Dawkins and Freedom of Thought

No doubt when I’ve re-watched all three episodes together of the ‘The Genius of Charles Darwin‘ I’ll write a ‘Whackos’ post about them as a whole but for this piece I’ll try to keep to The Final Installment of Dawkins propaganda… And make no mistake - that’s what it is. Either he doesn’t have enough time to give folk an open debate or he merely wishes to poke around to find teachers, or indeed preachers, who disagree with him and then narrate over any argument that they know is substantive to their basis. Of course those who do not rest on any scientific rational are allowed to be foolish on this programme targeted at the rationalists.

“Another inoculation against Deism, sir?” Is what this installment amounts to.

One of the main problems I have with this is Dawkins use of the word ‘fact‘ as opposed to ‘belief‘… If you want to read something dedicated to this issue then go here, dear reader. But as a brief jab at this - let’s take Napoleon: Dawkins uses Napoleon to demonstrate his grasp of the word ‘fact’ only to show those who know more about the divide between faith and fact that he does not know what he is saying. I am willing to accept that Napoleon walked the land and was eventually defeated by a coalition of various countries and one of those crucial leaders was Wellington… but I have not seen ‘the evidence’ I accept most of the story as if it were ‘fact’ because it’s a whole series of ‘truths of history’ - which makes it belief. This, more than anything else, is Dawkins blind spot and for those who see it it’s like a wide open maw. Napoleon’s story may well be made of a series of facts - but we also get historians views, the idea that Napoleon thought like this because he was short… and other such inferences some, or even most may be correct - which is which and what I believe is thus a tangled mess of historical facts [ie those bits of information that could be verified] and historians views of Napoleon. Why do I continue to use the word ‘believe’ when I refer to ‘facts’? It is because I have not checked them, personally.

Dawkins is famous for targeting those who are superstitious and the reason why so many believe in superstitions is that we seek patterns in the world around us and some of them are not true and can be argued to either be entirely random or have a logical rationale. Take mirrors - break a mirror and suffer seven years bad luck. Studies have been widely accepted that say that our appearance makes a crucial impact on how we are evaluated in the world at large and at one time it could take up to seven years to save the money to replace a broken mirror… Nowadays it could take a week, or less, and we in the west are likely to have more than one mirror so we can forget the whole reason but still the phrase survives…

At one point Dawkins announces that he will show us the ‘proof’ and then takes a stroll down a fossil lined corridor - what I was expecting was a demonstration of how the bones of the reptile jaw changed to the mammalian one piece jaw and the other bones migrating up to the ear. Or even a few skulls which show the ear migrate from around the jaw to the side of the skull… but alas we do not see this evidence - what we see is a series of jawbones that look similar to each other. As pattern seeking beings we will draw conclusions that could be right or wrong. Some take the line that this maw came before this maw and that the difference shows evolution others take a more skeptical view - do we know that the owners of both jaws did not walk the earth at the same time? Dating, when it goes so far back has huge +/- numbers ie the actual range of these ancient artifacts mean that instead of saying 25 million years ago we actually have the possibility of 25 million years with 5 million years before or after that date to play with… Ok, so I made the five million up at the top of my head. But when I was studying the archeology of the Old Testament this was a real problem and that was only thousands of years ago… and the further back we go the greater the problem.

One of my problems with Dawkins installment was the white washing. At one point we have a science teacher who was willing to argue, on a scientific basis, why he believed the Earth has only been around for ten thousand years (+/- a couple of thousand I’d presume) but instead of letting us hear this argument Dawkins narrates that we have six ways that agree with each other and say that we are on a really old planet… this is of course a free exchange of views… From my psychology studies I know that once you have a Standard other standards must be calibrated to agree with the first Standard - and that’s how a lot of these things do work… Let me hear the debate and I’ll be less sceptical, of course you run the risk that I might for my own strange and perverse views disagree with you but at least we’d know the parameters of the whole problem.

And as with the science teacher so with others including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams - he who’s mind is extraordinarily good but suffers from still believing in something (anything else bar science is enough for Dawkins to think you are a weirdo who needs saving).

At the end we are told that we should be proud that we have got to where we are - following on from generations of winners but as a still childless man in a land where success is measured by passing on my peculiar genetic variations, this gives me no consolation. In fact I am letting my genes down - I, by this measure, am a rank failure. They have gotten me this far but no further as of the time of writing this post.

Going back to another piece [which I posted about here] of Dawkins propaganda he argued that because you couldn’t verify some superstitions despite the fact that it brought some folk comfort it could not be ‘valid for the rest of us’ as it could not be independently verified- then he argued that it was alright, however grudgingly that some found comfort from their strange beliefs and that was ok… but problematic. Here at the end of his series on The Genius of Charles Darwin Dawkins asserts the comfort we can all have from the theory/fact of evolution and our place in the whole chain - but what if we don’t care about our ancestors and would rather find comfort in how we live now - how then can evolution as a comfort be ‘valid’ for us?

This, more than anything he has said before, shows how much of a belief system Dawkins has constructed on the back of the theory of evolution. What it doesn’t do is show any real moral values or a way to value  different ways to live. At the end Dawkins becomes one of those figures from the conference of folk he so readily derides in his earlier programmes.

The Blind Atheist

As I watched ‘The Genius of Charles Darwin‘ last night I could not but think that it was a rather revealing quest about Richard Dawkins as he started the programme with ‘Why should I love my brother?’ and from then on the programme was about him.

One of the problems with Dawkins is that he is so narrowly centred on humans and our ancestors that he misses a lot of other stuff that would disagree with his view of nature - red in tooth and claw… Our altruism, apparently, comes from having such a large brain that we can identify with strangers and want, or even - ‘lust’, to help or aid them - with no benefit to our genetic make-up at all. When he was making these statements I could not help myself - I laughed out loud and here’s the why - Squirrels.

It may seem like a joke but Dawkins hypothesis is that due to our big brains our behaviour  or selfish gene misfires and we’d agree that a squirrel’s brain is a few orders smaller - so why are they too altruistic? How come they too decide to have a society that can live together whether or not every squirrel in the area is related or not? Only we with our ‘big brains’ can choose that… Squirrels count the number of squirrels in the area and then breed to maintain a healthy population but not one that has to compete - so one squirrel may not breed altruistically maintaining a stable supply and demand for another squirrel’s baby - and if we want to talk about the selfish gene misfiring because we are so smart and thus help strangers - Red Squirrels will count all squirrels in the given area, including the Grey Squirrel which only counts fellow greys… so the smaller brained one out of these similar species is more altruistic than the larger brained one… So - squirrels too can try to make the society they want. Never mind mankind.

I keep finding Dawkins rhetoric rather laughable - at one point he’s talking about the ‘fact’ that if he where to hold his mother’s hand and then she were to hold her mother’s hand in the ’surprisingly short’ distance of 300 miles we’d reach the mother of human and chimpanzee. Before you say how many generations you can fit into a mile the statement is meaningless. Or perhaps he knows exactly how many generations he expects but thinks that if he mentions that bit of information he may seem less convincing?

A brief clip before a break shows Dawkins talking to a bishop and the clip goes -

Dawkins: I’m an ape, what are you?

Bishop: I’m a human being.

Of course Dawkins does say we are human beings, or rather homo sapiens. So why the clip? Before the break we’ve been programmed to think of the bishop as an old stick in the mud and then we see Dawkins introduce himself after the break as just coming from over there in that part of Kenya and the bishop who has, so far only been friendly points in the other direction and says that’s where he’s from - at this point Dawkins narrates that he thus finds that he’s not going ‘to get along’ with the bishop But Why The Hell Not? all that transpired is that they’ve both exchanged the same information about their own origins. Perhaps it would have been more honest if he had said that he knew he would not get along with the bishop - even before he met him.

And the why of that is that the martyr of evolution - or is that Atheism - does not get along with those who do not speak his language, true he does speak to an ape specialist who disagrees with his theory and calls it the ‘veneer theory’ only to be able to agree that they both share the view that the work ‘The Selfish Gene’ has been misused to promote ‘The Dark Side of Darwinism’ [I could hardly hold my breath when he said that and waited with baited breath for the X-wing to fly past with Obi Wan Ken Obi to jump out and explain how the 'dark side' is 'bad'...] - so in the end they could understand and be friendly… but with the bishop, well the bishop is part of the whole martyredom fight; Dawkins does not hold back to mention whenever he has been attacked relating how in the 70s he raised hackles with ‘The Selfish Gene‘ but that now the world of science has accepted the light of his work - he suffered and persevered for his faith and was not found wanting…

If Dawkins thinks that the case for evolution and the evidence of the skulls in Kenya is incontrovertible then why does he get so upset that the bishop is only campaigning to have the relics of evolution to be displayed with notes that stick to what the specimen is called and the date when it roamed the earth? Surely he could trust folk to make up their own minds or is he wanting, however unwittingly, to brainwash folk into believing evolution as he claimed that was NOT what he was about to the class of students in the earlier installment… We cannot be left to make up our minds for ourselves.

At the end of the first part he said he was going to tackle the origins of man - well I had hopes that he would. Perhaps he’d have an interesting and informed take on the ‘Aquatic Ape’ theory - but that was dismissed by being completely and utterly ignored. Now I don’t know if the aquatic ape will in the end hold ‘more water’ than the sub sahara ape - but I do know it wasn’t the work of an idiot. It is this blindness of Dawkins to not see what disagrees with his ideas that continues throughout this episode. He is campaigning for folk to see that genes aren’t really even ’selfish’ despite his book and that we can be better than that… not about any problems with the fossil record or competing theories or any other behavioural study that would pose issues about his ‘large brain’ thesis which frees us from our ’selfishness’ which we don’t suffer from anyway…

In the end it was like watching a super powered mind with self-imposed blinkers to blind him from anything else… than what he agrees with or those he’s decided to confront because of the ridiculousness of their ideas.

Belief, evidence, proof and rationality…

As Dawkins the atheist that never sleeps is back on the ‘idiot lantern’ as my father-in-law calls the glowing box in the corner, I thought I’d try to clear up some ideas.

To believe something seems quite obvious to begin with but is rather fundamental to how we view the world. For example if we have a trustworthy friend who is normally well-informed we would, on the whole, believe what they are saying to be true. Then we here that someone disagrees with them - we may then doubt our friend and decide, on the balance of things to continue to believe what they were saying or we may than doubt what was said rather than the friend or both. Of course our faith/belief in our friend may be so strong that we dismiss the irksome bringer of contradiction without any thought whatsoever.

Most folk who believe in evolution have not seen the evidence or the claimed ‘proof’ - they believe in what the evolutionaries have said in their statements of evidence. Even if the evolutionaries have the complete truth of it then it still does not change that folk believe what they say because of cunning argument or well-reasoned assertion - or because, simply because, we’ve been brain washed in schools to believe what the ‘teacher’ says and that these folk are the ‘uber-teachers’ they’ve gone so far that they now appear on tv to spread their wisdom…

Belief underpins the very way we decide to live our lives. Some decide that they believe in God or not to believe in God - whilst I argued that ‘creation’ was not a ‘proof’ of a Creator - it is still something we cannot readily explain - sure we can go back to the weirdness of the speculations of before the Big Bang but we can only summarize our thoughts about prologue to the Big Bang on the whole question of ‘How then did the Big Bang happen?’ and we push the problem of our, and the planets revolving around the Sun, existence.

And so we can either say there’s some evidence for a ‘Creator’ or that in the end Science will figure it out - either way we are making a qualified statement of belief.

‘…beyond reasonable doubt…’ is the phrase used in trials as some folk in authority have decided that that is the [or should be] test to convict someone. It’s an interesting phrase - what it basically says it that you have to agree that to believe the ‘charged’ to be innocent you’d have to be mad or high… It doesn’t mean that he is innocent or guilty - that’s the level of proof a juror should ask for before declaring the ‘charged’ guilty.

Of course being a ‘level of proof’ it doesn’t mean ‘proof’ as in completely and utterly undeniable and it is this which I find problematic of Dawkins and his ilk - once at work I was ‘button-holed’ and asked, bluntly to supply ‘proof’ of God - to which I replied I could not, but if he wanted to ‘get into it’ then we could talk about ‘evidence’ but he was already walking away - Dawkins proffers the myth of ‘absolute proof’ of ‘Knowledge without question or doubt’ and if he ever gets his way he may be disappointed to learn that we just let computers do our thinking for us but before then we should recognize that that is the end of his search as a pilgrim of rationality and for his journey - I can only say I wish him well, it is when he would tear others up for not believing in his scriptures that I find him deluded and harmful and therein he is not the most rational activitist one can beleive in…

In the end we have to acknowledge that we set our standards of evidence to crank the handle and call it ‘proof’ and in doing so we may yet be more objective and rational and freer to say we believe in something.

In defense of Creationists…

This may seem like a vain attempt at defending the indefensible - and depending on what is assumed it is.

Before I get into this I want to decouple some issues - which will no doubt be returned to.

Evolution does not mean ‘God’ or any other ‘Higher being/s’ do not exist. Evolution provides a description of how we got to be how we are without the necessity of such beings. That however is not new - Kant in his rambling writings - some time before Dawkins [and even Darwin] was a sparkle in his father’s eye, to coin a phrase - Kant, Immanuel examined the ‘proof’ that ‘creation’ proved the existence of God and found that while it was not a ‘proof’ - it was not enough for him to loose his faith, as a christian, over. Likewise the idea that ‘God is not necessary’ is also not proof of ‘God does not exist’!

So, where are we? Well, that philosopher Bertrand Russell [at least I think it was him... the memory... the memory... ] argued that if one were to suppose that the whole of creation as we know was created only yesterday - How would we know? and further to that if someone decided to adopt this point of view they could, entirely logically, dismiss any and all arguments we make and be completely rational in their skepticism. Like Bertrand (at least I hope so) I believe the world was created some time ago, quite a bit longer than that really - but the point remains.

But before we return to ’sensible’ arguments - Radio 4 ran a two parter called ‘Weird Science’ some time ago - captured on a mini disc - and according to quantum theory, one of the strange things that have been theorized is that once we leave a room and shut the door - if there is no other viewer - the entire contents of the room [and this is the technical phrase] ‘collapse into a wave length probability’ or to put it another way the entire contents could ‘turn’ into gasses on the molecular level leaving the room bare of all furnishings or, even milder, you could open the door to find all the furniture stacked precariously (or even in a stable manner) in a way that is new and exciting - the largest probability is that the room will ‘appear’ as it was left and so far that’s been borne out of my experience… Of course being a christian I believe that God is everywhere and therefore there is a constant ‘viewer’ - so we can all rest safely.

But back to the point of the title - christians, and others of a Creationist bent believe in the universe being created by God or other ‘Higher Being’ and some tales would lead to the inclusion of ‘Strange Beings’ ie the cosmic cattle that lick the world out of the cosmic ice… and some would argue for different times of ‘creation’ - some creationists would entirely agree with Dawkins about the age of the universe and the means of how we are, well, ourselves. Dawkins must find these folk a little confused - Do you believe in Science and God?

But most associated with this idea are those pummeled for disagreeing with the dogma of our age - having the temerity to say that the world is only thousands of years old. Well, here’s an interesting aside - in the late eighties I knew a PhD student in Astrophysics and according to him (Hello, James, wherever you are!) folk were a little shocked when the first man got his feet on the moon as they thought there’d be a heck of a lot more dust from the moon being warmed by the Sun and then being cooled rapidly once turned round to the dark side but no doubt there’s a very rational explanation…

I have been thinking about this and according to my book - history, mankind’s story does seem to begin after the 10,000BC mark - which is not that far off from when the story of Genesis picks up. And cities spring up between the 6,000BC to 2,500BC before spreading ever wider. So, in essence we can say that history began roughly when the Creationists would say.

Now there are ‘Gap’ theories and other theories put under the whole ‘Creationist’ tag and whilst I would in some ways separate the first verse of Genesis off from the rest of the creation story which gets to a very deep sense of how the universe began which I have been informed the word ‘create’ used in that verse supposes created out of nothing - which is as good a description of the Big Bang as I’ve heard - but, needless to say, my sources may have been wrong. In a sense it doesn’t matter.

The Jews have always had it better than christians in that they never supposed that the creation story is nothing more than an explanation of our nature and place in creation. And as I write I’m aware that muslims are importing the problem of a literal idea of creation as well…

The fact that we all agree on is that we are now here, and that we’ve been here for some time. I hear Dawkins snort as the idea that we’ve been here for millions of years as part of ‘Life on Earth’ and he may be completely right [apart from the atheism bit]. The thing we don’t do is examine the problems with ‘The Theory of Evolution’ - and you may be surprised to hear this, dear reader, but there are problems…

One of the books I own told a tale of a tracked flock of birds which moved from the coast to inland and then back again - well, it could have been the other way around [the memory... the memory... ] but the point is the same - in one environment the nuts they ate were softer than the other and they found that the beak changed measurably between the two environments and that once they returned to their original starting place (much like returning to ‘GO’ on the monopoly board) the beaks returned to their original shape and form - given time and some death it is more than plausible that someone might say that the evidence left shows ‘evolution’ when what happened was ‘adaptation’ - the birds adapted to the nuts they had to eat - for ‘evolution’ to have happened it would be necessary to demonstrate that the birds of that flock could not breed with those of the original place - which was not demonstrated.

A somewhat wilder, and politically charged comment, would be the observation that the amount of protein someone consumes in their first seven years is the most influential factor for how big we humans grow - King Henry the eighth or VIII apparently was a giant among men at five foot something - now, well that’s fairly normal in the rather consumer driven west but if we take a pigmy’s child [let's not talk about the ethics of that here] and gave them lots of meat [or other source of protein] and we’d probably get someone much larger than their parents. If we have fossils that differed in place and over grand time delay - we may find some who would argue that they’d found a short precursor to homo sapiens… which would be a false conclusion…

The other main problem evolution has is that some species have ‘anti-evolutionary’ practices - the ‘higher apes’ including chimpanzees kill their offspring if they notice anything different from the norm. This means that for evolution to work, from our ‘closest relatives’ is that a series of gradual changes that couldn’t be noticed must happen before anything comes from the random mutations that evolution needs to proceed - this does also mean that they either evolve so much they forget, as a troop or tribe, the whole different thing or they’ll evolve into something else without appearing any different…

Of course there is always the problem that Dawkins identified in his ‘Blind Watchmaker’ that the odds of life occurring on any one planet are 10 to the power 40 to 1 against…

In the end I’d say that I’m more comfortable with Robert Wright’s account in Non-zero but in the end I don’t have to believe in either a strict 10,000BC Creation or Evolution as I think that the important thing now is How Do We Deal WIth Each Other - and I think that’s a far more important matter than the rest of it…

As I noted somewhere in the middle of this post, I’ll close - we all agree that we’re here now, and that we’ve been here for some time…

A hole in my heart…

this is from the pronouncement that according to a bed time story read to Hellboy as a child that the race of man suffers from a hole in their hearts…

And as it’s a good enough [and similar enough] film to compare it to The Dark Knight I thought I’d compare and contrast that with Hellboy II: The Golden Army to use an old and worn scrap from exam questions…

As Batman’s been out for awhile I won’t feel that constrained about plot but I’ll try to do my best to keep the suspense due to Hellboy - for those who have not yet seen this romp of a film.

Well - both are violent and unsuitable for those under 12 and perhaps for older viewers of a more delicate sensibility. Hellboy continues to smoke his cigars throughout the film and as I write this smoking an impromptu mix I put together in the tobacconist in Evesham [not much of a range of pipe tobaccos but friendly enough and helpful staff - a bit of a treat] I find that the very idea of a smoking hero, well, heroic really in this day and age…

Both Hellboy and Batman struggle in their different ways with public opinion - Hellboy certain that once the public could see him they would appreciate the struggles and risks he’s taken on their behalf and Batman hugging the shadows only at the greatest provocation - willing to give up his real identity.

The question then becomes who are we if we can’t come to terms with the heroes in our midst and therein lies the key to the beginning of Hellboy and our, human, nature. But before we get to that - both films have grand villains - the odious Joker in Batman and Nuadu the charismatic but now, after the eons of waiting for him to take his stand - slightly psychotic. And a good fight they put up too - which is key to a good film of this ilk…

Batman has the byline at one point that sometimes we get the heroes we deserve and Hellboy says that we’ll never be satisfied with them - both are true within these films and provide a fair amount of truth for the ‘real world’ for who has not heard a detractor of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu, even Mother Teresa never mind the comments about those held as holy figures - Jesus, Mohamed and others…

But it is not the whole truth in this age of capitalist secularism - there are those who are prepared to turn their backs on it and take ‘orders’ - monks and nuns being the extreme example - so are those who turn their backs of a different ilk, do they have hearts which do not have holes in them?

Probably not, they - just as we could - decided to be self-disciplined about their lives and their acquisitiveness for their goal of how they think they should live. Could we not do the same and bring some balance into our debt ridden object seeking societies?

10 by the power of 40 to 1 against

are the odds against life occurring anywhere by chance as given by Richard Dawkins in ‘The Blind Watchmaker’… [here - search for 'odds of life']

He then goes on a rather torturous account of how, in the end, it is an almost near certainty that life would happen somewhere. Including some rather terrible thinking - including the fact that if we toss a coin for long enough we would have a statistical anomaly on that grand size. This would only be true if the coin were being tossed in a closed system wherein all eventualities have to be born out. However, as we know if we toss a coin ten times there is no guarantee that there’ll be five heads and five tails and as with that so with the odds of life…

Yes, I’m afraid Richard Dawkins has been on the ‘box’ again making observations such as someone who believes in Creationist theories must be as mad as kite. Yet rarely does he turn his mind to his own beliefs except to reassure everybody else that he’s right.

Just to be sure though - 10 to the power of 40… hmm well, let’s see how big that is -

10 * 10 * 10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10 *10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10* 10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10 *10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10 and maybe one should be a 4 or a 40 but anyway - so the above sum to 1 are the odds against life as proposed by arch atheist Richard Dawkins - pretty slim chance then that life would occur anywhere then.

By chance, that is.

A Post from America : 8.4.2008

I had originally thought of highlighting some of the incessant NO’s that the average American knowingly/unknowingly faces secondary to the nanny state practices that are everywhere. I thought it would tie in nicely with some of this blogs owners posts. In drafting the post it became a bit unwieldy and I’ve tossed it on the notepad to get aged a bit. In it’s place I offer a post about how we are dealing with our recent economic downturn. Sadly the word no is lacking when it comes to accountability and restraint re: the public checkbook.

America is a consumer nation. It is our bane and our reality. We have evolved into a service sector economy which has somehow fostered prosperity for many. This of course led to our need to keep up with the Jonses.

We set forth buying stuff. big stuff,lot’s of stuff,stuff and more stuff. We had experienced only little negative issues from this until recently. Our housing market is adjusting. Our homes tend to be the big asset for us and unfortunately tends to replace anything resembling hard savings in the bank. Adjust the value of our home and property and you thrust our asset into a liability. This is my simplistic version of what is really hurting us but I don’t think I’m off base.

Fear not the government has stepped in and offered much monetary assistance to the mortgage devalued masses.The Government has also taken steps to shore up Freddie and Fannie. They have dipped into the pocketbook to help the banking & finance market overall.I sit wondering if the airlines and automakers are next.Those two coming to the trough is not unprecedented. This is all stupid in my opinion and fortunately for you dear reader other more articulate folk agree.

When the economy contracts, the government may use sound monetary and fiscal policy to help revive growth. But when wealth goes up in smoke, the government can’t necessarily bring it back. If it tries, the effect is likely to resemble what happens when you give a recovering alcoholic a drink: deceptively pleasant at first, but ultimately calamitous.

Anyway the above quote is from Reason Magazine. It is an article that captures it better than I ever could. I also have a post at my place that used this article as it’s basis.

The two offer a look at the problem that even many Americans don’t get or share. I offer them to you as a way to understand us a bit better.

It’s all very well to say

I wouldn’t have started from here…

Up to now I’ve been having a go at folk who throw stones - which is a self-serving task if ever there was one - from liberals like the Inclusive Church to conservatives such as those from Forward in Faith - and because I’m more aware of one side (the one I happen to agree with more) it could be seen that I’m actually against what they stand for…

Lambeth has finished and folk with big hats and long sticks will be going back to whence they came - from all over the world and it is at this point I’ve decided - some may say at long last - to try and give a positive view of what I think ‘The Church’ should be like. Which from a standpoint where you don’t actually own up to a tradition is more difficult than you might think - the only point I can stump up is that I’m a contemplative christian. If I were an anglican I could easily point to ‘my‘ church and say that this is what it should be like except for this bit or we’re far from where we should be but we are traveling in the right direction and it should take us over there somewhere. This is true for whatever denomination or tradition that has a readily recognizable set of creeds and structures that I could have picked.

But first - a couple of points [surprise surprise] some are defining the problem as being irrelevant to modern society as the church does not embrace ‘our’ modern cultured views… The inclusive church would say that about the issue of gays and lesbians and that we should just accept them… reading around blogs though and we find that folk from other places in the world are using the same argument for opposing ends - folk think that to allow gays as bishops is despicable and they laugh at us - where we come from… So how do you decide on which is right. Well according to utilitarianism - You Don’t Have To! They are both right for where they come from. This, to me is unacceptable and I found an interesting short as I plunged the cobwebs of the Telegraph’s site trying to find an article about something else I recommend that if you feel the church should be ‘in step’ with the ‘host’ or general media created cultural idea check this out for the obvious flaws…

Secondly, the problem as I’ve tried to point out is also about theological differences - when one bishop says you must believe in x, y and z and the other bishop says ‘why don’t we think about that…’ you’re in for a battle of wits where both can only stay if they each feel respected and valued despite the differences.

Well, I’d start by saying we shouldn’t have priests and bishops and folk with even longer titles. This does cause a ripple of ‘Shock! Horror!‘ when I normally drop this in and then the old chestnut - That could never work! If we took just a moment to have a look around - Sikhs don’t have priests and that does not seem to have done them any harm - they have a book by their guru and they read that and sometimes ask a learned sikh they know to interpret meanings so they can go off and think about it… If we are going to stick to our guns as christians then we should feel rich in comparison - not only have we the bible but Jesus said that we would have the Holy Spirit, in person, to help and guide us as well. Not that the sikh’s don’t believe in a god as they too are monotheistic (according to the BBC… here) and just as a note before I leave this bit - If any sikh reads this and wants to correct any information or just plain add to any debate (including starting one) then please feel welcome to post a comment.

I was heartened to read Bishop Alan’s pieces on how the Indaba process picked for Lambeth works and this is a good model… Here’s a post which describes how a ’session’ worked. At least I think it’s a good model as described. There are points I’d make such as making sure that the ‘leader’ was a rotating post - not held by any ’special’ hands.  So for those who haven’t clicked through - the indaba process involves a group which share their views together - not overly large but far from being mono-idea’ed. Being able to share a view and to know that you are listened to as the group sees you - which is a far cry from saying things in print or crying from a media stand for others to merely hear or see the words…

How would this feed into an even larger group to form a unifying tradition/collective?

Well, from that I’d hop to the tribal representative system as described by Pete Ellis Beresford in ‘The Celtic Empire’ where one indaba group would appoint someone that they trusted to represent them - those representatives then meet in groups and send a representative and once you reach the ‘highest’ group they could pick someone to be a spokesman for the whole shebang… The question is then ‘Haven’t you just instituted a hierarchical structure? Well, yes - temporarily because as soon as the representatives go back to their group and report - they are done unless they are picked the next time and if they haven’t represented the group well enough - there’s a good chance they won’t be picked next time.

And any work which is out of step of enough of folk will get winched back next time around. Well, that would my hope and my idea for how the church should operate. But the whole thing about the small group is that they can worship God together and be known for who they are and hopefully respond to each other’s needs.

Of course this does throw out a heck of a lot of traditional institutions from virtually all the denominations - the Quakers would be the one’s left most unscathed [as far as I'm aware]… but for those who say that these precious traditions - and there is no doubt that some of them are good and even the ones that aren’t that good were mostly started for good intentions - all started from the false premise that we should accept what the holy men of the early church and beyond decreed - even in the Book of Acts we can see if you compare it to the teachings of Jesus - that the earliest churches we have a record of were beginning to go ‘off track’… Not that we shouldn’t value it for what it was but why compound error upon error?

The Mouth of V for Vendetta

or just plain propaganda by the government…

It’s not new, but then it’s not big or clever although it does work.

The longest running government sponsored programme I know about - that was actively meant to affect folks’ behaviour is The Archers on Radio 4, originally being funded, if memory serves right, by the Department for Agriculture or it’s equivalent to try to get those recalcitrant and stubborn farmers to use modern practices and apply for any grants that were available to help them along their path. I used to regularly make sure I listenned to this as it was a rather quaint yet informative programme about rural life - it’s hardships and it’s activities and enabled me to have a  good eye on how things would hit those I wouldn’t otherwise have a clue about. Now, well, now it seems more pre-occupied in being a rural Eastenders which is not something I want and only really listen to The Archers now because my radio dial is stuck on Radio 4…

But whilst that may seem harmless enough - originating from a desire to have better farming practices picked up and used - having programmes which are about showing how good government policies are regarding their decisions - not about whether or not we engage with the government or the little choice we have when the police get involved in our lives or tragically - when we need them - is it right that they use TV to engineer our views?

Instead of taking their arguments to the hustings and arguing their corner the government is now paying for a good view of their decisions - including having an editorial role (never mind the obvious - ‘If you do a good job for us on this one, there’ll be plenty more…).

And the story is to be found here. The problem is is how does this leave us free from propaganda and able to see a true and whole picture of what is going on rather than being tucked up into bed with comforting thoughts that the police - civilian or otherwise always behave nicely and never in an intimidating fashion and the next series about the ‘Border Force’ will not show immigration officers being short with failed applications or that they might, just might, say something about where someone comes from…

True we could always turn off the dread TV but then - how do we know which is propaganda and which is serious documentary? It turns out to be a strange short fall from being ‘force fed’ to being ‘fed by fakery’ as the government seeks to change our minds -

The show was a hit. Three million tuned in, and just months later more than twice as many people — 62 per cent — had a positive view of PCSOs.

The Home Office was so pleased — its head of marketing was happy to boast of an “excellent return on investment” — it paid £400,000 for a second series and has ordered a third for next year.

Shows the mind of a State that wants to control Our Minds…

Throwing stones…

Just as a quick note/warning this post is going to be a medley or smorgasborg of different strands with the main theme as the title… So if you reach that which you are interested in then you can either keep reading or just plain go enjoy yourself somewhere else, dear reader…

On the cinematic front I’ve been off to watch acouple of movies recently - WALL-E and The Dark Knight…

Now I’ll start with WALL-E and I have to say that I was looking forward to seeing this but if any of you, like me, don’t like musicals then it is very difficult to enjoy this film. WALL-E seems hooked on a track from ‘Hello Dolly‘ (or so the wife informs me) and that is fine - after centuries of undertaking it’s programmed task some foibles/errors in the programme will crop up - what it is is a block for those who don’t like the choice of what the droid is stuck on [and don't get me started about ABBA!] so after the ruined start I was looking for some good hard sci-fi to kick start my interest… and it never came - true it was vaguely enjoyable but some things were glaringly either absent or wrong - starting with the pile of ’space trash’ the rocket had to get through to escape Earth gravity. If it had got that bad how would it have left Earth still so warm? Apart from the question that it would have taken a huge amount of junk to create that barrier.

Other than that there is nothing new here for a sci-fi watcher - the dystopic society that has developed on the ‘Mother Ship’ is an old tried and tested one. Nevermind that if through the centuries they didn’t recycle the ship would be stripped of all it’s inards leaving possibly only the life support and folk left in frozen accomodation and that’s if they were lucky….

So a disappointing film from my particular musical intolerant viewpoint…

What is also disappointing is the whole thing that’s been going on around the Lambeth Conference…

Apparently it has been a ‘bit dull’ for some - especially The Times as they regurgitated an article from the Archbishop of the Southern Cone [or Mexico Southwards down to the end of South America for the rest of us] a one Venables who said sometime ago that Bishop Gene Robinson should be sacked - which was also ran as a paragraphed bulletin in the Telegraph (and when we get to a point that’s worth sourcing - I will try…) But folk have been doing their best to throw a few spanners into the works if not stones…

But that’s not to say that they aren’t trying to make some important and real work on some issues - take that old nut of homosexuality - there’s this piece which tries to tackle violence and intolerance towards those who do not conform to some folks prejudicial view regarding gays and even there existence in some places on this world… and we can only hope that the relevant folk will stand up and take note - but wait, didn’t that get covered in Gafcon? Well it did, but it’s probably a good thing to reinforce the work they did here.

On the other hand there’s also the meeting they had about rape and beating - including wife beating and the whole thing about the evils of domestic violence be it physical, emotional or spiritual and it’s here that we get stuck in the old stone throwing. There was a report in the old rag Telegraph about Bishop Catherine Roskam who basically accused the bishops from the ‘third world’ of harbouring wife beaters in their midst…

And whilst I admit, somewhat to my disliking of this particular truth, that some cultures in the ‘third world’ do accept or condone domestic violence at the level of education and status of bishop - I think you have to be honest and say that it is no longer about geography. Domestic violence occurs in all societies and classes - and it’s not just by men, there are women who beat their partners (male and female). So in the end I think leveling this sort of accusation to only one part of the grand collection of bishops and archbishops is false. It’s on the same level as me going up to the Archbishop of Canterbury and asking him ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’ and just to be clear, I don’t think he ever beat his wife - or anyone else for that matter.

Even Giles Fraser has managed to get into throwing stones from his particular sideline - there’s a couple of posts - the more interesting one is here and the other one is there. Before I get into his particular stones I’ll just take a couple of sentences from his lesser piece -

I am sure that there are many terribly important things going on in Canterbury. But, speaking to some of the people involved in the meetings and prayer sessions, I think it sounds a dreary and draining experience. Anglicanism is all rather Calvary at the moment. But there is so much more to God than this. Christians ought to throw better parties.

Which seems to show just how tortured he had to write that particular piece, after all Lambeth is not supposed to be a PARTY - it is a serious meeting at which Rowan Williams is trying to hold the anglican communion together… and what Giles in this piece is objecting to is a motion where practices which might fracture it should be placed under a ‘moratorium’ ie an agreement to stop being disruptive, whilst bringing some folk nearer to being reconciled [Isn't that what Giles wants?] - and while I may agree with same sex blessings [as they are called] the sharp question for Giles and his friends in the ‘Inclusive Church‘ [which means - if you agree with us - feel included.] is do they want to just have their cake and eat it locally or do they want to try to get to where they want within a still global church?

Peter Mandelson on his piece about the collapse of the latest trade talks makes some interesting views on how a deal falls apart or for the sharper eyed amongst us - hints at how to reach a deal all can sign up to -

One side insisted they would not accept any formula that did not let them protect small farmers - especially from subsidised exports from the United States.

The US complained that the measure effectively meant new restrictions on US exports of soy and cotton.

There is something to both arguments, and important principles involved.

But what seemed to get lost in Geneva was the fact that a principled argument does not have to mean an argument on which no compromise is possible.

Technical experts in Geneva spent hours hammering out a compromise that would have met the concerns of both sides.

Neither side felt able to pick it up. That is what makes failure - when we were so close to success - much more difficult to explain.

emphasis and italics mine and so back to the post…

More recently I have watched the latest Batman movie [if you wondering where this bit was coming] and I liked it - it was a gripping sequel and everyone played their parts well and I can only do it justice by reccomending it to all and sundry [who are old enough... ie 12 upwards] but the thing I want to pick out and is a bit of a spoiler if you haven’t seen it yet so rejoin the post at the emboldened start of the next paragraph -  is that at some point in the film Batman tells Commissioner Gordon to blame him for crimes he didn’t commit - nevermind the ones he did -  to save another’s reputation and it is this which sticks out in the midst of the anglican squabling - no-one wants to compromise on the reactionary front.

It is also what Mandelson was saying - both sides need to compromise but the church in the US hasn’t compromised at all despite the terrible toll that both the homosexual issue took but also over the liberal theological movement that steamed ahead - so rather than traditionalists being stuck in the muds they’ve been winched relentlessly from their positions and even offering [after the bishoping of Gene Robinson] a voluntary moratorium which would have eventually made all the sacrifices they made and the successes of the liberal movement the de facto status qou ie ‘normal’ but that wasn’t good enough for them then and they still may hold that it’s not good enough for them now.

Where is the heroic ‘Batman’ figure who is big enough to take the intransigence of the liberal movement and prepare to offer themselves up for the sake of the communion? Instead of saying

Blake would have seen the Windsor report and its children as a form of tyranny, in which legalistic religion (the “stony law”, as he called it) triumphs over the creative religion of the Spirit. And so do I.

as Giles finished his more interesting piece - he is in an unenviable position to offer himself up for the liberal movement to try to hold everything together after all Mandelson finishes his article re the Doha trade talks with this -

But we can be sure of one thing: we would all have been winners from a Doha deal. Without one, we all lose.

And we can be sure that if there is no deal or agreement from Lambeth the same is true for the anglican community as a global entity [and if we are thinking What does that matter? then think about Desmond Tutu - when the South African government was thinking of trying to gag him Archbishop Robert Runcie told 'them' that if they touched Desmond Tutu then they would be touching all anglicans, and Desmond Tutu was allowed (for whatever reasons) to continue unabated...]

But of course who would be likely to take the sins of others on their shoulders? It rather reminds me of Calvary and the sacrifice Jesus made for all of us - perhaps the failure of any within the anglican fold {so far} to be able to make this step shows in sharp relief just how much we need to accept Jesus’ sacrifice…

and that his admonishment that the first person to throw a stone should be without sin doesn’t excuse the rest being flung once someone has decided that they are good enough…