God finally “on earth as it is in heaven”.
In all of this, however, the Church has been left behind: “I am very embarrassed by the present-day Church’s ugly moral backwardness” says Cupitt.
We see exactly this played out in the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane in its dealings with the parish of St Mary’s Catholic Church, South Brisbane. This is a parish where compassion and justice are privileged over doctrine, where women are allowed to preach, gay relationships are celebrated and marginalised people are welcomed. It’s all too much for Rome.
St Mary’s shows, in Cupitt’s words, that
Christ has returned and the Church is obsolete (though, as Dostoyevsky foresaw, the Grand Inquisitor is far from pleased; he loves the Church and spiritual power much more than he ever loved Christ).”
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Firing up the Aussie Spirit
(19 February 09)by Greg Spearritt
A friend has drawn my attention to an article by a survivor of the Marysville bushfire on Crikey.com. It's a welcome antidote to the frenzy of nationalism being wrung by the press out of the Victorian bushfires. Worth a squizz!
Monkey's Got a Conscience?
(15 February 09)by Greg Spearritt
Altruism, empathy and a sense of fairness: none of these, apparently, is a uniquely human trait. According to The Australian newspaper, scientists at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) suggest that our conscience – a facility many religious groups consider God-given, unique to humans and in no way the product of evolution – is prefigured in apes and monkeys.
If morality is in the genes, then it will vary from one individual to the next. What might that do to our justice system?
God & Evolution - A Major Mismatch
(11 February 09)by Greg Spearritt
According to The Australian, the Vatican “has admitted that Charles Darwin was on the right track when he claimed that Man descended from apes”. And so it should, of course, acknowledge what is by now the bleeding obvious.
However, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, is said to have “argued yesterday that biological evolution and the Christian view of Creation were complementary”.
I have a logical problem with this. It’s fine to argue that God is somehow the author of evolution: I assume that’s what Archbishop Ravasi is saying. It’s certainly what many liberal Christians seem to believe. But please don’t tell me that God loves his creation.
Evolution is not some warm, fuzzy process magically producing “all things bright and beautiful”. In contrast to the God proclaimed by the Catholic Church, it cares not one whit about individuals. It’s about populations. And worse: for the bulk of the history of life on Earth, natural selection has involved individuals dying agonising deaths, including very frequently being eaten alive.
Here, from my review of Scott Cowdell’s A God for This World, are the words of one Catholic contributor to The New York Times, writing in 1996 after a proclamation by Pope John Paul II endorsing the theory of evolution:
What can one say about evolution, even a spiritual theory of evolution? Pain and suffering, mindless cruelty and terror are its means of creation. Evolution's engine is the grinding of predatory teeth upon the screaming, living flesh and bones of prey… If evolution be true, my faith has rougher seas to sail.
You can have evolution. You can have a loving Creator God. I just don’t see how you can have both.
Pastor Danny Nalliah does it again
(10 February 09)by Jim Norman
Pastor Danny Nalliah has done it again. Now he is blaming the decriminalisation of abortion for the wildfires in Victoria. See the article on the Sydney Morning Herald website.
While no-one can be in favour of too many abortions, it should remain an option in family planning. Pastor Nalliah is guilty of an egregious over-extension of his narrow religious beliefs at a time such as this. When people are hurting over the appalling human costs of the last few days as Victoria has suffered from fires which extend beyond the old definitions of extreme, the last thing they need is bible-bashing pontifications from Danny Nalliah.
Perhaps when the danger has subsided we can discuss issues such as climate change, over-population and "stay-or-leave" policies, but now is not that time. Today we need to be doing what we can to support those who are suffering, whether by donating money, goods or time. Bible-basher finger-pointing does nothing that helps anyone.
If there is a theistic god, perhaps now is the time for him (it, or her?) to do something useful and send a bolt of lightning and finish Pastor Nalliah off!
Charles Darwin on Religion
(07 February 09)by Scott McKenzie
Charles Darwin on Religion
What did Darwin have to say about religion? What were his religious, or anti-religious, beliefs? Did he believe that his theory of evolution by natural selection was incompatible with belief in a Creator? Was it his revolutionary science that turned him into an agnostic? These questions have a special urgency in 2009, the year that marks the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of his most celebrated book, On the Origin of Species (1859).
The piece was written by Professor John Hedley Brooke, the Andreas Idreos Professorship of Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology at Oxford University.
Born believers: how your brain creates God
(06 February 09)by Scott McKenzie
Born believers: how your brain creates God
When human beings lose control over their lives, they become more prone to superstition, spiritual searchings and conspiracy theories.
Some of these losses of control are self-inflicted: studies show that people in risky professions - deep-sea fishermen and sky-divers, for example - perform a greater number of superstitious rituals than those with safe desk jobs. Others, though, are a response to circumstances. For example, people living in high-risk areas of the Middle East, such as Tel Aviv, are much more likely to carry a lucky charm or avoid walking under ladders. A 2007 study showed that the growth rate of evangelical churches in the US jumps 50 per cent with the downturn of each economic cycle. The global downturn is no different: church leaders (and psychics) are now reporting brisk business.
Uncertain times cause us to cast about more widely for explanations of our circumstances - and rational reasoning, alas, does not always come naturally when we are desperate for answers. It is ironic that science is revealing our modern, sophisticated, scientific world view to have a fragile hold on our minds.
(From a New Scientist editorial)
The full story in the New Scientist (4 February) is HERE.
St Mary's South Brisbane
(03 February 09)by Greg Spearritt
Alison Cotes in a recent article about the saga of St Mary’s Catholic Church, South Brisbane, says:
Outside St Mary’s flies a banner proclaiming the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “Everyone has a place in the church. Every person without exception should be able to feel at home and never rejected.” And by welcoming women’s groups, gay people, indigenous people and victims of abuse from within and outside the church, St Mary’s would seem to be doing that. But rules are rules, and church orthodoxy can never change.
The saga of orthodox belief and practice versus relevance, inclusivity and compassion continues. The priest at the centre of the storm is Fr Peter Kennedy, who spoke recently with ABC radio – well worth a listen.
Belief in the Bad Times
(29 January 09)by Greg Spearritt
Bernard Salt of KPMG writes in The Australian about 2006 Census figures concerning religious belief in Australia:
[A] patchwork of values rises and falls across the Australian landscape, and superimposed above the lot is a rising market for godlessness, which is making inroads at a rate of three percentage points every decade. The 2011 census will be interesting because, when compared with 2006, it will capture the nation before and after recession. I suspect godlessness rises when we are feeling confident, secure and immortal and that in troubled times we return, perhaps at the margins, to the notion of needing a saviour.
Could it be true? Does faith really bounce back in the bad times?
Journal of Religion and Society
(27 January 09)by Jim Norman
Previously available as a paid subscription for a physical journal, The Journal of Religion and Society is now available online for free. You can either read the articles online or download them for later study.
As a properly refereed academic journal it comes highly recommended for the level of scholarship whilst still being accessible to the general public.
The latest issue has been released, details below, and you can sign up to receive email notification of the latest edition.
I like the fact that it is genuinely across the range of religions (though Christian issues are the most likely to be discussed at present).
Give it a try.
Jim
The Journal of Religion & Society has published the first installment of Volume 11 (2009) with the following articles:
Fatwa and Violence in Indonesia, by Luthfi Assyaukanie
Depicting the Bread of the Last Supper: Religious Representation in Italian Renaissance Society, by W. R. Albury and G. M. Weisz
Assur is King of Persia: Illustrations of the Book of Esther in Some Nineteenth-Century Sources, by Steven W. Holloway
The Definition of Atheism, by Paul Cliteur
Barabbas in Literature and Film, by Bill Jenkins
The Journal is accessible online at http://www.creighton.edu/jrs
Flagging Aussie Pride
(25 January 09)by Greg Spearritt
Driving to an Australia Day function last night I was surprised by the number of cars on the road with small Australian flags fluttering from their windows. As I see it, the waving of little Australian flags is - ironically - unAustralian.
As reported on the PM's website, "The Australian Government encourages the flying of the Australian National Flag by all Australians and is committed to promoting pride in the flag." Honestly, though: if you see someone flying an Aussie flag in their front yard you have to suspect they're a kangaroo short in the top paddock. Or they're a diehard faithful remnant of the One Nation party.
To be sure, at times of manufactured nationalist fervour such as the Sydney Olympics, extraverted national pride is to be expected. But the brandishing on Australia Day of tiny plastic made-in-China Aussie flags is yet another sign - along with the 'Candy Bar' at the movies and the absurd but increasingly common 'Drug Stores' popping up like magic mushies after rain - that we have willingly imbibed far too much garish American culture.
Perhaps I'm just one of those who should, like the troublesome Aborigines who see January 26 as Invasion Day, go back where we came from if we don't like it. That would be big beautiful downtown Chinchilla on Queensland's Darling Downs for me. Trouble is, they're probably even waving flags there today.
God as ‘Love’ or God as ‘Life’?
(02 January 09)by Greg Spearritt
A contribution to a sofiatalk discussion about God by Rodney Eivers usefully teases out two of the popular ‘progressive’ terms often used instead of the G-word: love and life. In Rodney’s view, as a ‘progressive’ Christian active in a local community of faith, each supplements the other.
Big Bang or Big Bounce?
(28 December 08)by Greg Spearritt
What if there never was a ‘singularity’? Some recent thinking (also here) suggests our universe may have been continually recycled – radically contracting and then expanding again – instead of the result of a ‘big bang’.
What might this do to theology? Is a Big Bounce consistent with the story of a creator God?
Evolution: What’s New in 2008?
(28 December 08)by Greg Spearritt
New Scientist magazine offers for your reading (and thinking) pleasure its top 10 articles on evolution from 2008. These include
- ‘Evolution: what missing link?’;
- ‘Rewriting Darwin: the New non-genetic inheritance’; and
- ‘Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions’.
Well worth inwardly digesting over your summer break! (If your reading prompts any thoughts, I’m sure our Bulletin editor would love to hear from you.)