It the end of the world as we know it..or not…

All the fuss over…

US preacher's prediction of world’s end proves false

…prompted two thoughts

One, why the fuss? Why would the BBC and just about every other media outlet carry the story with such prominence?

After all they don’t often flag up “Christian” stories. How often do we hear about the killing of believers across the world? When do we ever see the statistics more the huge growth in Christians across much of the world? Why is there so rarely a report of the selfless hard work of so many Christian volunteers in the world’s worst trouble spots – doing it just because they believe their Lord asked them to?

If I was a cynic I might be tempted to conclude that the media is only really interested in stories of fringe “nutters”, bonking bishops (or worse, which should be reported, of course) and church decline (they must be worried that it looks as if the figures have now levelled out).

Two, why oh why is anyone fooled by these people?

If it was indeed a scam, it is difficult to have much sympathy with those who sold their possessions and donated to various “christian” organisations.

What would they need the money for? Wouldn’t they be gone too?

Frankly, even if it wasn’t a deliberate scam, it’s still difficult…

After all, if the “boss” doesn’t know the time…

But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father (Matt 24:36)

…why should Harold Camping?

What is it with these people?

As I mentioned in a post some time back, I read this blog.

His latest post is on this story.

In short the NNS is rejoicing over the DfES “banning” free schools that wanted to teach creationism as science or Islamism as citizenship.

Here is his post

And my comments…

Another good one, Your Grace...
As both a Biologist and a Christian (and therefore someone who cannot exist, according to Sam Harris!) I am more than comfortable with Creationism not being taught as scientific theory and as a human being I'm comfortable with Islamism not being taught as anything at all!
The NSS (bless 'em) see things along the lines of "Religion=Bad" and therefore the reason they supplied you with just silence is that in their minds the two are in fact equated; Creationism and Islamism are both "religious" and therefore by definition bad!
The merits of a particular position or philosophy are not what concerns them; just whether that philosophy emanates (or claims to) from God.
As for the effectiveness of the "ban", I think you're correct to ask but I don't think the NSS know or care.

But what got me thinking was this section of the TES article.

The publication comes just a week after ministers were lobbied by a new campaign group, CriSIS (Creationism In Schools Isn’t Science). The organisation sent a letter - whose signatories included professors of science and theology and practising members of the clergy - to education secretary Michael Gove calling for a ban on creationism being taught as science in lessons and extra-curricular activities.

CriSIS? Whoever are they? Why haven’t I heard of them?

Well this is where it gets interesting…CriSIS are in fact just a Facebook page with (as at this moment) 98 “likes”

This is their description of themselves

Campaigning to stop creationism being presented as science in UK schools.
Creationism is known, and officially acknowledged, to be contrary to scientific fact. We therefore demand that creationism should not be presented as a valid scientific position, nor creationist websites and resources be promoted, in state maintained schools or in any youth activities run on state maintained school premises

Without getting even more long winded than I normally am, this is a “group” set up by a disgruntled mother whose children

had been exposed to this dangerous nonsense

The dangerous nonsense being, of course, creationism.

There’s more (read it here if you wish) but I’m sure you get the idea.

Now, when I read that, the impression I had was that some science or biology lesson had included something on creationism…but it turns out this was part of an RE “philosophy of religion” course.

More than that, what CriSIS fail to mention is that the school had another scientist to argue the other (ie “evolutionary”) position.

Why, oh why would anyone worry about such a debate in an RE lesson? Isn’t this exactly the way the issue should be discussed? Both sides putting their case and an opportunity to ask questions/debate?Would they ban the reading and discussion of Genesis 1 and 2? (I’m guessing Richard Dawkins and the like would prefer exactly that – if they can’t get RE removed completely).

I'm reminded of the story a few years back, of Michael Reiss being forced to stand down from his post at The Royal Society.

His crime…he suggested that when teachers had pupils who belived in creationism

"They should take the time to explain how science works and why creationism has no scientific basis,"

I.E. do exactly what a good teacher should do.

Incidentally, that’s exactly what I did when teaching…so sack me…oh, too late!!

Now I doubt whether CriSIS’ letter to Gove had anything to do with the DeFE’s criteria for Free Schools but I’m wondering how many of the signatories realised that the letter wasn’t quite accurate or honest in its portrayal of what happened at the school (again to pick on Dawkins, I’m guessing he’d sign a cow pat if it was in the shape of “atheism rules OK” – hmm wouldn’t that qualify as a miracle???).

My last post (also triggered by the Cranmer blog) actually received 4 replies – I should be proud! But you won’t be able to read any of them. Each was from an atheist and each contained multiple uses of the f-word and other expletives. Now I don’t mind argument or discussion, or even being called an idiot, but this is a family blog, so they’re gone!!

I’m moved to ask, what is wrong with these people???

What don’t they like debate and discussion? Why do they want to ban, ban, ban all the time?

You know, they sound more and more like a religion to me…

Free speech and an Archbishop

I have only recently become aware of a blogger – http://www.archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/

I’m guessing that he and I would disagree on a number of subjects…me with my liberal/lefty politics (at least in some cases) and my anything-but-orthodox Christianity and he with a more right-wing CofE stance (I hope that's fair!).

However, why I like reading his blog is that he makes me think!

This morning I was drawn to this post

Pied For Christ

An interesting question raised by “His Grace” (and tweeted, which is how I picked up on it) was…

“If a Christian were to thrust a custard pie in the face of a homosexual, would it constitute a hate crime?”

I popped a comment on His Grace’s blog…

“It is an interesting characteristic of modern liberal thought that it is only liberal when you hold to the same views. Free speech? Yes - but only when that speech is to repeat the party line. As someone who holds general political views that I guess would be a fairly long way to the left of Your Grace's, it is a great sadness to me that any willingness to debate and argue a whole range of ideas has disappeared to be replaced by a mean-spirited (at best) attitude of "Shut up, or else!"
At this point there is, of course, a danger of hyperbole - allusions to Hitler loom on the horizon - which may be of little use but it seems to be true (with my very amateur historian hat on) that an early sign of totalitarianism is the suppression of anyone holding contrary views to the accepted wisdom of the state.”

It got me thinking about free speech (and thought) in general…

I do hold views that I know would generally place me on the left…at least in areas such as heath, education, monetary policy. But I find myself growing increasingly uncomfortable by the left’s abandonment of another “policy” that I hold just as dear…free speech.

Now, I am not naïve…I realise there are intolerant people in all walks of life and in every part of the political spectrum and that it’s not a new phenomenon. If in just consider my own experiences, I can vividly recall a member of the student’s union, thirty-odd years ago, red-faced and crashing his fist to the table to silence another member from making an argument for adding some left-wing governments to the press release we were preparing that detailed human rights abuses around world – it wasn’t union policy, so we were informed…ho hum…

But over the years, while still generally holding to the same politics, I have become increasingly disappointed and embarrassed by the left’s drift toward a strange kind of fascism.

As I mentioned in my comment above, there is a danger of hyperbole here…”You’re as bad as Hitler!”…fortunately, no they aren’t at least not yet…

But…speech is either free or is is not…the price of being free to shout for what I believe in is that someone else can shout back at me the exact opposite!

A little while back there was a discussion on the radio involving a Christian, an atheist and a Muslim – I’d like to be more specific but it was probably a good 6 or 7 years ago and I can’t find a reference to it on the web…so I’ll try to describe it as accurately as possible…

… although the topic had nothing overtly to do with homosexuality (see below), the presenter felt it necessary to bring it up. When asked for their views, the Muslim stated he believed it was “against God’s laws”. You could hear the sneer in the presenter’s voice as she said “Surely no one could believe that in this day and age” and then “Do you realise what you said could cause great offence to millions” (I’m not sure millions were listening, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit a self-promotion, I suppose.) The atheist then chipped in that such views “shouldn’t be allowed”. The interesting thing was the discussion was on faith schools and the atheist’s viewpoint was that they restricted free speech! It would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous.

And it begs the question, why would the presenter ask the question if she truly didn’t believe anyone could hold a view contrary to (I assume) her own?

I thank God that gays were able to shout for their freedom over the last quarter of the century…but if we then say that no-one (Archbishop or otherwise) can even be allowed to believe that homosexuality is wrong, then we have just replaced one tyranny with another. And the problem for gays, as well as archbishops, is that today’s tyranny is tomorrow’s accepted norm and vice versa. If you don’t allow free (and perhaps yes, offensive) speech, then tomorrow, when the political climate changes (as it always does) it may be your particular group that is (once again?)  under repression…who will shout for you then?

One of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite films is from the American President when Andrew Shepherd says…

You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free"

Can free speech backfire…does it have dangers? Of course!

For every reasoned argument there’s at least one madman…

Terry Jones defiant despite murders in Afghanistan over Qur'an burning

Of course he’s an idiot…and yes, in my opinion, he does share some moral responsibility for the deaths (he must have known what was likely to happen!) although the largest moral responsibility rests with the killers themselves.

But to live without it…that would be the greatest danger…

Desert Rats

It's been a long time since I felt I had the time to blog...

...but this morning I was moved to say...

Whatever the right and wrongs of a "no-fly zone"...

As the various nations of the UN crawled toward a resolution...I said to myself, if I was Gaddafi, I would push to take the rebel areas as quickly as possible.

Fighting reported near Benghazi

If I could work that out, why couldn't the military geniuses in London, Paris or Washington?




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Eastbourne, UK

Suffer Little Children

In my time as a (very) occasional blogger I have tended to draw back from commenting on "controversial" topics involving the church...after all it's not as if there is a shortage of voices raised against the church these days. The last thing the church needs is another disgruntled Christian adding to the noise.

But I have found myself becoming more and more , by turns, angry and confused...

A senior cardinal has said the Roman Catholic faithful will not be swayed by "petty gossip" about child sex-abuse allegations.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, made the remark in an unusual message of support to Pope Benedict XVI during Easter Mass.

The Pope did not mention the scandal directly in his Easter address.

He said humanity was suffering from a "profound crisis" and needed "spiritual and moral conversion".

I'm not a catholic; and I could bore the pants off most people with my difficulties with both doctrine and practice...but allowing for the moment that we can put aside such things as mariolatry, anti-contraception, transubstantiation etc. we should at least be able to agree that we all attempt to follow Christ - however imperfectly...
...so I'm forced to ask (to coin a phrase)


What would Jesus do?

Call it a bit of gossip?

Keep silent?








Be "stunned" when someone dares criticise?

The Archbishop was right with his first instincts...

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has lost "all credibility" over the way it had dealt with paedophile priests.

Damn straight...of course the politics of it then got the better of him and he felt he had to apologise...

Whatever else he may be, Rowen Williams seems to me to be a good man and I'm led to wonder if the apology was forced on him by advisors...frankly if the Catholic church in Ireland suffers any "difficulties" over his remarks...tough...

So to return to Jesus. And I'm always wary of anyone who claims to know what He would do in a particular situation...but I think I'm on fairly safe ground here. Considering how He looked upon those who defiled "the House of Prayer" I think at the least He would be knotting a whip together once again...

If the Catholic Church (or any other branch of the church for that matter) wishes to regain credibility...there's a simple start...

...ensure anyone, priest or lay, involved in abuse is handed over to the police - just as should happen with you or I - and then do everything in their power to keep the abuser away from a position where they could repeat the crime...it's not rocket science surely!!!

Separated at Birth????

Mugabe


Ahmadinejad



nuff said.........

WWJD?

Technorati Tags: politics,religion,bnp

Short and sweet on this Good Friday…

The BNP ask what would Jesus do?

Vote for the BNP?

Err…No He wouldn’t…not in the wildest imaginings of their tiny fevered brains…