Alex’s Heresies – embracing a physical reality

Metro news site reports that Belgium is closer to banning the public wearing of the burka and other face coverage, typically worn by some Islamic women. A final vote will be taken on 22 April though all government parties support the proposed bill.

‘We cannot allow someone to claim the right to look at others without being seen,’ said Daniel Bacquelaine, who proposed the bill.

Many people are ambivalent about the full-coverage religious clothing. It seems symbolic of systematic oppression of one group within religious communities by the dominant group. To our simplistic view Islamic women are required to hide publicly their bodies so that Islamic men can control their sexual and aggressive urges. On the other hand we live in a tolerant society that encourages personal expression and the women concerned claim ‘freedom of choice’, a problematic concept within any close-knit societies or groups. The Belgium proponents bypass this concern and argue against the secrecy of hiding one’s face while in public similar to shops banning the wearing of motorcycle helmets.

Thinking about these issues becomes more complicated when religious defenders raise the banning of displaying or wearing crucifixes, kippahs, turbans, rotary club badges, and so on. Where do we stop?

Alex McCullie

Australian ABC Science reports that neuroscience continues to link brain function and human moral behaviour with God’s involvement becoming more and more a fantastic speculation. This time it is magnetic effects on moral choices from Massachusetts Institute of Technology research with similar results to loading the brain while making moral choices. Under load and magnetism, apparently, we turn to choices based on outcomes more than the perpetrator’s intentions. Again this seems choosing between the utilitarian and deontological ethical systems.

Alex McCullie

Five preachers, five non-believers, five fascinating stories of providing pastoral care while reconciling public faith with personal disbelief.

Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola just published a small study exploring how five stories of practising pastors dealing with personal and hidden disbeliefs in the Christian movements they are promoting. Financial and social dependences, family relationships, church loyalties, and fear of adverse public reactions keep them quiet and ultimately distressed with their circumstances.

The researchers discuss the philosophical and mental ploys used to reconcile their conflicts. Conflation of the concept of God with the actuality of God in discourse blurs the line between ’word use’ and ontological reality. The worshipper hears existence while the pastor means concept.

In (post) modern discourse, myths can be truthful without being factually true. So these pastors can talk about the (unsaid metaphorical) truth and meaning of Jesus’ resurrection with believers without acknowledging the event actually occurred. Again traditional believers continue to hear that the biblical event actually happened.

Ultimately the pastors feel they can make a difference, introduce more liberal thinking amongst parishioners. The pastors are unwilling to question the literal interpretations openly but hope to achieve this change through a sort of osmosis. The researchers are unsure how this could be achieved. Overall one can empathise with the humanity of their struggles and fears of rejection and hope they can find satisfactory resolutions.

Alex McCullie

The decline of the mainstream Christian churches is self-evidence in most parts of Western society. The world-wide increase of Christians comes from nations of Africa, Asia, and former Soviet republics. The latest casuality, much to my surprise as an Australian, is the confessional numbers in US Catholic churches. While older parishioners persist, young people are staying away, preferring to see “their faith as a spiritual and less an institutional concern”. An online Boston Globe article shows Boston Catholic churches desperately ‘spruiking’ the benefits of confession via radio and web-site campaigns. The best they seem to hope for is “planting the seed”.
 
Perhaps the Roman Catholic Church has more systemic image problems with the young, issues inconsistent with today’s community attitudes – explicitly anti-homosexual attitudes by Catholic leadership; rejection of women for religious leadership roles; continued rejection of condom use; celibacy of the priesthood; prolonged hiding of child-abuse by church officials; stigmatising many sexual behaviours as ‘sinful’; concept of being born with an original ‘sin’; the improbability of doctrines like ‘Transubstantiation’; and inability to explain problems of evil (all-powerful, loving God with needless suffering). Is any sort of advertising campaign, no matter how slick, going to overcome these impediments? This is especially so when combined with largely antiquated and irrelevant ceremonial practices often held in ostentatiously ornate buildings? These attitudes and practices, even if unfairly stereotyped at times, are condemned by so many in society as well as by the younger people.
 
Alex McCullie

In US and Australia governments fund Christian charities to help the disadvantaged. The question is whether or not government-funded activities should be free of Christian proselytising. This area has always been problematic for supporters of a secular society: is it state-sponsored religion through the back door?

The Washington Post, drawing from a New York Civil Liberties Union article, has an interesting article outlining the problem for US legislators. US government agencies will monitor the charitable activities of the Salvation Army to ensure that the recipients are not subjected to Christian proselytising, perhaps a welcome change under President Obama.

According to the Post article though discriminatory recruitment practices are still acceptable – Christians to work for Christian organisations, syphoning off social tax dollars for religious conversions are not.

Alex McCullie

Great AC Grayling article at Richard Dawkins site about the ‘morality’ of Cherie Blair’s decision to be lenient on a religious (Muslim) assaulter of another. Would we treat the surviving 9/11 perpetrators with some leniency for also being religious, which they certainly were?

Alex McCullie

I shall be running a six night course, late May 2010, at the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne, Australia, on searching for the historical jesus, looking at the historical figure behind the religion – what do we know?

Link to CAE details and bookings

Alex McCullie

According to Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society (UK), Cherie Blair, wife of Tony Blair, former Prime Minister, sees religion to be a valid reason for excusing violence.

Shamso Miah, 25 — described as a devout Muslim — went from a local mosque in East Ham, London to a bank where he became embroiled in an argument with another man about his place in the queue. He grabbed Mohammed Furcan and punched him in the face. Miah ran outside but Mr Furcan chased after him and demanded to know why he had been attacked.

Miah then punched him again, knocking him to the ground and fracturing his jaw. Mr Miah said he had acted in self defence but the bank’s CCTV showed clearly that he was the aggressor. He then pleased guilty to occasioning actual bodily harm.

Yet despite saying violence on our streets “has to be taken seriously” Ms Blair/Booth QC let Miah walk free from court, telling him: “I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before. You caused a mild fracture to the jaw of a member of the public standing in a queue at Lloyds Bank. You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour.”

Alex McCullie

The following quotation comes from the Age editorial of 3 Feb 2010 on gay rights and the Papacy:

…As The Age has argued before, freedom of religion does mean that the right of religious organisations to decide matters internal to them should not be infringed. The state must not tell churches who should be ordained, for example. But the hiring of a physics teacher for a church school is hardly a comparable decision, and when churches claim that it is they succeed only in demonstrating that their commitment to social justice is a selective one. The Pope, and Australia’s bishops too, should heed the example of those Catholic schools that have quietly hired gay and lesbian teachers anyway – and still kept their ”ethos” intact…(my emphasis)

Alex McCullie

A deliciously-named film, CREATION, is a dramatic recreation of Darwin’s anguish over the death of his 10 year daughter, development of a scientific theory challenging religion of the day, and the impact on this theory on his very devout wife. The film draws from Annie’s Box, a biography from Randal Keynes, Darwin’s great, great-grandson , and promises to be a powerful film about a great man – father, husband, and scientist – wrestling with the ultimate questions of personal meaning. Director Jon Amiel has a tremendous cast of actors (details linked below) including Paul Bettany and real-life partner, Jennifer Connelly. But let me mention a personal favourite – Toby Jones as Thomas Huxley (Darwin’s bull-dog). Jones was excellent in Infamous as Truman Capote, one of my favourite on-screen character portrayals.

We have seen some tremendous books and documentaries on Charles Darwin over the last twelve months as part of the 200 year celebration of his birth (and 150 years since the publication of ‘On The Origin of the Species’). Darwin is certainly one of the great figures of science. CREATION fills in the portrait as only good dramatic film can do to give us a person we can love.

I had the opportunity to join an on-line chat between bloggers and Jon Amiel,the director, where he discussed the film and the humanity of Darwin as he struggled to publish his theory of evolution.

I would heartily recommend adding this to your viewing list.

Alex McCullie

CREATION web-site