inner and outer space

plus ca change

2011-08-24T04:04:00.000-07:00

I've changed blogs again, so that everything is contained on one site with a new URL. And I've started a second blog (as if I haven't already got enough to do with my time!).

So if you want to keep up, please try the following:

Is there a God website and blog - looking at questions about whether God exists, different religions, what is ethics, and fulfillment in life.
the Way? - written for christians who want to keep their faith relevant to our contemporary world while staying true to Jesus.

Hope to see you over at one of these! Ciao.

the old and the new

2010-08-03T05:27:00.000-07:00

This blog is now virtually superseded. I'll probably post on it from time to time, but my main blog is now part of my website is god real?

If you want to read any more from me, please try the is god real blog.

Thanks for your interest!

english as she is sometimes spoke

2010-04-29T06:03:00.000-07:00

Translation is a risky business. Here are how some people translated their information into English:

In a Dry Cleaners window in Thailand: "Drop your trousers here for the best results."

On the menu in the USA: "French creeps."

Comforting promise in a Dutch airline notice: "We take your bags and send them in all directions."

In Russia, the sad truth: "If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it."

An invitation in a laundry in Italy: "Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time."

Hardly kosher in a butcher's in Israel: "I slaughter myself twice daily."

Honesty in an Indian shop: "Why go somewhere else to be cheated when you can come here?"

In a Paris park, a hard instruction to disobey: "Please do not be a dog."

On shampoo in Taiwan (you were warned!): "Use repeatedly for severe damage."

In a hotel in Taiwan: "Please do not bring solicitors into your room."

An unfortunate pun in Spain: "We highly recommend the hotel tart."

And a health warning in a Mexican hotel: "The manager has personally passed all the water served here."

These and many others may be found in the book Lost in Translation by Charlie Croker.

so who's irrational?

2010-02-23T02:11:00.000-08:00

A common accusation of atheists is that christians are irrational, preferring faith to evidence. To some christians this is not an insult, for they choose faith over logic. But other christians find this accusation both insulting and untrue, for they believe faith is based on reason and evidence.

I cannot recall anyone providing any scientific evidence for this claim. The evidence generally offered is simply that christianity involves faith, faith is not based on evidence and that is irrational.

I have just come across a book which turns this argument on its head. The Making of an Atheist by James Speigel (a professor of philosophy) argues that many atheists come to their beliefs by non-rational means. I have not read the book, but I have read parts of it and several reviews.

The book is based on scriptural teaching, but it uses evidence from psychology, the philosophy of science and atheists' own words, to establish this conclusion. The author argues that experiences in childhood, unwillingness to submit to God and immorality are all psychological factors leading to disbelief.

I'm sure there is truth in all this, although I feel some atheists I have "met" on the internet also have other, more honourable, reasons for their lack of belief in God. And I don't think I'll be using this book's conclusions to press any atheists to believe - I have objected often to atheists making unbased psychological explanations for my belief, so I don't think I should return the "compliment".

But it may be helpful to know what is in this book. At least it provides a counter to the old "christians are delusional" argument should I ever be really pressed on the matter.

is that true?

2010-02-08T21:44:00.000-08:00

Came across this today on this blog - a list of statements that people sometimes make, but which are actually "self-refuting" or logically inconsistent. I think they're worth sharing.

Truth does not exist (Is that a true statement?)
Nothing is absolute (Is that absolutely true?)
I do not exist (You must exist to deny that you exist)
Science is the only way to know (Can you scientifically prove that?)
Only what can be perceived by the five senses exists (Can you prove that by the five senses?)
Nobody can know anything for sure (Do you know that for sure?)
Nobody can know anything about God (How do you know that?)
Talk about God is meaningless (Since it is a statement about God, this statement is meaningless too)
Reality is just your interpretation, objective reality does not exist (That’s just your interpretation)
“‘Everything we think and do is the function of our genes/nervous system’” (Is this belief itself just the result of genetic/neutral activity? If so, why trust it — or any belief we have? If your belief happens to be right, it’s just by accident)
There are no beliefs (You expect me to believe that?)
Everything is meaningless (So is that statement)

worth listening to

2010-02-04T22:50:00.001-08:00

Some of the music most worth listening to is not often played on mainstream radio. Here's some of what I'm enjoying at the moment.

all india radio

All India Radio is Martin Kennedy plus assorted other musicians from time to time. This generally instrumental music can occasionally be a little trite and simple, but more often it is strange, beautiful and haunting ambient sounds. Perhaps best of all is the only vocal album, "Fall", where the strong, expressive voice of Leona Prue fronts some fine Kennedy instrumentation. Right now (Feb 2010) you can get cheap and even free downloads from All India Radio's Myspace page.

auburn lull

These four guys from "somewhere in middle America" (Michigan) play what is sometimes called "space rock" - atmospheric, lush music that is somewhere between rock and ambient. The vocals can be a little weak, but the mainly instrumental music really soars. Check out their music at Myspace.

my brightest diamond

My Brightest Diamond is mainly Shara Worden. Trained as an opera singer, she has toured with Sufjan Stevens (see below) as a back-up singer as well as a performer of her own material. Her music is dramatic, individual and her singing can be electrifying. Her Myspace page will let you listen to some of her music.

radical face

Radical face is one of several projects of Ben Cooper, who does just about everything on the superb album "Ghost", including record it in his backyard shed. The music is beautiful and folky soft rock, and the lyrics on this album are based on the fantasy that houses have ghostly memories which remain and may haunt those who move in next. "Down the Road" from this album is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. Check out Ben's website.

sigur ros

Possibly the most well known of the bands here, these Icelanders play quirky, anthemic songs with a big sound. Never in a hurry, the music builds slowly, ebbs and flows and contains many surprises. But don't try to decipher the lyrics, they're generally in Icelandic or Hopelandic, an invented mini-language. Here's the Sigur Ros website.

sufjan stevens

Sufjan may just be the most talented and quirky musician I have ever heard. He writes some of the simplest and best lyrics you'll ever hear (try "Casimir Pulaski Day"), he plays most instruments, does his own gentle singing, and his choral and musical arrangements are sometimes intricate and always creative (try "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!!…") And did I say he has a mad sense of humour and some outrageous song titles? His website sums it up this way: "Sufjan Stevens mixes autobiography, religious fantasy, and regional history to create folk songs of grand proportions." On top of this, he established Asthmatic Kitty records, which is now home to a large bunch of quirky, obscure and talented musicians.

the middle east

The Middle East are a creative bunch of Aussies who can play anything from modern folk to anthemic rock. Recent performances have endeared them to a growing clan of loyal followers. On stage, they are a six or seven piece collective that can on occasion be augmented to include a string section and/or a choir. "Blood" is a moving folky song about family and the hurts that can come with the package. Pig Food live (which has the full string section plus choir) is well worth a listen (though not as tight as on recording - it was on the original "The Recordings of the Middle East", but not on the re-release). I really hope this amazing band is heard by many more happy listeners. Check out their Myspace page.

there is a god

2010-01-25T01:44:00.000-08:00

Almost 2 years ago, I reported on the conclusion by leading philosopher and former atheist, Antony Flew, that there is indeed a God after all (see one Flew out of the cuckoo's nest?). I described how many atheists had accused him of selling out, of not writing his new book himself, and of being senile.

I have now, belatedly, had the opportunity to read the book. I was worried it might be too philosophical for me, or, conversely, that it might indeed be the writings of a man who was past it. But I needn't have worried on either count, because it was an enjoyable, easy and worthwhile read.

This is not a philosophical book - he doesn't present any rigorous arguments. It is rather a personal memoir, a look back on his life and why he became an atheist in the first place despite a christian upbringing, and a summary of the ideas and the people who had influenced him to change his mind at this late stage in his life. I wouldn't think anyone would be convinced by the book alone, but any thoughtful person should find plenty of worthwhile ideas to follow up, and the references to do so.

He certainly doesn't sound senile, but he is getting old (he is now approaching 87), as this video shows. And he certainly does sound quite sure of himself. I found it a very human book, with the weakest parts being those written by his co-author (Preface and Appendix 1).

The main reasons why he changed his mind were "the fact that nature obeys laws", the "intelligently organised and purpose-driven life which arose from matter" and "the very existence of nature" (i.e. the universe). Based on the scientific discoveries in these areas, he has concluded that none of these could have occurred if they had not been "brought into existence by an infinite intelligence". He goes on to say that he is open to the possibility that God has revealed himself in the world, and believes christianity is the most likely candidate. He makes it clear he is now considering christianity, and accordingly gave NT Wright, the famous New Testament scholar, the opportunity to write an appendix answering some of Flew's questions about christianity.

According to Wikipedia (last updated March 2009), there is ongoing controversy over Flew's departure from atheism. Certainly I have found on various internet forums that he is not respected by atheists, who tend to react with comments about senility if his name is even mentioned. But I think the book is worth reading for anyone with an interest in philosophy.

on the frontier

2009-12-19T18:22:00.000-08:00

Up until the sixteenth century, the Coahuiltecan native American peoples lived a nomadic, subsistence life in the semi-arid regions of what is now southern Texas. But all this was soon to change, for two reasons.

The Coahuiltecans were not a powerful people. The land and climate would not support large groups, and they were often victims of raids from their northern neighbours, the Apache and Comanche people.
Colonists from three European nations, the Spanish in Mexico to the south, the French in Louisiana to the east and the British in the United States to the north were all vying for supremacy and ownership of lands in the area. In the early 18th century, the Spanish, both government and the Catholic church, moved northwards into Texas and set up a number of missions. By the middle of the century, five missions were well established along the San Antonio River.

Mission Concepción, south of San Antonio, the oldest unrestored church building in the US.

The walls of Mission Concepción compound. Native Americans and soldiers lived in the quarters built into the walls.

Because of the pressure of the raids, many of the Coahuiltecans decided to accept the protection and stability offered by the missions and the Spanish army. They moved into the missions behind protective walls, received food and religious instruction and learned farming and other skills. The missions flourished for a time, but declined in the early nineteenth century as the native Americans succumbed to European diseases. Finally, in 1836, Texans of mostly British heritage fought the Spanish/Mexican army and, despite defeat at the Alamo (one of the five missions which had been converted into a garrison), drove the Spanish from Texas. Texas became an independent nation for a short time, and then joined the United States.

The granary at Mission Concepción

I am not a Catholic, and I do not support European colonialism by any of the three nations involved. But visiting the harsh environment in the dry summer heat makes me admire the commitment of the Spanish monks who established the missions. Some of the descendents of the Coahuiltecans still live in the area today.

Desert plants give an indication of the arid climate.

Walkway at Mission Concepción

The partially ruined Mission San Juan

Mission Espada church and priest's quarters - with the current priest in black out the front.

Inside the Mission Espada church

The Mission San Antonio de Valero, now the Alamo, and virtually a sacred American site.

Read more about the San Antonio Missions here, here and here, and the battle of the Alamo.

god in australia

2009-12-18T16:50:00.000-08:00

A recent survey, reported in the Sydney Morning Herald and summarised here, provides the latest information on the beliefs of Aussies. And the results are a possibly a little different to what most of us would expect:

68% believe in God, 24% believe there is no God, and 6% are not sure.
50% of the population call themselves christian (although other surveys such as NCLS show only 10-20% attend church regularly), with 6% following other major religions (including 2% Muslims) and 5% having a belief in a "universal spirit or life force". 6% said they were Jedi, which is fun, but perhaps should be interpreted as 'agnostic' in reality.
Curiously, more people appear to believe in Jesus than believe in God - 94% say he was a historical figure, 91% that he was the son of God (how does that work?), 85% that he rose from the dead and 72% that his mother was a virgin at his birth.
But the christians and the rest are not as dogmatic as one might expect - only a third of Aussies believe any of the holy books is "the word of God", only a quarter believe any holy book is literally true and only a fifth believe there is only one true interpretation of their religion. Nevertheless, "almost nine out of 10 Australian Christians were absolutely or fairly certain of their beliefs".
Belief in various christian doctrines was variable - over half of Aussies believe in heaven and life after death; more than a third believe in hell and the devil; almost two thirds believe in miracles, half believe in angels, more than a fifth believe in witches.
But belief in the non-christian "para-normal" is also high - a third believe in UFOs, 4 in 10 believe in astrology and almost half believe in psychic powers.
42% of Aussies believe in evolution without God, 32% believe in God-guided evolution and 23% believe God directly created life within the last 10,000 years.
Women believe in God, and almost everything else, more than men do.

What can we conclude? There are more strong disbelievers than there used to be, but belief in God and in religion seems as strong as ever, though more diverse. There seem to be fewer agnostics than I would have expected, and it seems we have polarised a little into the belief and non-belief groups. But Aussies seem to have become more individualistic in their faith, and perhaps prefer to choose their own "mix and match" beliefs rather than be told what they should believe, whether by religious leaders or scientific atheists.

And surely there is a lesson for the churches: emphasise Jesus more and adherence to rules less.

do miracles occur? - practice

2009-11-17T00:05:00.000-08:00

Arguing the philosophy of miracles is one thing, claiming to have observed them is another. And who better to report on healing miracles than qualified doctors? (See miracles happen for some background, and heart starting action for a well-reported example.)

The World Christian Doctors Network (WCDN) compiles case histories of apparent miracles, and presents them on its website, and at its annual conferences. It recently held its 2009 conference in Kiev, Ukraine.

Many cases of apparent miraculous healing were reported at the conference, including a documented case of an Australian man who had been given only a short time to live because of recurring skin cancer which had "metastasized" to his chest and lungs. But after attending a christian healing prayer meeting, "tumor regression started" and after further prayer his skin cancer disappeared, and a CT scan showed the lung cancer had gone as well.

The same Aussie doctor also told of how she had been revived after being "dead" for 45 minutes, an occurrence she regards as a miracle because she suffered no brain damage.

what are we to make of this?

For many christians, these stories are easily believed, but sceptics (which includes some christians) can always find reasons to disbelieve - perhaps the documentation is deemed inadequate, perhaps the event occurred but was a fortuitous but natural occurrence, or perhaps they just simply cannot believe because of their scepticism.

It seems to me that we have to at least accept that some miracles appear to have occurred, and resolutely maintaining that none of these events are actually miracles seems contrary to the evidence. But these events raise other questions, such as "if these miracles really did occur, why doesn't God do miracles happen more often?" I wish I knew the answer to that one!

do miracles occur? - theory

2009-11-16T03:44:00.000-08:00

Some people believe in miracles, some believe they never happen.

Sceptics tend to quote philosopher David Hume, who argued that if someone tells us about an apparent miracle (an event that is contrary to the known laws of nature), it is always more likely that the person's testimony is doubtful than that the miracle actually happened. Thus, he argued, we can never be justified in believing the miracle occurred.

Sceptics often take this to mean that Hume showed that miracles cannot occur, but this isn't correct. If we regard Hume's argument as valid, it doesn't show that miracles cannot or do not occur, only that we cannot ever have sufficient reasons to believe they have - which is very different.

Hume's argument is assumed by some to have ended the matter, but philosophers are now much less inclined to think Hume got it right. Books such as John Earman's "Hume's Abject Failure" and "Hume, holism, and miracles" by David Johnson argue that Hume got it wrong, perhaps very badly wrong. Other philosophers argue that Hume's argument can be re-worked into a form that is still valid. But perhaps the general view, for example, as expressed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is that miracles are now an open question.

What is the basis for the arguments against Hume?

Richard Swinburne argues that we have many more means to test miracles these days than the simple personal testimony of a few alleged eyewitnesses as Hume seemed to assume. Thus it may not be likely that the evidence is unable to overcome the improbability of a miracle, especially if one is open-minded about the possibility of God existing.

Victor Reppert and Earman both use probability theory to show that Hume's claims are wrong. For example, if there are enough eye-witnesses to a supposed miracle, the probability of them all being mistaken can be shown mathematically to diminish to almost zero. (Reppert also points out that if Hume's argument is correct, we could never believe a newspaper report about a lottery winner because the probability of winning the lottery will always be less than the probability that the newspaper got it wrong!)

A related issue is whether science has proven miracles impossible, as some sceptics say. But the philosophers tell us that science has done no such thing. Science shows us what happens in the natural course of events, and cannot tell us whether God might interfere.

But even though the philosophers, in general, seem to maintain an open mind on the possibility of miracles, scientists and sceptics seem unwilling to admit even the possibility. For example, Carter Bancroft, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, writes: "A central tenet of science (particularly of the physical sciences) holds that, at least since the Big Bang, a fundamental set of laws has governed the entire universe—no exceptions permitted." In other words, the laws of nature don't simply describe what normally happens, they describe what must happen, with no allowance for freely willed actions, by people or by God.

But then again, as Miracle Max said in "The Princess Bride": "Look who knows so much!"

Next post, do miracles occur? - practice.

illegal immigration?

2009-11-04T17:54:00.000-08:00

Photo: MorgueFile

For many years now, Australia has been the destination of "boat people" - refugees or would-be immigrants from troubled lands to the north and west. Decades ago they were from Vietnam, more recently from the Middle East, Afganistan and Sri Lanka.

And for the same period, debate has raged in Australia between those who want to keep out the "illegals", and those who want to offer help to people in distress. Elections have been fought over the issue, and opinions are highly polarised.

Take these two examples:

In favour of compassion

Recently my friend Russ presented on his blog, Out on a limb, a number of reasons in favour of treating refugees like humans, based on material prepared by GetUp!. It was presented in the form of myths about asylum seekers, which were:

Myth 1 – Australia takes in more than its fair share of asylum seekers

Australia's current intake is lower than average, below UN recommendations, and per capita only 20th (out of 44 countries considered) in the world.

Myth 2 – Boat people are swamping our shores

Only 10% of asylum seekers arrive by boat, most come by air. A greater percentage of boat arrivals are found to have valid reasons. Far more people overstay their visas illegally.

Myth 3 – the Government's changes in policy have made Australia a soft target

There is no evidence that changes in Government policy, either a "tougher" stance or a more lenient one, have made any significant difference to the numbers of arrivals. Rather, conditions in the countries of origin seem to be the main factor.

Myth 4 – Refugees are a burden on our economy

Refugees are an insignificant proportion of welfare payments and may assist the economy in providing expansion to the workforce.

Myth 5 – Boats are bringing terrorists to our shores

This is an unlikely route for terrorists. In the US, all immigrants involved in the World Trade Centre attacks arrived on visas.

Myth 6 – Asylum seekers are illegal immigrants

Seeking asylum is legal under Australian and international law to which Australia is a signatory. Whether they are allowed entry as genuine refugees is a matter for Australia to determine.

All this seems very reasonable and humane. On these facts, it would seem that Australia should be more generous to people in distress. Yet there is another side to the story.

In favour of a "stronger" policy

In a recent Sydney Morning Herald, journalist Paul Sheehan (Migration: the true story) argued that Australia is not a racist, inhumane or intolerant society:

1. The record high number of refugees admitted by the previous government did not generate significant public opposition.

2. Despite rising violence by militant Islamists around the world, the increase in Muslim numbers via legal channels in the past two decades has generated no meaningful political opposition.

3. Australia has a high number of foreign-born residents (almost 25%) and one of the world's largest per capita immigrants intakes, with the majority of arrivals being non-European.

4. It is more difficult to identify and check those people who arrive by boat than those who arrive by air and overstay their visas.

5. A recent spate of convictions for terrorist activity within Australia has largely involved people who came as immigrants.

6. The Tamil Tigers, from whom many recent arrivals originate, have received considerable support in Australia.

7. Australia can only accept a certain number of refugees without harm to economy, environment or social structure.

8. The present Government deploys a zero-sum refugee policy, so if boat arrivals are accepted, those who register to immigrate have to wait longer.

9. UN conventions on asylum seekers do not override Australian law.

10. Some would-be immigrants are demanding rights that do not exist under international law.

This too seems reasonable, if not so humane. Which story is true?

It seems likely that both sets of facts are true. In which case, the truth is very complex, and there are no easy answers. We want to help the unfortunate refugees, but we want to remain in control and be fair to others. There are arguments both ways, and the Australian Government and people will have to resolve them.

I am still a little inclined to the compassionate option. But we would all be better served if politicians on both sides spoke less like the "shock jocks" of talkback radio and gave us their considered assessments of these facts and the best possible compromise.

mind and brain

2009-10-20T05:01:00.000-07:00

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tundraboy/303703384/

What is our brain? What is consciousness?

These are tricky questions. Naturalists, who believe the physical world is all there is, don't have a simple answer. For we can distinguish between the physical brain processes which accompany an emotion like sadness (which neuroscience can measure), and the feeling of sadness (which science cannot measure, but which we experience). The experience is real, yet it isn't in any obvious sense physical.

The usual answer is that the mind and consciousness are emergent properties of the brain. They cannot exist without the brain (it is assumed) and they are thus anchored in the physical.

Neuroscience, and science generally, assumes naturalism. Even scientists who are non-naturalists (e.g. theists) work from the basis of methodological naturalism - a supernatural explanation is generally not acceptable as science. And methodological naturalism has reigned supreme in science, including neuroscience, for more than a century.

But some challenges to the naturalist view of neuroscience are appearing. One is the number of near death experiences (which I reported on in near death experiences - could they be real?) which seem to be unexplainable on naturalistic assumptions.

Another is the research of neuroscientist Dr Jeffrey Schwartz, whose study of brain dysfunction has yielded what he sees as unexpected results. Dr Schwartz has long experience in treating patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) using behavioural therapy, where the patient's behaviour is modified by their own will and discipline. In essence, when they feel compelled to do a particular action which is unnecessary, they, in a sense, "talk themselves out of it". This approach is recognised as a very useful means of dealing with OCD.

The unexpected result was that this therapy actually brought about a measurable change in the physical structure of their brains, in their neural pathways. It was a scientific case of "mind over matter" - non-physical thinking seems to have changed physical processes and structure.

All this is obviously welcome. However, Dr Schwartz has gone on to argue that these experiments demonstrate that the naturalist or materialist explanation of the brain/mind is clearly wrong, and a non-materialist explanation is required. This seems to entail some form of dualism. This of course is not acceptable to materialists. And so his views have copped criticism, e.g. from atheists like Austin Cline and PZ Myers.

I don't take too much notice of Myers on this - the vehemence of his critique is surely much more based on his preconceived metaphysics than on objective science. But despite searching, I haven't found any objective assessment of Schwartz's dualistic ideas, so while his therapy is well regarded, it is hard to know how his views on the non-material brain are being accepted.

I have also had little success finding out his religious (or otherwise) beliefs. He has signed the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, and his conclusions are well regarded by science journalist and author Denyse O'Leary, who is a christian. On the other hand, the only religious comment I have found from him is his comparison of his therapy with the Buddhist practice of mindfulness.

But regardless, metaphysics has again impinged on science, and the ensuing battle is likely to be more about the metaphysics than the science.

Read about Schwartz's book The Mind and the Brain, and a brief summary of his views from his website.

wasted lives: the last deaths in World War 1

2009-09-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

The so-called Great War has an awful fascination for me. Yes, so many men responded heroically under inhuman conditions. But many of these conditions were created by (in Sting's phrase) "corpulent generals, safe behind lines", who gave orders that brutally disregarded the lives of the men who served under them, and were often made regardless of the actual conditions, but based more on tradition and limited understanding of modern warfare.

And so Gallipoli, Passchendaele, the Somme and many other names have become part of our history and folklore, and testimony to military and political folly as well as human resilience and bravery, as millions died for no real gain.

That much I already knew. But I only learned of the even greater folly of the last days of the war in a recent BBC documentary, The Last Day of World War One.

The Allies and the Germans had been negotiating a cease-fire, virtually a German surrender, for several days. On the morning of the 11th November, 1918, between 5:00 and 6:00 am, the cease-fire was signed by both parties, to come into effect at 11:00 am - presumably to allow time for all field units to be notified. The generals knew about the imminent cease-fire hours beforehand.

Most field commanders stood their troops down, resting until the cease-fire, when they could safely leave their trenches. But, inexplicably, in a war characterised by enormous loss of life for very little gain in ground, some generals ordered their men to continue fighting, with continued loss of life. Incredibly, a total of 11,000 casualties (killed, wounded or missing) were sustained on Armistice Day, more than the casualties on D-Day in WW2.

Some of the stories are poignant, most show disregard for human life, all induce anger and grief.

The last British soldier to die was Private George Ellison, aged 40, who had survived more than 4 years of trench warfare, artillery bombardments, gas attacks, tanks, machine guns and snipers that had killed more than a million of his fellow Britishers, only to miss out on returning to his waiting wife and child by less than ninety minutes.
The last French soldier to die was Augustin Trebuchon, a runner bringing the message of the cease-fire to troops on the front line, just 15 minutes before it took effect.
Canadian Private George Lawrence Price was still fighting, needlessly chasing German soldiers from houses that they would be vacating after the cease-fire, and was shot with just 2 minutes of the remaining. (It may be that Price's death was the result, not of orders, but of reckless action by his patrol.)
And US soldier Henry Gunther participated in a charge on entrenched German positions. The Germans, knowing the cease-fire was imminent, waved the charging soldiers back, but they kept coming, and Gunther was shot just 1 minute before the end.
It appears that the last German soldier to die was shot after the armistice came into effect. Leutnant Tomas approached US soldiers after 11:00 to arrange the evacuation of his troops, but was shot because the US soldiers had not been informed of the cease-fire.

After the war, the reckless disregard of some US generals for the lives of their men was questioned:

General Wright's troops were exhausted and dirty, and hearing there were bathing facilities available in the nearby town of Stenay, he decided to take the town so his men could refresh themselves (a few hours earlier than could have occurred after the cease-fire). That "lunatic decision" cost something like 300 casualties.
Maj Gen Sumerall sent his troops out on one last attack across the Meuse River with these words: "I don’t expect to see any of you again, but that doesn’t matter. You have the honor of a definitive success–give yourself to that."
General Pershing, the US commander, thought the Allies should have pursued the Germans all the way to Berlin, to utterly defeat them, believing the Armistice would only pave the way for further conflict in the future as the Germans would not believe they were defeated. History suggests that it was the ignominy of the defeat that led in part to World war 2, suggesting Pershing's bellicose judgment was in error. But, ironically, one of the German soldiers who survived the war but may have been killed if Pershing had his way, was Corporal Adolf Hitler. Pershing was later questioned by a US Government committee about his decision to keep fighting right up to the Armistice, and he defended it on the grounds that he did not trust the Germans to surrender. (One would have thought that he could have waited to see, and dealt with that situation if it occurred.)

And so the terrible "war to end all wars" claimed its last unnecessary lives, truly a monument to human folly.

Private George Ellison, RIP. Photo: robk blog

sam harris - man of reason?

2009-08-07T01:07:00.000-07:00

Sam Harris is rapidly making a name for himself - author of two books, outspoken atheist, critical of religion in the US, and now the founder of The Reason Project, a "nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society".

The project is definitely about the secular approach to reason, for which read "atheism", even militant atheism. Its advisory board includes a who's who of modern western militant atheism - Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Grayling, Weinberg, Coyne, Atkins, Pinker, Venter, and a few who may be presumed to be anti-religion - Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. With a cast like that, one expects intelligent, even intellectual content, and scathing attacks on religion and superstition.

But what sort of person is Sam, the main man?

Harris has a bachelor's degree in philosophy and is current researching for a PhD in neuroscience. Wikipedia reports that he follows some practices (mainly meditation and control of "self") of Buddhism and Hinduism, but of course he does not believe the spiritual or superstitious aspects of those religions. And he has some outspoken views. Here are a few I have gleaned from the web.

The starting point for any summary is his atheism and criticism of religion, especially as practiced in the US. He argues that all beliefs should be based on reason, but religious beliefs are based on dogma and are anti-reason. He says no sensible person can believe many doctrines of christianity, and if an individual made up such beliefs we would think them "mad". He believes there is a taboo against arguing against religious belief, which is given too much respect, and that modern western civilisation's survival is threatened by religion, especially militant Islam. (All this from Wikipedia.)

All this is pretty standard militant atheist rhetoric these days, but some other aspects of Harris's views are attracting more criticism.

In his book The End of Faith (page 52-53), he says: ”Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.” He has been much criticised for this, on the grounds that he is advocating killing people not for what they have done, but simply for what they believe. He claims he has been interpreted wrongly, but also argues that there is a strong link between belief and action, suggesting he really does mean what he says.
In a chapter on Islam in the same book he says that if Islamic nations develop long range nuclear weapons, "the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own". He says (somewhat contradictorily) this would be "an unthinkable crime" but also "it may be the only course of action available to us" and calls such a pre-emptive strike "an unconscionable act of self-defense".
Again in The End of Faith (p 199), Harris defends the use of torture, which "in certain circumstances, would seem to be not only permissible but necessary." He has copped a lot of criticism for this.
Harris is part of a growing movement among militant atheists to argue that science and faith are so opposed that it is not possible for a good scientist to be a believer. Thus he has joined a chorus of criticism of President Barack Obama's appointment of Francis Collins to a senior science post, not because anyone disputes Collins' scientific credentials, but because he believes that he can't be a true scientist while holding religious beliefs that cannot be verified by science.
In the same article, Harris suggests that it may be scientifically true that black Africans are less intelligent than other races, a view which has been labelled as both racist and scientifically in error.
These views lead him to be opposed to freedom of conscience in religious belief: "I hope to show that the very ideal of religious tolerance—born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God—is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss.” This too has drawn strong criticism even from his fellow atheists (e.g. Margaret Wertheim and Michael Shermer), who say his intolerance is as damaging as the religious fanaticism he opposes (Wikipedia).

Harris's critics also query his logic and his scientific basis, and some apparently contradictory statements.

His criticisms of religious belief as illogical and unproven seem inconsistent with his view of ethics: "the reliance on intuition, therefore, should be no more discomfiting for the ethicist than for the physicist." (EoF p. 183)
His embracing of some aspects of eastern religions, even the suggestion that "there may even be some credible evidence for reincarnation" (EoF p. 242) has been criticised by many.
Other critics argue that Harris doesn't apply scientific understanding in his criticisms of the harm done by religion ("scientifically baseless, psychologically uninformed, politically naïve, and counterproductive") and the motivations of suicide bombers (Harris's views are contradicted by research).

So those are some of the ideas of Sam Harris. They're perhaps less humanistic than one might expect and he seems to exhibit as much intolerance as reason. If I was an atheist, I wouldn't want Harris speaking on my behalf, but many people like him.

the genesis enigma - and the andrew parker enigma

2009-08-06T01:12:00.000-07:00

This story is a shocker, no matter how you look at it.

It has all the ingredients to get people going. One of the UK's top young research scientists, an evolutionary biologist from Oxford University, whose main area of research is in the evolution of sight and the eye. A well-received book on that subject, In the Blink of an Eye. A mild atheist. His name is Andrew Parker.

Then he comes out and blows everyone away by writing a book called "the Genesis Enigma: the Hidden Science of Creation". In the US the title appears to be "The Genesis Enigma: Why the Bible is scientifically accurate".

Of course the atheists are incensed. This interview in The Metro is hardly sympathetic, and the internet discussion boards are full of statements like: "It's sad that some people have this time bomb in their heads that, when presented with enough complexity, explodes and makes them think all sorts of craziness" and "It sounds as though Professor Parker found himself a pair of Bible goggles. Everything looks different when you look at the world through your Bible goggles." Angry disbelievers drew comparisons with Antony Flew, a recent high profile defection from atheism.

But hard-core creationist christians can't rejoice too much, because Parker is still a strong evolutionist, and said in the interview: "Creationism is totally unfounded. It is as dangerous as fundamentalism in other religions." And more moderate christians who believe in theistic evolution look a little askance because he seems to have no understanding of their carefully worked out rules for interpreting Genesis.

so what's the book all about?

I haven't read it, but it appears that Parker has started from orthodox evolutionary science (not something creationists do) and then found some interesting parallels in the Genesis account of creation, which he has interpreted rather liberally. But he concludes that:

"It appears that the author of the creation account had predicted precisely the true history of the earth and life. The Genesis Enigma will explain that no human could have constructed a creation story in this way, particularly in Biblical times."

So Parker, once "leaned toward being an atheist" but "that’s changed during the writing of this book" - "it’s the strongest evidence for the existence of God I’ve come across." But exactly what he believes isn't clear just yet - perhaps not even to him, as he seems to be still working out his conclusions.

Whatever you think of this conclusion, he is clearly a brave man who is driven by what he believes is the evidence. He won't be popular among his scientific colleagues.

The MailOnline has a sympathetic and constructively critical review of the book, which credits Parker's intelligence and credentials in evolutionary biology, but questions his finding such detailed evidence for evolution in Genesis.

I think we can learn a lot when established patterns are challenged. We can watch with interest, and perhaps a little trepidation, how this turns out.

either you got faith or you got unbelief

2009-08-05T00:43:00.000-07:00

"Either you got faith or you got unbelief" Bob Dylan, "Precious Angel"

A book recently released ("Losing my Religion: Unbelief in Australia" by Tom Frame) studies unbelief in Australia.

The book utilises census statistics on religious affiliation. Frame distinguishes between disbelief (a conscious rejection of belief) and unbelief (not so much a denial of God as an inability to believe in God). Frame suggests it is the latter who predominate in Australia at present, and for most of our history. He says that few Australians have deliberately rejected belief, most simply can't see why they need to be bothered with religion at all.

He is critical of the more militant on both sides of the debate: "Recent interactions between certain religious believers and unbelievers ..... have been remarkable for neither respect nor amity. I attribute the main sources of discord to conservative Protestants and positive atheists. Neither group seems able to accept the other's existence."

Frame recently spoke at a session on religion at the Sydney Writer's Festival. Here is one blogger's summary of what he had to say:

"Religion is not just about being religious; it explores the questions we all face: life, death, ethics/morality. In Australia, nearly 80% of the population believes in a divine entity, 63% define themselves as Christian, with 5% identifying as non-Christian religion or spirituality. So the big questions that are being asked in the public sphere are what does it mean to behave (with a community and within society more broadly). Church attendance (from 30% -> 4-5%) is not an indicator that people are no longer interested in religion; all organizations with an outward form of affiliation are in steady decline"

I think most of that we already knew, but the discussion of the issues by a sane and balanced writer is welcome.

near death experiences - could they be real?

2009-08-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

We've all heard of them - people who are clinically dead for a while but are then revived, and who report experiencing things which their dormant brain should not be able to experience. There seem to be two main types of these near death experiences (NDEs):

1. People report travelling down a tunnel of light to a peaceful place, where they are met by a loved one who has died or a religious figure such as Jesus. After a short time in this blessed environment, they are reluctantly sent back to "real life", are revived from clinical death, and remember the experience.

For example, in 1964 famous comedian and actor Peter Sellers had a series of heart attacks. While his doctor tried to revive him, Sellers reports that he saw an "incredibly beautiful bright loving white light above me". "I know there was love, real love, on the other side of the light which was attracting me so much. It was kind and loving and I remember thinking That's God."

Sellers saw a hand reach through the light, and then a voice said: "It's not time. Go back and finish. It's not time." He felt himself return to his body and he woke up.

2. People can report details of what was happening while they were unconscious and clinically dead. Sometimes they observe the room from above, as if they were floating near the ceiling.

A famous example of this is Pam Reynolds, whose story is particularly amazing. Pam had a brain operation that entailed the doctors inducing cardiac arrest, her eyes taped shut and 95 decibel speakers placed in her ear canals, and the blood drained from her head. Despite all this, Pam was subsequently able to recall many minor details of what occurred while she was in this state, including conversations by the staff and the music being played in the theatre. These details were all confirmed by medical staff.

are these experiences real?

There are of course both believers and sceptics. The sceptics say that these experiences cannot possibly be real; either the stories are unreliable, or the people weren't really dead, or the experiences are the result of lack of oxygen and increased carbon dioxide in the brain.

On the other hand, researchers such as Drs Edward and Emily Kelly of the University of Virginia and Sam Parnia of the Weill Cornell Medical Centre have investigated many reports and say that the sceptics' explanations are quite inadequate.

so ..... ?

It seems to me that we might more easily dismiss the stories of visits to "heaven" to meet God or dead loved ones. These stories are generally unverifiable, they often reveal very different and contradictory aspects of the after-life and God, and the sceptical explanations may be more plausible. Even so, it is impossible to totally dismiss them.

However the stories where patients are known to be clinically dead (as far as modern medical science can determine) and their accounts of events in the operating theatre can be verified, are not easily dismissed, and the sceptical "explanations" so far seem weak.

So, perhaps these accounts "prove" there is life after death, but more likely they show that we still don't understand the relationship between consciousness and the brain. Perhaps there is indeed more to consciousness than what physical science so far understands.

the bible and modern science

2009-06-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist coming out of retirement for this.

The debate about religion vs science seems to be hotting up. In past centuries, many scientists were believers, and that is still true today. But those on the atheist side of science seem to be starting to press the point that science and religion don't mix, and that true scientists cannot hold religious beliefs because (they say) such beliefs are based on faith and not on reason. (Never mind that many believers offer reason-based explanations for their beliefs.)

An example of this is from fellow Aussie, Russell Blackford, in his blog Metaphysician and the Hellfire Club (great title!). In this post he claims that sacred writings like the Bible cannot be considered true in any sense because they don't contain accurate scientific information. He writes:

"if a god or angel or similar being has inspired the religion's poets and prophets, or dictated actual text for inclusion in its holy books, the god or angel (or whatever) could easily reveal such facts as the true age of the Earth, the fact that it revolves around the Sun, the fact that it is spherical and rotates on its axis, and the evolutionary origin of human beings."

This set my imagination running, as I envisaged Moses (about 1400BC and the traditional author of the first 5 books of the Bible) discussing science with his brother Aaron.

Moses: Hey Aaron, how do you spell "quark" in Hebrew?

Aaron: No idea. What do you want to know that for?

Moses: It's Yahweh again. Keeps telling all this strange stuff about strangeness and charm and spin, and quarks and gravitons and dark matter. I don't mind not understanding, but I need to know how to write this stuff down.

Aaron: Tell him we're just stone-age goat-herders living a subsistence existence, and you're the only one who can read and write. Ask Him for something simpler, like why does the sun rise every morning?

Moses goes away up Mt Sinai, and returns 3 days later.

Moses: He says the sun doesn't rise in the morning, its the earth moving.

Aaron: I've felt the earth move once or twice (snigger), but not usually in the morning!

Moses: Nothing like that bro', we live on a giant ball, and it goes round and round on its axis, and that makes the sun look like it's moving.

Aaron: What's a ball?

Moses: Dunno, bro', I asked him that and he started to talk about radii and something called a pie, and the number 3.1412, but then he said "forget it!" and muttered under his breath about next time I'll just say 3.

Aaron: Did he tell you anything else?

Moses: Two more things. One was that when he said we came from the dust of the ground he meant we had gradually evolved for billions of years.

Aaron: What's billions?

Moses: Dunno mate, but I think it's a number greater than two.

Aaron: What does evolved mean?

Moses: He says it actually took him more than 6 days to make all this. I told him I didn't really care how long he took, I wasn't in any hurry.

Aaron: What was the other thing you learnt?

Moses: He said that one day people would find it easier to believe all this came about by chance than believe in him. I said, no, I was willing to believe all the other crazy stuff about quarks and pie if He said so, but I couldn't come at that!

Aaron: What did he say then?

Moses: He said, let's start again. Just write this down: "In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth" And I said, that's more like it, now you're talking my language! He just smiled and said, thanks.

the last post?

2009-02-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

Photo: Australian Government

I started this blog almost two years ago, as an experiment. I've made 150+ posts in two years, which is 1-2 per week. It's been fun, I've learnt a lot (both about blogging and from the research I've done to prepare the posts) and I've had some interesting comments.

But I think I've run my race. There are supposedly a hundred million blogs out there, so what distinguishes mine to make it interesting to anyone?

So this may be the last post. I will leave the blog online for a while, because people still find their way to it from the search engines, and because it contans some information useful to me. And if something moves me enough, I may post on it. But don't hold your breath.

So if anyone reads this, and for those who've visited over the two years, thanks for reading and best wishes.

atheists and buses (again)

2009-01-08T18:19:00.000-08:00

Not long ago I reported on the atheist bus advertising in the UK, with the somewhat underwhelming slogan: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life."

Now the Sydney Morning Herald reports "Atheist message misses local bus", with similarly underwhelming messages: "Sleep in on Sunday mornings" and "Celebrate reason". Most Australians already do the first, and the second seems to contradict itself by giving no reasons. I could wholeheartedly support both of them.

But their advertising campaign has unfortunately been run over by a bus. The outdoor advertising company APN Outdoor has declined to accept their business without giving any reason. The atheists suggest freedom of speech is at stake, but it hardly seems free to force a company to take on a commercial job it chooses not to.

Perhaps the company wanted to avoid some unfortunate juxtapositions ....

houses to save the world

2009-01-04T03:24:00.000-08:00

We all know something's got to give. In Australia, our houses are getting bigger (and uglier) while our families are getting smaller. Petrol consumption and greenhouse gases are increasing as cities sprawl and large houses require air conditioning. Our economic standard of living is rising and many in the developing world want a piece of the action.

One part of the solution is surely more environmentally friendly houses, which means smaller, better designed, energy efficient, carbon-neutral, water efficient, solar-powered buildings made of renewable materials. Or at least some of these.

The exciting thing is that it is slowly beginning to happen, even if only on an experimental level or by die-hard greenies, and the designs are attractive and interesting too. Take a look at these "green houses" - perhaps my favourite is this New Zealand house built from old shipping containers.

Photo: Jetson Green blog

Check out more photos of the shipping container house, plus a house in Japan with polycarbonate walls, a passive solar urban kit home, office space and artists' studios in old railway carriages on building rooftops in London, and this house from an old barn in Belgium.

You're probably the same as me, unlikely to make a move from where you're currently living. But surely somewhere here is the way of the future.

the best time to be alive?

2009-01-03T02:41:00.000-08:00

When was the best time to be alive?

I've always thought I had pretty much the best of it - born at the end of World War 2, living when our western societies were becoming increasingly wealthy and jobs were easy to come by, and growing into adulthood during the 1960's when there was plenty of idealism and good music (for me, Bob Dylan represented both of those). So I missed the war and the depression, but also missed the pressure of today's mad rush to get a university place and a job while avoiding drugs and depression and shallow relationships.

But Michael Duffy, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, reckons differently. He thinks "the luckiest generation" was the one before mine, which was born in the 1930s. This is how he figures it:

They missed the great Depression and were too young to serve in the war.
They would have been buying houses in the 1960s, when, in relation to household income, they cost a third what they do today.
Society was more stable. "The divorce rate increased in the mid-'70s, a period when crime, single parenthood and chronic forms of mental and physical illness also started to boom. In the '60s only 3 per cent of working age Australians depended on welfare. That figure was to rise to about 16 per cent." Job insecurity also increased.
He says welfare and tax policies have been shown to have most favoured this generation, especially in retirement.
Social researcher Hugh Mackay has found that this generation has stronger values: "loyalty, saving, the work ethic, the sense of mutual obligation, and patriotism". These helped them cope less selfishly with the prosperity of the 1960s than a later generation dealt with the prosperity of the 1990s.
"There has been a sharp increase in fear of all kinds in recent decades", and people have grown less happy. The less stable society, loss of values and decline in religion have all been suggested as reasons for this.

I'm still not sure I agree. Studies indicate that despite the negatives Duffy mentions, Australians are, on average, pretty much just as happy as we were a decade ago and half a century ago, and it is the same generally right around the world. But we are agreed that it is tougher growing up and living today than back then.

atheist says christianity is good

2008-12-27T04:38:00.000-08:00

These days it's not uncommon to read articles in which outspoken atheists angrily denounce how christianity causes terrible trouble in the world. So it's both surprising and refreshing to read a strong atheist express the opposite conclusion.

Matthew Parris, writing in The Times (As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God), explains that he grew up in Africa, in Malawi (then known as Nyasaland), and recently had the opportunity to re-visit. Christian missionaries bring much needed aid and assistance to African communities, and although he used to disagree with the spiritual teachings, he welcomed the good works. "...only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it."

But both then and now, he noticed that, by nature, many Africans seem passive, unwilling to work for positive change. They give too much respect to leaders, even if they are unjust and brutal, and those still under the influence of tribal religions live in fear and superstition.

But conversion to christianity changes all that, he says - "it liberates". And so he argues that practical help (schools, hospitals, emergency aid, etc) is not enough, the whole African belief system "must ... be supplanted". Africa "needs God".

This leads this obviously honest atheist to a surprising conclusion: "Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete."

The article is well worth a read, and reinforces a similar conclusion by another atheist journalist, Roy Hattersley, several years ago.

history wars

2008-12-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

Science is so often the battleground between atheism and christianity (and other beliefs too), but unfortunately history is not exempt. I have discussed the historical arguments about Jesus, but other aspects of history are also part of the battle.

The arguments arise because some atheists wish to discredit christianity by arguing that the church has oppressed people and opposed science at every turn. Thus it is argued that Hitler was a christian, or at least strongly influenced by christianity, the conquistadores were likewise christian, etc.

There is no doubt much that the church, and by association, christians, have in their history to be deeply ashamed about and sorry for, but many of the arguments which find their way onto the web are just plain wrong.

One argument (apparently) is the claim that attempts by nineteenth century Scottish doctor, James Simpson, to introduce the use of chloroform to relieve pain during childbirth, were opposed by blinkered churchmen. A historian has examined the matter, and found that there is no record of the church opposing Simpson, who was a devout christian, and there were many in the church who supported him. But someone made an unsupported and erroneous claim about Simpson's experience, and it was quoted and re-quoted until it became accepted "fact".

In due course I'll examine a few other historical arguments to see how they stand up.

faith & science @ christmas

2008-12-21T13:41:00.000-08:00

I've referred to a number of discussions and books about the supposed "war" between faith and science. But here's an article in the UK Daily Mail about scientists who see no conflict.

The writer starts with the astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission, which orbited the moon but did not land, who on their public radio broadcast back from the 'far side of the moon' read portions of the creation story from the book of Genesis, concluding with the words "and God saw that it was good", then signed off with "And we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas - and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth".

Oxford particle physicist turned theologian John Polkinghorne, Oxford mathematician John Lennox, biologist Pauline Rudd from University College Dublin, and Stuart Burgess, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Bristol University, are all quoted on how they see faith and science as complementary.

It's all pretty brief, but worth a look.

schoolies, red frogs and all that

2008-12-18T03:30:00.000-08:00

Every year, in what has become a traditional rite of passage, thousands of teens who have just completed their schooling, descend on a number of beachside locations and generally go nuts. The biggest location is "Surfers", the beachside location of Surfers Paradise south of Brisbane.

It's almost a coming of age ritual, a way of celebrating the end of the tension of completing the Higher School Certificate, and, for some, a way to party until they drop. It's called "Schoolies", or "Schoolies week". And along with the fun comes the inevitable problems - drunkenness, drugs, high-spirited behaviour gone wrong, accidents, even exploitation by sexual predators. Local communities can benefit financially, but can still be wary of the cost.

A decade ago, a Brisbane church wanted to do something to help the kids have their fun, but provide support from those at risk. And so Red Frogs was born, and it has now grown to a nationwide movement with almost 2000 volunteers, 9 tonnes of confectionery, and a big welcome from schoolies and local communities.

No doubt the system varies a little in different places, but it basically involves:

young volunteers spending a week or two living in the big schoolies locations - in many cases, they live in the same hotels and apartments as the kids and act as "hotel chaplains";
the volunteers give out Red Frogs (this year donated by Nestle who makes them), a confectionery popular with the kids, make pancakes, hold BBQs, clean rooms and generally make positive contact with the kids;
the stay up late and walk kids home who might otherwise be incapable of getting there themselves, or who might be vulnerable, and are on call to help out in any way necessary;
on occasions, they are able to intervene in more serious situations, such as illness, accident or attempted suicide.

From all reports, the Red Frogs teams are well received and well respected. Some of the schoolies find the week away isn't exactly what they wanted, and the Red Frogs team can provide welcome relief which can develop into ongoing friendships. It's a great example of christian kids putting their faith into practice by doing something that is seriously useful.

Check out the Red Frogs website, the Citipoint church Red Frogs page, and reports by national and local media.

the ice retreat continues

2008-12-13T14:27:00.000-08:00

Climate change continues to present a challenge. The argument over its reality continues, but the converts continue to outnumber the sceptics. And the world economic situation gives the realists one more reason for caution.

But the alarming data continues to mount. Among the latest news is the retreat of the Arctic ice, with the mimimum summer area in 2007 the lowest ever recorded (see graph). While some say that we've been there before, researchers say this is not just a cyclic fluctuation. Rather, the loss of ice reduces the reflection of solar heat, increasing the heat retained, and hastening the rise in local sea temperatures, thus creating a vicious circle. The future may well be worse than the graph suggests.

Data taken from BBC report

Scientists are predicting that the arctic may be ice-free in summer in less than a decade, which will have enormous environmental consequences and will threaten many arctic species. As you'd expect, there are business interests that oppose doing very much about the problem; in fact some fear that human interference in the area can only increase as the ice reduces.

trends (3): crime

2008-12-11T03:28:00.000-08:00

I think most people living in major cities feel crime is more threatening than it used to be, but statistics suggest otherwise. Recent statistics for New South Wales reveal that the occurrence of most of the defined "major crime" categories are either stable or falling over the past two years. For example:

domestic violence assault was down 8%, the first fall for more than a decade;
assault with firearm was down 26%, and with other weapons was down 18%;
many other forms of theft were also slightly down.

The only major crime area which has shown an increase is fraud, up by 19%, and almost half of this is due to theft of petrol when service station patrons do not pay. It seems that whenever petrol prices rise, petrol theft rises correspondingly.

Some categories of crime (e.g. drug use) are not included in the "major crime" categories, because they are victimless crimes and not reported, therefore the statistics reflect the effectiveness of law enforcement as much as criminal behaviour. Drug use is generally increasing.

trends (2): mothers

2008-12-10T13:33:00.001-08:00

Photo: Morguefile

There is a trend for Australian women to delay motherhood. A recent report (reflecting 2006 data) indicates that the average age of mothers giving birth is now almost 30, more than a year older than a decade ago.

The percentage of births to women aged over 35 has increased from 15% to 21%. The number of first births to women over 35 rose from 8% to 14%, and those over 30 rose from 28% to 41%. The number of women under 20 giving birth halved in the last decade.

Yet despite all this, the number of births in Australia jumped more than 10% over two years, after being pretty constant for almost a decade.

Commentators, including some mentioned in the report, suggest that financial uncertainty and large mortgages are major reasons for delaying childbirth, along with improvements in medical procedures and other social and educational factors.

As a result, household demographics have changed remarkably in 30 years:

the number of couples with dependent children fell from 48% to 37%;
the number of couples without children has risen from 28% to 37%;
the number of single parent families has risen from 7 to 11%.

trends (1): smoking

2008-12-09T14:00:00.000-08:00

Photo: Morguefile

For many years now, there has been a strong anti-smoking campaign in Australia, as doubtless there has been in many other countries. It has included limitations and bans on cigarette advertising and media advertising campaigns.

And the good news is that it seems to be working. Smoking rates among men are now almost a quarter of what they were in 1945, and half those in 1980. Rates among women have also dropped (after a short term rise). And the younger age groups seem also to be getting the message, with less than half the number of young adults (18-24) smoking than 25 years ago. The incidence of deaths from lung cancer is also falling.

infidelity lures

2008-12-07T15:11:00.000-08:00

".... everyone loves a tale of extramarital activities." So says Julia Llewellyn Smith in an article in last weekend's Sydney Morning Herald, taken from an article in the London Telegraph. She continues: "Titillated by its trappings of sex, deception and risk, we can be so entertained that we ignore the suffering of those involved."

The immediate catalyst for these comments was an affair involving chef Gordon Ramsay that has apparently become public recently. But the article went on to examine how affairs were easier these days, with discrete online access to chat rooms and escort service, and emails to make clandestine liaisons. And, experts are quoted as claiming, it is wealth that provides the trigger. Some men under pressure at work, and providing everything financially for their families, apparently feel that a "little fling" on the side is quite justified. There are even introduction agencies for people looking to have an affair with another married but romance-starved person.

Yet, the experts say, and not surprisingly, affairs are hurtful: "I cannot tell you just how much pain they cause" says a marital therapist. The pain is not just from finding out one's partner has been unfaithful, but the increasing anxiety some husbands and wives feel about any behaviour of their partner that could be seen as suspicious.

A person's ethics are shown not so much in their public behaviour, but in what they do and value in their privacy. With increasing opportunities for discreet infidelity, are we showing our true colours?

the atheist wars continue

2008-12-02T17:07:00.000-08:00

One of the most formidable arguments against the existence of God is the extent of evil in the world - either God's not very good, or he's not very clever. Or perhaps he's stranger than we sometimes imagine.

One of the strongest responses to this argument is to ask what is the definition of "good" and "evil" on which the argument depends, and where did it come from? We normally think of morality as something which defines things we "should" or "should not" do, despite how we might wish to do. Without God, ethics seems to be nothing more than how natural selection has led us to think, and there is no "should".

Christopher Hitchens has written with some passion about the evils of religion, and in a 2007 debate with a christian theologian, his views were put to the test (a downloadable pdf file is also available).

Read it for yourself and make your own judgments, but I thought Hitchens came across as evasive and unable to provide any objective basis for his ethics.

the evidence for jesus

2008-11-23T14:47:00.000-08:00

I have previously discussed what historians say about Jesus and history. There I used the conclusions of historians who were not arguing for or against christianity, but simply address the matter as much as possible in the same way they'd approach other aspects of ancient history.

Recently I came across an interesting analysis of the evidence from a quite different source - a Professor of Philosophy (William Lane Craig) who is a christian. He is therefore writing from a committed viewpoint, but his paper, The Evidence for Jesus, is well worth reading.

Craig considers the question of whether the gospels should be considered reliable unless proven wrong, and argues two reasons in support of this: "There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts" and "The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability".

some music is special

2008-11-16T04:45:00.000-08:00

Who can explain why some music just says something to your soul? Lately I've been enjoying the music of an obscure Australian band, the Middle East. I saw them live and have a dozen of their songs. Here's the lyrics of one of the best, "Blood" (about family):

Older brother, restless soul, lie down

Lie for a while with your ear against the earth

You'll hear your sister sleep talking

Say "your hair is long but not long enough

to reach home to me

but your beard someday might be"

And she'll wake up in a cold sweat on the floor

Next to a family portrait drawn when you were four

And beside a jar of two cent coins that are no good no more

She'll lay it aside ...

Older father, weary soul, you'll drive

Back to the home you've made on the mountainside

With that ugly terrible thing

Those papers for divorce and a lonely ring

Sit on your porch

And pluck your strings

You'll find somebody you can blame

You'll follow the creek that runs into the sea

And you'll find the peace of the Lord

Grandfather, gentle soul, you'll fly

Over your life once more before you die

Since our grandma passed away

You've waited for forever and a day

Just to die

And someday soon you'll die

It was the only woman you ever loved

That got burnt by the sun too often when she was young

And the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood

And there's nothing you can do about it now.

You can listen to the song on the Middle East Myspace page, or on the Triple J Unearthed page.

does religion make you nice?

2008-11-12T04:17:00.000-08:00

In does belief in god harm us?, I looked at how religious belief affects the way people behave. Now a psychologist has looked at the question, seeking to explain:

why atheists in the US are less happy, less healthy and less altruistic than believers, yet the church-tolerant non-believers in Scandinavia are happy and altruistic; and
why religious belief seems to make people more honest.

I would have thought the answers were obvious - believers have a stronger reason to behave ethically and be altruistic and their greater sense of purpose makes them happier, while the differences between Scandinavians and Americans relates to other aspects of the two societies - but he has some interesting ideas.

He thinks the main source of all these positive behaviours and characteristics are good social networks - which the religious have in the US and the Scandinavians have, but which the atheists in the US don't have.

Bizarrely, he blames the christians for making the atheists outsiders and (more sensibly) for thinking them immoral and unpatriotic. Read about it in this article from Slate.

eddie koiki mabo

2008-11-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

The very worthwhile TV series, The First Australians, concluded this week, and it was compelling, if often distressing, viewing. It has already thrown up some previously unsung heroes, like Barak and Rev John Green, and shown some other historical figures, such as Bennelong, Watkin Tench and William Dawes, in a new light.

The final episode was about the fight for legal recognition of Aboriginal land rights, and the end of the myth of "terra nullius", the obviously erroneous and insulting idea that the first British settlers were entering an empty land. I always knew that the fight centred around Torres Strait Islander, Eddie Koiki Mabo, but I didn't know before what an admirable figure Mabo was.

Exiled from his home island of Mer (Murray Island), Mabo established in Townsville a number of projects to support indigenous families and communities, including a health service and community school. Then when he became aware that land began a ten year court action that finally led to the historic decision on Aboriginal land rights, which changed land law irrevocably in Australia.

Unfortunately, Eddie Mabo didn't live to see his people's triumph, dying in 1992, five months before the decision was handed down. Read more about Eddie Mabo in Wikipedia and Racism, No Way.

hope

2008-11-05T00:59:00.000-08:00

When the "coalition of the willing" invaded Iraq, so many people around the world were sure it was wrong. And it still looks that way. Yes, a ruthless dictator has been removed and some good has come, but at an enormous cost. And it is hard not to believe that more good could have come at less cost in human lives if the same money had been spent on helping people in the Middle East and elsewhere, through education and medical programs for instance.

And now the three leaders who took the coalition to war have gone or are going.

First to go was Tony Blair, a man of integrity who somehow seemed to get it wrong on the war. Unfortunately, his successor doesn't seem able to deliver in quite the same way.

In Australia, John Howard's long time in office came to an end a year ago, and the relief in Australia was palpable. New Prime Minister Kevin Rudd raised so many hopes by making a formal apology to Australia's indigenous peoples for the wrongs committed by us European invaders and signing the Kyoto Protocol, two things Howard stubbornly refused to do. He still enjoys a high approval rating.

And now, to most people's immense relief, Barack Obama will replace George W Bush as President, and promises a new beginning. It's just words yet, of course, but good intentions are a good start. He carries many people's hopes.

One can only hope that the US and its allies are on a new, more humane, course.

the probability of god

2008-11-01T03:22:00.000-07:00

I recently read an interesting and fun book. It was The Probability of God by Stephen Unwin, and it attempted to show how one could use various facts about our world to compute the probability that God exists.

Unwin works as a risk assessor for large US companies, and uses the mathematics of Bayesian probability in his work, so he thought he would try to use the same ideas to examine God. He considers factors (or "evidentiary areas") that suggest God might be more likely to exist, such as how we know what's right and wrong, miracles and religious experiences, and other areas that might suggest God is less likely to exist, such as the problems of natural and human evil in the world.

Unwin assesses the evidence and ends up with a probability of God 's existence of 67%.

Of course we shouldn't take it too seriously. The probabilities have no factual basis, and are simply his subjective assessment. But I found the exercise interesting, because it allows everyone to use their own estimates of probabilities and come up with their own answers. And allows each of us to test our belief against something that at least tries to be even-handed.

In fact I found it so interesting that I wrote a program that allows the test, upgraded with a few more questions, to be taken on-line by anyone who wishes. Testing the program indicates you can get any answer, from 0 to 100%, so it doesn't seem to be biased. So if you're interested, you can make your estimate of the probability of God on my website. I'd be interested to hear what you conclude.

For the record, I calculated the probability of God to be 98%, which I guess tells you something about my answers.

peter norman deserved better

2008-10-31T00:26:00.000-07:00

I've never been a great fan of the Olympic Games, but I take an interest in the fortunes of Australians who compete. And so I can remember the silver medal won by Peter Norman in the 200m sprint in the 1968 games. And of course I can remember the "scandal" of him standing on the dias with two black American athletes giving what was said to be a black power salute. But I didn't know the rest of the story until now.

Photo from Wikipedia

Norman died two years ago, and the two black athletes in the picture, Tommy Smith and John Carlos, flew to Australia to be pall bearers. Why? The story has now become public with the release this year of the award-winning film "Salute", made by Norman's nephew Matt Norman.

Before the games, Norman was not expected to earn a medal, but he qualified for the final in world record time, and followed this up with a run half a second faster than his previous best to win silver. Amazingly, it is still, thirty years later, the fastest 200m time by an Australian, and would have been fast enough to win gold at many subsequent Olympics. So Norman proved to be a wonderful athlete.

But Norman proved to be more than that. The two US runners told Norman before the presentation that they were going to protest against racism in the US, and Norman offered to support them by wearing a badge for the "Olympic Project for Human Rights". Then when Carlos realised he had forgotten his black gloves, it was Norman who suggested they wear one each (thus explaining what had always puzzled me, why the two Americans raised different hands!).

Smith and Carlos were sent home, and Norman, who also expressed public criticism of the then "White Australia Policy", was disciplined. But worse followed, when Norman, still 5th fastest in the world four years later, was not even picked in the Australian team for the 1972 Olympics, and he dropped out of athletics and public view. The Australian Olympics Committee has often been accused of being hidebound and out-of-touch, and this appears to be an example.

When the 2000 Olympics were held in Sydney, Norman was the only surviving Aussie Olympian not to be invited to participate in a lap of honour. But Norman was something of a hero to black US athletes, who did not expect a white man from another country to support them, and champions such as Ed Moses and Michael Johnson welcomed Norman to their quarters.

Photo taken from Youtube.

Smith and Carlos had remained in contact with Norman over the years and appeared in the movie. And so it was that they were keen to attend his funeral and act as pall-bearers, as a last opportunity to express their respect for Norman.

Norman's stand, and the price he ultimately paid for it, were not a surprise to those who knew him. He was a committed christian with a Salvation Army background, and had a strong belief in equality and human rights.

Norman was a fine sportsman, a good bloke, he supported the underdog, clashed with the authorities and stuck to his beliefs. This should qualify him as a genuine Aussie "hero".

Read media reports about Norman in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age (which includes a photo of Smith and Carlos carrying Norman's coffin) and BBC News, and a review of the film.

advertising atheism

2008-10-29T04:51:00.000-07:00

It has taken a while, but it is now happening.

A few months back it was reported that British atheists were being asked to contribute to an advertising campaign to counter christian advertising on London buses, but only a fraction of the money had been raised. The ads were to say: 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life.'

More recently it has been reported that Richard Dawkins has offered a significant amount of money, matching whatever is given by others, to begin the campaign.

This was discussed by comedians on Sydney afternoon radio last Friday, and a couple of comments suggested the advertising might be underwhelming:

"If they were really serious, the ads would say: 'There's probably no God - sin away!'"

"Imagine if the ads said: 'There's probably not a bomb on this bus, so get on board.' Would you?"

two heroes - barak & john green

2008-10-20T04:59:00.000-07:00

Episode 3 of The First Australians introduced four people who deserve to be remembered, two of whom lived heroically.

The episode told of the displacement of the indigenous people by the white settlement in Melbourne, and how one tribe, the Wurundjeri, led by Simon Wonga and later Barak, chose not to oppose the whites by violence, but rather to seek the independence and prosperity of their people. This necessitated some degree of acceptance of the European takeover and some accommodation with white culture, while still preserving traditional culture.

They sought to be given a grant of land (a small part of what had been their country), and finally settled on land on the Yarra River at Corranderrk. They made a success of farming, and prospered. In all this they were assisted by a Scottish minister, John Green, who supported their independence and treated them with the respect they deserved. His wife, Mary Green, provided education for aboriginal children, a necessary step if they were to survive economically.

Officialdom was initially on their side, recognising the Wurundjeri ownership of Corranderrk, which became an aboriginal mission and reserve, and appointing Green as manager of the station. Unlike other managers of similar stations, he set up governance processes which put the tribal leaders in authority, and the Wurundjeri prospered.

But the Aboriginal Protection Board (which in reality had no such helpful aim!) started to interfere, leading Green, unwisely, to resign in protest - he later withdrew his resignation but the Board wanted him out, so they accepted the resignation anyway. Around this time, Wonga died and Barak took over as leader. He negotiated tirelessly and with integrity and intelligence with a Board that lacked that integrity, many times making the 60 km walk into Melbourne to press his case, to have Green reinstated and Corranderrk to be administered freely by the Wurundjeri. At times he was aided by socialite Anne Bon, who stuck her neck out for the aboriginal people.

Eventually the Board set up a process which removed many of the Wurundjeri people from Corranderrk, and the community collapsed. Barak died an old and somewhat disillusioned man, but not before he documented in paintings his now doomed culture. Corranderrk was sold, but was purchased by the aboriginal people recently.

Green and Barak come out of this history with great credit. They showed courage, humanity, respect for those different to them, and demonstrated that aboriginal-white relations could have been so much more productive and egalitarian if only the white Australians had treated them with respect and recognised their human rights. I'd never heard of Barak or Green before, but they have become two of my heroes.

stand up!

2008-10-18T23:44:00.001-07:00

Basically, it's pretty simple.

Lots of people in the world are mind-numbingly poor.
In 2000 leaders of 189 countries signed up to the Millennium Development Goals, a global plan to halve poverty by 2015.
The world is way behind target.
People are still mind-numbingly poor.
We ought to do more to help them.

So a number of organisations around the world, including Make Poverty History in Australia, asked people to join them in reminding governments of their promises on halving world poverty, by joining in events which included a time of standing up together, symbolising unity around the world on this matter. Last year, 43 million people joined in. This year's event was this weekend.

And so it was that 255 people at our local church stood up while the "Stand Up and Take Action Pledge" was read out.

Will it make any difference? I dunno, but it's worth a try.

the first australians

2008-10-16T01:05:00.000-07:00

Australia's indigenous people are believed to have been on this continent for somewhere between 50 and 100 thousand years, arguably making their culture the world's oldest. But that culture didn't long survive the coming of Europeans to begin a colony in Sydney, and later elsewhere.

The interaction between the two cultures and races is the subject of a powerful documentary series that began screening on TV this week.

The first episode told of the attempts by people of goodwill on both sides to reach an accommodation that would allow both cultures to coexist. One historian thinks they nearly succeeded. But the unfortunate actions of some unprincipled whites, the need or desire for the whites to spread out to find productive farming land, the enormous differences between the cultures, and the impacts of two white man's diseases, smallpox and alcohol, put an end to that.

The aboriginal people were overrun, and it is a sorry tale. Most of them come out of it with more credit than many of the whites - Governor Phillip, and army officers Tench and Dawes being exceptions.

Even after so many lives and so much land were lost, one settler family out Bathurst way and the tribe in whose country they had settled, reached a peaceful and even friendly coexistence that showed what might have been achieved with more goodwill and less rapacious ambition by the whites.

The rest of the series promises to be valuable, but sometimes harrowing watching.

growing up too young

2008-10-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

Paul Sheehan had an interesting article, titled We live in a sexual twilight zone, in last weekend's Sydney Morning Herald. He starts from considering two current films, Towelhead and Candy Girl, which have themes of sexuality in young teenage girls and young women, and Bill Henson's photos of naked pre-teen girls which caused a furore in Australia recently (Sheehan defends Henson).

He quotes sources indicating a high level of sexual interest and fantasies in young women and even young teens. For example, one Australian study shows that almost all children had seen internet porn by the age of 15, and for most of them it was their primary source of information on sex. A third of 13 year old girls have had sexual experience. (However the study was small and almost certainly not representative.)

He doesn't blame the internet, but considers "it may have created a more accurate mirror of who we collectively are as a society, in conflict with the laws and conventions we have constructed." That's a scary thought. And he concludes with this sobering idea:

"Frankly, it is our culture saturated with debt, consumerism, two-income families, one-parent households and a coarsening public domain that has done more to truncate the innocence of youth than random perverts, a reality we have barely begun to acknowledge."

teach your children well

2008-10-08T04:16:00.000-07:00

In Australia, children generally live longer than their parents, because medical science is improving all the time and prolonging our lives. But now many people are saying (it has almost become a cliche) that the current generation of children will likely be the first not to outlive their parents.

A recent report from the government-run Australian Temperament Project outlines some good and bad news about the generation now in their twenties. The study has tracked 2,400 children from birth to their mid twenties and has recently found that 80% of them appear to be doing well - generally studying or working, and often in committed relationships.

However 40% were showing signs of problems such as depression (16%), anxiety (16%), antisocial behaviour (10%) and/or illicit substance abuse (about 15%), with some having multiple problems. Since the late teens, depression and anxiety have declined but substance abuse has increased.

About 20% drink alcohol in unhealthy amounts, and 7% are considered to be "risky" drivers. Of interest is the fact that risky drivers can be detected from mid-childhood, and risky driving is commonly associated with anti-social behaviour, substance abuse and difficulties at school.

Earlier data from the study shows that most parents and teenagers relate well, although only about half communicate well. However it seems that the teens who didn't relate well with their parents are much more likely to be at risk in late teens and mid twenties.

Obesity is a growing problem among Australia's children. Australia has been found to be the fattest country on earth, with our obesity levels now surpassing those of the US. A quarter of children are classified as "overweight" with children from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds most likely to be obese. And the rates are rising fast.

According to Prof Fiona Stanley, we're eating more and moving less, leading to weight gain and associated health problems such as type 2 diabetes, which in turn can lead to depression and (ironically) eating disorders. She advocates research to gain a better understanding of vulnerable populations, and innovative solutions that go beyond telling people to eat less - perhaps teaching parents quick and cheap alternatives to fast food, and provision of more playgrounds and open space.

It seems that the quality of parenting and the level of social disadvantage of the family are major causes of the problems being experienced by both children and young adults, but changing this may require the rest of us to accept that more taxes need to be spent in these areas to address potential problems before they appear.

happiness, 2008

2008-10-02T18:04:00.000-07:00

The latest information on what makes people happy continues to confirm that happiness doesn't come primarily from wealth or possessions. A recent study compiling a Happiness Index found that experiences such as relaxation, eating, sex, spending time online and spending time with friends all made people happier than material things.

Some of the results:

Activity	men made happy	women made happy
Relaxation	63%	63%
Meals & time with family	45%	55%
Online activities	50%	39%
Sex	48%	40%
Drinking with friends	38%	28%
Shopping	14%	30%
Buying a gift	19%	36%

The Happiness Index is determining what makes people happy at the time (something other surveys may describe as "pleasure"). It is not the same as the Australian Wellbeing Index, which measures wellbeing and satisfaction of a more lasting nature.

Nevertheless, we learn again that it is who we are, what we do and what we value that make us happy more than what we own and how wealthy we are. So it is ironic that this survey was conducted to help Australian businesses better target their customers.

Read the Sydney Morning Herald's report, or background information on happiness.

life after carbon reduction

2008-09-29T00:35:00.000-07:00

I have commented before on the difficulty of moving towards more sustainable energy use. The first barriers to overcome are understanding the facts, informing public opinion and overcoming misinformation. But we definitely need solutions to problems like car dependence and alternatives to coal-fired power stations.

So it is pleasing to read in the press two alternatives that seem to have promise.

A recent report to "clean-power developer", Carnegie Corporation, estimates that wave energy created around Australia's long coastline is four times the current generation capacity of the nation. An estimated 10% of this, or one third of the current power usage, could be harvested. This energy source, coupled with solar, wind and geothermal, makes it look likely that Australia could meet all its power needs in the future with renewable and carbon-neutral energy.
Not long ago, the National Roads and Motorists Association (NRMA), released a report from its "Jamison Group", which has been researching the development of alternative motor vehicle fuels, in order to reduce oil dependence. The plan aims at reducing oil-based fuel usage by 50% in 40 years, via compulsory reduction in fuel consumption, changes to incentives and subsidies and development of alternative fuels such as biofuels. But ultimately, the requirement will be further development of electric cars (which hasn't always been enthusiastically supported by existing motor interests) and of the renewable energy resources to power them.

One wonders whether we can depend on 40 years of petrol usage, but electric cars are already viable, and even very competitive.

The seriously interesting Tesla electric roadster (photo from the Tesla website)

It now requires people and governments to support these measures, even though they will cost us in the short term - if any generation can afford to, and should, take a cut in wealth to buy a better future, it is us.

another "ism" bites the dust?

2008-09-28T03:28:00.000-07:00

I grew up in the time of the cold war. Communism was the big enemy, and ranged against it were the forces of freedom, principally the US. Then down came the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, and most of the Communist countries embraced democracy and Capitalism. The world was suddenly a better, freer and safer place.

Many western governments shifted a little to the right - George W Bush in the US, John Howard in Australia. Leftist governments and parties, such as Labor in the UK, seemed to shift to the safe middle ground - instead of reform there was fiscal responsibility.

Market forces were even considered the most effective means to solve many environmental issues. Capitalism was undisputed king, and the market was considered to be effectively self-regulating.

But the unfolding financial mess in the US, and gradually enveloping the world, has begun to change that perception. Suddenly people are saying that the market may self-regulate in the long term, but in the short term many people will get burned, and some corporate leaders will make a killing even as they retire in disgrace.

Suddenly even some world leaders are saying that the unbridled capitalism of the US has been the culprit, and more regulation and transparency is required in the future. They say the world will not be the same again, and the US will lose its pre-eminent position in the world economy.

Perhaps, merely two decades after the demise of Communism, we are witnessing the effective demise of unbridled free market Capitalism, in favour of some more moderate and more moderated "ism"?

those old time songs

2008-09-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

I visited a retirement village recently, and joined many of the residents in an old fashioned sing-a-long. Not my choice of a past-time, but it was interesting to compare the songs, dating I guess from the 1930s and 1940s, with today's songs. Many of the songs reflected the uncertainties of the war years and the great depression, they were almost all fairly simple in the thoughts and emotions expressed, and they tended to be very positive, looking on the brighter side of life, promising to be faithful to a loved one far away, looking forward to better times. I wondered whether, when times were materially tough, people looked for comfort in their entertainment, but now times are materially good, we have more time for angst.

close to understanding jesus?

2008-09-08T00:27:00.000-07:00

Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand She said she'd like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis She walks along the edge of where the ocean meets the land Just like she's walking on a wire in a circus She parks her car outside of my house Takes her clothes off Says she's close to understanding Jesus. - Counting Crows: "Round Here"

It's a great song, and a great aim - understanding Jesus. And if you understand the following two Bible verses, you're probably close to understanding Jesus, even if you don't believe in him:

"After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" Mark 1:14-15.

The time has come

The Jewish nation was small, at the crossroads of the world, sandwiched between Egypt to the southwest and Assyria and Babylon to the northeast. Only for a short period in its long history had it been really free - 900 years earlier under kings David & Solomon. But the prophets promised a time would come when God would restore the kingdom and forever rescue his people from oppression, via his anointed king, the Messiah. And so faithful Jews waited, and waited, and waited for the promised Messiah to free them, from Assyria, from Babylon, from Greece and from Rome. And they were still waiting.

Then comes Jesus's dramatic, momentous announcement that brought hope to tired hearts - "it's time!"

The kingdom of God is near

The promise was that God would rule as king, via his Messiah. The coming of the kingdom threatened to turn the world upside down. The Roman Empire proclaimed Caesar as Lord, so the coming of Jesus, the true Lord, was a challenge to the might of Rome. It was also a challenge to the Jewish religious leaders, who had developed a complex web of laws to define what it meant to be holy, and Jesus overturned all that. But it came as blessed relief for normal people who groaned under occupation, heavy taxation and the weight of the religious laws, for Jesus as Lord offered a lighter burden and hope for the future.

But Jesus had in mind a radical departure from popular expectations of a militant Messiah, and many were offended. Many people still don't get it. In the end, power and force are not God's way for us, and Jesus did not announce a kingdom that would by force drive out the Romans. Rather he brought a kingdom where the Messiah would suffer with, and for, his people, to give them new freedom, within and despite their circumstances. And this kingdom would last forever, on into the age to come.

Once, Jesus was teaching in a synagogue and he read a passage from the prophet Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Everyone knew this passge referred to the promised Messiah, so "all eyes were on him". You could have heard a pin drop. And Jesus said "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:18-21)

And it wasn't just talk. When his cousin John sent messengers questioning his credentials, Jesus replied: "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me." (Luke 7:22-23) He was doing what Isaiah had promised.

And, to emphasise his way was one of service, not dominance, and to show how we could enter into this new kingdom, Jesus also said: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

So Jesus, the servant king, confounded many expectations, offered great hope and threatened entrenched interests. (It is still the same.) And as we examine this short passage and unpack its meaning, we see that even Jesus's death (the servant king dies as a ransom for many) and resurrection (but the king and his kingdom will never end) are in view.

Repent and believe the good news!

Repent literally means to change one's mind - as the Apple Computer ads used to say: "Think Different!" If God is beginning to rule in a new way, each of us has to make some hard choices. Are we willing to change our minds and accept God's offer of a place among his people, or do we want to keep on going it alone? This announcement is good news to those who are willing to think again, because it brings a totally new life, but we have to believe the news and embrace it by living it out.

Jesus went on to welcome many unlikely (in his contemporaries' eyes) people into this new community of the kingdom - he forgave and restored women who had fallen foul of one-sided moral laws in a male dominated society, he included the despised tax collectors in his kingdom leading to major changes to their lives, he healed lepers and restored them to society, he even welcomed his religious foes and the occupying Romans.

And all the time he challenged his listeners to have discerning eyes, to understand what was happening, and to respond by joining him in making things new, starting with themselves. Theologian AM Hunter: "all through that ministry there rings a note of terrible urgency, as though a crisis uniquely fraught with blessing or with judgment for 'this generation' in Israel were upon them .... [we] get the impression of 'tremendous power', as of 'a great wind sweeping through Palestine' ... [challenging people] to decide on whose side of the battle they will be". And so the movement he began against all odds, grew until it had spread over all the world. True, many of his followers, and some self-serving people who came along for the ride, often misunderstood his commitment to freedom and service and perpetrated some ghastly, anti-kingdom atrocities, but the bulk of his followers have changed the world in many positive ways, and are still doing so.

He still challenges people, the irreligious and the religious, to give up on second rate goals and join him. Anyone close to understanding Jesus can join in.

Further reference:

Books: John Dickson: A Spectators Guide to Jesus.
AM Hunter: The Work and Words of Jesus
On the web: are the stories about jesus true?.
Or, in more detail: Jesus & History, Who was Jesus?

a girl's best friend?

2008-09-06T04:51:00.000-07:00

The teen years are a time of uncertainty, a time when most people need every bit of encouragement they can get. So it is sad to read author Nikki Goldstein reporting in the Sydney Morning Herald on "the broad and insidious rise of "mean girl culture"".

Goldstein has a forum on her website where girls across Australia discuss and receive advice, and "the most pressing topic, every week, has been how to handle the bullying, bitchiness and isolation girls experience at school."

She refers to teen TV shows that seem to promote nastiness and put-downs among teen girls, and says: "Our culture has spawned a new version of womanhood that promotes a kind of sharp-tongued nastiness ...."

The SMH article offers few clues as to the reasons for this behaviour trend, but an earlier book about girls in the US, Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons, suggests that it is “a mean and merciless competition for relationships”, as girls seek popularity and membership in a popular clique, even if they have to destroy previous friendships to do it.

It seems to be one more evidence of a society that too often cares more for popularity and image than for friendship and lasting values.

free will?

2008-09-03T02:43:00.000-07:00

Most of us don't even think about it. We just go about our lives, making choices and accepting responsibility for them (and sometimes trying to avoid responsibility for them!). But do we really have free will, or are we just programmed?

what is free will?

Free will means the ability to choose between two or more alternatives, without being predetermined by our genes, our brain processes and cause and effect to make a particular choice - the ability to initiate an action, or be a cause of an action, that wouldn't have occurred otherwise, and which we were not compelled to cause.

The Oxford Handbook of Free Will says: "we believe we have free will when (a) it is "up to us" what we choose from an array of alternative possibilities, and (b) the origin or source of our choices and actions is in us and not in anyone or anything else over which we have no control."

Some have defined free will in "lesser" terms, as the absence of external compulsion. However, if we have no inner free will, then our entire selves are the result of external actions leading to our birth and genetics, over which we had no control. So this definition doesn't seem to be what most of us consider to be free will.

do we actually have free will?

No-one doubts we are in many things not free to choose (e.g. to fly unaided), nor that our genes determine much about us. The question is, do we have any choice?

We seem to have free will. We make choices, blame people for their choices, present arguments we expect to influence other people, and have legal systems that make people responsible for their actions as if they had true choice. But is all this an illusion?

Naturalists, who believe that the space-time universe is all there is, find it hard to avoid the conclusion that everything is determined by the laws of the universe and cause and effect. Our brains function on simple and deterministic laws of physics, and there is no "us" outside our brains to control our thoughts. For naturalists, our brain processes seem to be predetermined.

Biologist Francis Crick: "You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."

Professor William Provine, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University: "Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent."

"Compatibilists" believe that although our brains are determined, we still have free will, though I cannot see how that can be. "Incompatibilists" believe that because our brains are determined, we have no free will, which seems like a logical conclusion to me.

Some theists believe that God's sovereignty, especially in setting up the universe, means that we cannot have free will either, but most believe God gives us the dignity of free will, and thereby holds us responsible for our actions.

Most theists would also be dualists, that is, they believe God has made us as spiritual-physical beings, and our minds or selves have a dual nature, which allows us to escape from the determinism of naturalism.

what can we live with?

It is one thing to have a theoretical view. Most people seem to be natural dualists, believing we have genuine free will and moral responsibility. But this seems inconsistent for those who are naturalists and atheists. But although it may be inconsistent, it may be difficult to get away from.

One option for naturalists could be that we have evolved to think we have free will even though we don't, because it is advantageous to think so. For example, one study has shown that those who believe we lack free will are more likely to be dishonest (perhaps showing the link between free will and moral responsibility).

So if an atheist believes there can be no true free will, can they actually live as if this is true, or will their minds revolt at the thought?

And does our common perception indicate that there is more in the universe than some people say, perhaps even pointing to God?

start of the universe, end of the world?

2008-09-02T05:14:00.000-07:00

In trying to understand matter and energy, scientists have discovered four basic forces or interactions (gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear interactions). The "Standard Model" of particle physics describes how dozens of fundamental particles (e.g. different types of quarks, leptons and bosons) that make up the more well-known atomic particles like protons and neutrons, and the three interactions other than gravity, "work" together.

Gravity is the odd force out, and only one of the fundamental particles, the Higgs boson, has not yet been observed. It is believed that the Higgs boson holds the key to gravity, and why it is a much weaker force than the others.

Creating the conditions where a Higgs boson (and a few other hypothetical particles and miniature black holes) can be created requires accelerating protons (which are one type of hadron) to speeds approaching that of light, and then smashing them against each other to create, in a small space and for a short time, enormous temperatures and forces such as existed at the very beginning of the universe when the particles were first forming out of energy.

And so the European Nuclear Research Centre (CERN), supported by thousands of scientists and 20 countries, has spent billions of dollars building the "Large Hadron Collider" (LHC) underground in Switzerland - an enormous, 17 mile long particle accelerator that will produce the required high velocities. It is due to open soon.

And now, at the last minute, some scientists are challenging the operation of the LHC in the European Court of Human Rights. They claim the safety of the LHC is in doubt, because it may be able to produce miniature black holes which could then begin eating the earth from the inside due to their intense gravitational pull.

CERN has produced a safety report which concludes that there is "little theoretical chance of the collider producing mini black holes that would be capable of posing a danger to the earth". Doubtless they are correct and their critics wrong, but with the earth itself at stake, one would have thought "little chance" was still a little too much.

But we all trust scientists, don't we?

from poverty to power

2008-08-25T18:52:00.000-07:00

Anyone with an ounce of humanity cannot fail to be disturbed by the extent and depth of world poverty. The question is, what can ordinary people do about it? A number of approaches are possible ....

We can all donate to a disaster relief fund, sponsor a child or help buy a well for a needy village or literacy classes for an uneducated adult. And it all helps. We may not change the world, but we change someone's world. But most agree this is not addressing the root causes.

We can go one step further, and as well as giving aid, pay a fair wage for the products we get from third world countries. This is the logic behind organisations like Fair Trade, which enable us to buy products where those who produce it are paid a decent price for their labours.

We can agitate for change, by asking our governments to increase their foreign aid to meet the Millenium Development Goals, reduce third world debt and Make Poverty History. We can campaign for fairer trade rules. All this will make a big difference if it happens.

All of these approaches rely on those of us in the rich west being willing to make changes ourselves, or support changes by our governments. But now comes a book which challenges us to look even deeper into the issue.

From Poverty to Power by Oxfam's Duncan Green argues that the biggest barrier to eliminating poverty are non-democratic, and often corrupt governments, which don't allow the poor an opportunity to change their lives. The poor need effective governments working in the interests of all their citizens. I guess it's obvious really, but it needed to be researched and said.

A couple of interesting examples.

On this video, we learn that 50 years ago, South Korea was poorer than Sudan; now the average citizen is 12 times better off. It asks why, and the inference is that in South Korea people were given a fair opportunity, while in Sudan their opportunity has been ruined by war, genocide and inequality.
Botswana is a poor landlocked country that imports 80% of its food. It has one major money earner, diamonds. Over the 40 years since independence, its per capita GDP has increased a hundredfold. More importantly, a government "for the people" has ensured that the wealth is spent equitably. Many other examples of citizens actively involved in a democracy leading to reducing poverty are quoted by Duncan.

This leaves us with the obvious question: how (if at all) can we help?

I'm not sure, but it seems that we can try to support aid programs in countries which fulfill Duncan's criteria. And perhaps we need to urge our governments to strongly support nations which are moving in the right direction. For too long, the US and the west generally have supported regimes that support the west's perceived strategic goals, even if they are oppressive regimes, and opposed some benign governments if they do not align with the US.

undoing 200 years of environmental harm

2008-08-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

The Murray-Darling Basin is a very important river catchment in Australia. It covers a seventh of the land area of our continent, produces 40% of the nation's agricultural profit, and 70% of our irrigated agriculture. Yet much of the basin is arid, and much of the agriculture relies in rains falling in the eastern ranges and flowing hundreds of kilometres before it is pumped from the river.

Basin map by MDBC.

But almost 200 years of settlement, agriculture and land clearing, and a century of irrigation, have left their mark. Notable changes to the natural ecosystems include:

Many of the basin's rivers have had their flows reduced to a trickle at times, changing the riverine ecosystems. Wetlands at the downstream ends of most rivers (including the important Macquarie Marshes) do not receive nearly the required amount of water to sustain large bird populations. And flows to the Coorong, an enormous estuarine area where the Murray reaches the sea, have been so reduced that the ecology is becoming more saline and the whole character of this water body is in danger.
Extensive areas of land have been cleared, including critical land along the river banks, changing runoff patterns and decimating habitat.
Chemical use in agriculture has led to high nutrient levels with consequent algal growth and occasional fish kills from pesticides or low oxygen levels.
As a result, many native fish species, including the iconic Murray cod, have disappeared from many locations, and alien invasive species (including the destructive European Carp) now predominate.

Recently a "Sustainable River Audit" was completed and the results published. There is a lot of work to do:

River flows in about half the basin's 23 catchments have been sufficiently changed to have a serious impact on ecology. (This is perhaps not as bad as I might have thought.)
The loss of native fish species and replacement with exotic species has occurred at damaging levels in every one of the catchments, with only 3 categorised as being in moderate condition, and the remaining 20 in poor condition or worse.
The numbers of macroinvertebrates (basically bugs and grubs) is considered an important ecological measure, because they are a major food source for fish. Their condition more or less reflects that of the fish.
In all, only one catchment (the Paroo, in the arid far west, and therefore not so heavily "developed") remains in good condition, two other catchments (also in more arid areas) are in moderate condition. The remainder are assessed as in poor or worse condition.

Other factors affect river health: vegetation, channel erosion, location within catchment, climate, etc, and the first two of these will also be measured in future surveys.

There has been much talk about returning water to the river by buying irrigation water from farmers and more efficient water use, but this information suggests that the causes are much more than just over-use of water. Australian governments, national and state, have a record of doing studies and making plans, but generally sitting on their hands. The farming lobby has a lot of influence. We'll see how much is done about this.

Check out the Audit at the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.

does belief in god harm us?

2008-08-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

Recently I visited a web forum conducted by atheists. Its home page had a slogan: "Believe in God? We can fix that!", so I posted a question - "I believe in God. Why does that need fixing, and how do you propose to do it?"

Of course some interesting discussion ensured, some of which was based around the answers some of the atheist members gave to the first part of my question. They argued that my belief needed fixing because it was harmful to me and to the world. But they gave very little evidence for this claim, so I set myself to test the proposition: Belief in God leads to worse outcomes in the world than non-belief.

To demonstrate that the proposition is true would require four things to be established:

(1) Have theists done worse things in the world than non-theists?

For this we need an overall estimate of the evil things done by both sides, based on competent, objective research.

Killings is one measure of general evil (not the only one, but useful because there are good estimates available). The following 5 references seem to me to be competent and objective estimates of killings committed by various groups over the centuries:

Which has killed more people? Genocides (Wikipedia) 20th century death tolls World War II death count Historian Rodney Stark

It turns out that the number of killings by non-theists in the 20th century alone was estimated to be 75-100 million, much more than the estimated 30 million committed by christians in 20 centuries. These numbers are enough for anyone to be deeply ashamed of, but they definitely suggest the atheist proposition falls at the first hurdle.

(2) Are theism and non-theism significant causes of these atrocities?

This is a pretty difficult one to test, because how can we judge whether the religious belief of someone committing an atrocity is genuine, or whether it was atheism or communism that led to atrocities? But if we want to make an assessment, we have to be circumspect, and rely on good historians.

Sociologist and historian Rodney Stark concludes that governments and not the church were clearly responsible for the millions who died in the European conquest of the Americas (where a large number of killings occurred), and that atheism was probably not the main factor in the millions of deaths under Chinese and Russian communism.
Nevertheless, atheism was an integral part of Marx-Leninism as this book outlines. It talks of "Lenin's policy of militant atheism". Lenin sent a letter in 1922 where he said that the "protracted use of brutality" was necessary to achieve the promotion of atheism.
The following references report on research indicating that religion was not a major factor in most recent suicide bombings (contrary to popular belief): The role of social context in terror attacks Is Suicide Terrorism Religiously Motivated? On the Edge

So the evidence is not totally consistent, but tends to oppose the proposition that it is the religious beliefs that cause the atrocities; rather it seems to be political beliefs.

(3) Is the record of theism and non-theism in the past a reliable indication of the likely behaviour today?

Even if we could establish that either theism or non-theism did evil things in the past, it is the present we are living in, and in which the proposition is being applied. Are things likely to be the same, or different?

This is even harder to gather evidence on. But perhaps where social and international conditions now are similar to when the atrocities were committed, then we may be able to demonstrate some connection between the past and the present. On this basis, Muslim suicide bombing is obviously current, as are thousands of executions a year in China by an explicitly anti-religious Government, far more than for any other country (see Amnesty International figures for this). Next closest in time and social conditions would be the communist killings of the 20th century, with the christian killings of the invasion of South America, etc, obviously from a world very different to today.

It seems that, overall, belief in God is likely to do less harm today than in the past.

(4) How do the beneficial effects of theism compare to the beneficial effects of non-theism?

So far we have only considered evil, but good must also be in the equation.

In history, christians have been at the forefront of much beneficial social reform such as hospitals, education, anti-slavery, etc. Rodney Stark concluded from his study of the rise of christianity in the first few centuries CE that one of the major factors was the christians' superior record in social welfare (there are independent letters of an unsympathetic Roman emperor to demonstrate this), especially in their care of women, children and orphans.

In the present day, many independent studies show that believers have better mental and physical health and general wellbeing, lower rates of addiction and suicide, lower levels of stress and depression, and recover from surgery more quickly. They also are much more active in community service roles and much more likely to give time and money to charities (for Australia, see new generations and religious belief, for the US see this study). And in Australia, christian groups are by far the largest non-government providers of social services (especially aged care, but also crisis help, dealing with addictions, etc).

This research is summed up in this telling article, "Faith does breed charity" by atheist journalist Roy Hattersley, who concludes: "The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand..... The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me. The truth may make us [atheists] free. But it has not made us as admirable as the average captain in the Salvation Army."

So on this matter, the evidence again does not seem to favour the atheist proposition.

so what may we conclude?

Sadly, people have done many evil things to each other, but it appears that belief or disbelief in God are not the major cause of this. We probably can't say for sure that either belief or disbelief in God are likely to lead to bad outcomes, but the evidence tends to suggest that believers contribute more good to society and have done less harm than have non-believers in the past.

is disbelief in god irrational?

2008-08-12T06:21:00.000-07:00

I don't believe that philosophy can prove God, certainly not to someone who wants to disbelieve, any more than it can disprove God's existence. But philosophers still address the question.

Alvin Plantinga is an eminent American philosopher who has long been a champion of an argument that (in summary) goes like this .....

Let us start by assuming there is no God and this natural world is all there is. Then our brains have evolved through natural selection alone. Natural selection works by certain behaviour increasing the probability of survival, which means more of the genes which lead to that behaviour are passed on to the next generation.

Thus, on the assumption we started with, the brain has evolved to choose behaviour that increases our chances of survival, but there is no reason to believe that it has also evolved ways of thinking about more abstract matters that are reliable. Thus our reasoning may be true in some circumstances and false in others, and we cannot trust it.

But it is our reasoning that has suggested the conclusion that no God exists, so the initial assumption is undermined. Plantinga concludes that it is thus irrational to assume a naturalistic belief in the first place.

Of course the argument is criticised by some other philosophers and dismissed by some scientists, but it seems to me to have force. Read a recent discussion of the argument by Plantinga, a discussion of some of the objections, and a discussion of some of the implications.

dark energy

2008-08-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

The words sound ominous - dark energy. Scientists are slowly coming to understand this mysterious feature of the universe.

The matter we can see, composed of protons and neutrons ('baryonic matter'), makes up only about 10-20% of all matter in the universe. The remainder is so-called "dark matter", because it neither emits nor reflects light and so cannot be seen. No-one yet knows for sure what it is (they think it may be small unreactive particles), but scientists know it exists because its gravitational impact can be measured. So there is much more to the universe than we can see, and in fact there is much more than matter - "dark energy" makes up perhaps 70%.

But dark energy is even harder to detect. Quantum physics concerns the interactions of very small particles, which behave quite differently to the objects we can see, and quite strangely to our way of thinking. One aspect of quantum physics is that where there is a quantum field, particles can appear and disappear.

Quantum fluctuations in apparently empty space cause particles to appear and disappear rapidly. (I use the words "apparently empty" to describe space because particle physicists, who study quantum effects, say that where there is a quantum field, it is far from empty.) This causes empty space to have energy (known as vacuum energy or "dark energy") and to exert a gravitational force. The effect of dark energy can also be measured by its gravitational impact.

Dark energy acts in the opposite way to gravity - it tends to push things apart rather than pull them together, and is responsible for the expansion of the universe. In fact the amount of dark energy is within a very small range that allowed the universe to avoid either blowing apart by expanding too fast, or collapsing in on itself. Dark energy consists of large amounts of both positive and negative energy, and the two cancel out to 119 decimal places, leaving a very small number in the 120th place, allowing the universe to expand relatively slowly. Cosmologist Leonard Susskind comments: "To make the first 119 decimal places of the vacuum energy zero is most certainly no accident." This is one basis of the so-called "fine-tuning" argument that only a designer God could have been responsible for this, although Susskind, in common with many scientists, prefers the multiverse hypothesis.

Stephan's Quintet group of galaxies (Photo: NASA)

Now, Astronomy magazine reports, scientists have been able to measure the effects of dark energy in areas of space where there is either a high density of galaxies (superclusters) or a dearth of galaxies (supervoids). The dark energy stretches these areas, and this changes slightly the properties of microwave radiation passing through them. Those changes have been measured, and they demonstrate that dark energy exists, although it is still unclear exactly what it is.

Cosmology continues to be an interesting and exciting pursuit to follow.

global warming - the dirty war

2008-08-03T06:42:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that most experts have long considered global warming to be a fact, there are still global warming sceptics. Now some of the reasons for this are is starting to become clear.

An interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald has outlined how:

1. Exxon Mobil has admitted that it has funded climate change denial groups in an effort to reduce pressure on the company about the impacts of its products (see also this report).

2. A number of claims that throw doubt on global warming have been shown to be untrue, for example:

Famous botanist, David Bellamy, said in 2005 that according to the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland, most glaciers in the world were growing. However checking revealed that the Service's data shows they are actually retreating.
A website claimed the American Physical Society (the premier body of US physicists) no longer accepted the truth of human-induced global warming. However the Society's website says the evidence in favour of global warming is "incontrovertible".

If all that was reported was true, there seem to be parallels with the dishonest and partly successful attempt by tobacco companies to stifle the truth about the links between smoking and lung cancer.

Like the Who sang: "Won't be fooled again!"

stopping people starving because of our greed

2008-07-24T05:55:00.000-07:00

The world fuel and food crises are bad news, but they're not insoluble. Here's a bunch of ideas on how we might do it, and what you and I can do.

The experts think the following are likely to be among the solutions:

Science and technology may find a way. Ideas include developing genetically modified or other higher yield crops, even growing "animal-free meat" from animal stem cells. Improved on-farm technology which optmises water application and improves other farming techniques may be possible.
Practical help for poor farmers, to assist them purchase better fertilisers, build water storages and improve techniques would not cost a lot and could improve yields significantly.
We should look carefully at funding for biofuels, and ensure that their growth is in addition to food production and not in place of it.
Improve how the world trade and economic systems work, by breaking trade barriers and curbing speculative investments which create uncertainty.
Increase food aid to poor countries, which can possibly come from excess food in some rich agricultural countries.
Reduce the amount of meat eaten and fuel used.

But is there anything you and I can do now? Well, yes, there is:

We can eat less meat and conserve fuel by driving less, more carefully and in more efficient cars. There is, and will be, strong pressure from meat producers to increase the amount of meat we eat, but this should be resisted - we'll probably be healthier and others will be less hungry.
We can donate to overseas aid organisations like Compassion, Freedom from Hunger, Global Giving, Oxfam, Project Concern, TEAR, World Vision, or one of the many organisations on OneWorld.net.
Support Make Poverty History and Jubilee Debt Campaign, and FairTrade products which guarantee growers receive a fair wage for the products.
We can be willing to allow our material standard of living to drop a little to support these initiatives.
We can support, and lobby, our governments to work together worldwide to bring about the solutions.

Read more about worldwide solutions - LiveScience, USNews, Wikipedia on "Food vs Fuel" and Time.

the trend to the trivial

2008-07-22T06:40:00.000-07:00

The theory (proposed by Maslow and believed by most psychologists) is that humans have a "hierarchy of needs". When we satisfy our basic material needs, we will then pursue "higher level" intellectual and spiritual ends.

But, says clinical psychologist John Schumaker in a recent article, it doesn't appear to be working out that way in western society. Instead "Pulp culture is a feast of tinsel and veneer. Operating on the principle that triviality is more profitable than substance, and dedicating itself to unceasing material overkill, consumer culture has become a fine-tuned instrument for keeping people incomplete, shallow and dehumanised. ..... Today, the demand for triviality has never been higher and our tolerance for seriousness has never been lower."

He goes on to ask: "Can a highly trivialised culture, marooned between fact and fiction, dizzy with distraction and denial, elevate its values and priorities to respond effectively to the multiple planetary emergencies looming? Empty talk and token gestures aside, it doesn't appear to be happening."

He doesn't offer a lot of solutions or hope, but does suggest that the growing global problems may perhaps be our last and best chance to become more serious.

Many years ago, CS Lewis wrote: "If we are content to go back and become humble plain men obeying a tradition, well. If we are ready to climb and struggle on till we become sages ourselves, better still. But the man who will neither obey wisdom in others nor adventure for her/himself is fatal. A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live: a society where all were seers could live even more fully. But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go; to stay here is death."

people starve because of our greed

2008-07-19T06:31:00.000-07:00

Photo: Morguefile

I don't really know any way to soften this. People are starving because of the greed of western countries. Consider these facts:

Over the last few decades, the developed world, through agencies like the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, loaned money to poorer countries for development, but with strict conditions. This "aid" tended to lead to farmers changing from subsistence crops to cash crops. It was said to more efficient, but some say it led to the farmers being dependent, and at the mercy of, big multinational corporations, and less protected by their Governments.
Sometimes the cash crops led to increased prosperity, but sometimes the vagaries of world markets led to profits being much less than envisaged. For instance, two decades ago, many farmers moved into high value coffee production only to see an oversupply and consequent drop in value.
Cash farming is based on the capitalist aim of maximising profit, so now that the world's supply of petrol is struggling to meet demand, production of biofuel is reducing the production of food. This is pushing up the price of food, sometimes beyond the ability of the poor to pay. 73 million people depend on food handouts from the UN to survive.
Ironically, capitalist farming and food distribution depend heavily on fuel for farm machinery and transport (cash farming tends to result in food being brought in from other areas). It has been estimated that it takes about 8 litres of petrol to produce a kilo of grain-fed meat - thus feeding a family of four in the US on meat requires about half the amount of petrol as that used by the family car.
Further, it takes a large amount of grain to produce a small amount of grain-fed meat (I have seen figures from 8 to 16 times). And it requires about 200 litres of water to produce a megajoule of most fruit and vegetables, but 2,500 litres of water to produce a megajoule of beef (CSIRO). Modern western meat production is highly inefficient at a time of impending food and water shortage.
A billion people in the world live in poverty while another billion are overweight. The richest 10% consume about 10 times the food that the poorest 10% consume. (SMH).
In summary, the western world's greed for petrol, rich foods and a high standard of living is not just an unfair distribution of wealth, but is a direct cause of food shortages and high food prices which leave poor people hungry.

So what of the future?

The world's population growth is slowing, but so is the world's food production. The pressure on the world's food supply will not come so much from the increasing population, because the highest population growth is generally in the poorer, low consuming countries (SMH). Rather, the pressure will come from the western countries maintaining their high consumption lifestyles as resources get tighter, and from developing countries raising the standard of living and becoming as greedy as the west.

But there are things we can do. I'll look at them in another blog.

this made me laugh

2008-07-18T05:13:00.000-07:00

This last week Sydney has been host to Catholic Youth Day. The Pope is in town and thousands of pilgrims have come from around the world to participate. The culmination will be a massive mass at Randwick Racecourse on Sunday, and many pilgrims plan to camp out over Saturday night to hold a vigil. But it is the middle of winter, and the nights are quite cold, and camping shops have reported pilgrims buying up camping gear for their sleepover.

And so the Sydney Morning Herald headline was (wait for it!):

'Tis the winter of their discount tent

reason and belief (2) - unbelievers

2008-07-17T06:10:00.000-07:00

We've looked at how believers balance faith and reason. Are unbelievers more logical?

You'd expect they would be, because modern unbelief is generally based on science and evidence, developed via peer-reviewed papers published in reputable scientific journals. But the rise of more militant atheism in recent years seems to have changed this a little. Here are a few examples .....

the jesus myth

Unbelievers have, of course, long disbelieved that Jesus was the Son of God as Christians claim, or that he performed miracles or was resurrected. But in recent years, theories that Jesus never even existed, long rejected by historians, have been revived by some atheists. Many ingenious arguments are used, but the proponents are generally not recognised historians and the arguments are generally not made in reputable peer-reviewed journals.

So it remains true, as far as I can ascertain, that almost all peer-reviewd historians reject the idea that the stories of Jesus are a myth (see are all the stories about jesus true?), although they disagree somewhat on exactly how much of what we know about him can be historically verified. But most modern atheists, so adamant that the best science should be followed, for example, in understanding evolution, ignore the best historical analysis available. (For a long and depressing example of this, see this discussion about the Roman historian Tacitus.) Some even argue that the whole academic history establishment has somehow been "influenced" by the church to come to erroneous conclusions.

the history of christendom

The history of Christendom is littered with both good and bad. The crusades and the inquisition, religious intolerance and witch hunts, fighting over the papacy and support for warfare and genocide have all blighted the history of the church. Alongside this have been the establishment of education and hospitals, caring for women and children in the days of the Roman empire and support for the establishment of modern science, the anti-slavery movement and social welfare.

Any balanced account of Christendom must include assessment of these contrary impacts on people, and compare these to the similar impacts of other belief systems. However modern atheism often takes a one-sided view, ignoring the judgment of the best historians on the extent of both the good and the bad, and seeking at every turn to present everything in the worst possible light. Hitler's terrible record is blamed on Christianity contrary to historians and despite Hitler's own statements to the contrary. The obvious evils of the Inquisition are exaggerated and over-stated compared to what historians have determined. Unhistorical claims are made about the alleged conflict between science and religion in the past. (For another long and depressing discussion where a militant atheist argues an anti-church line from ignorance, against another atheist who knows his history, see here.)

do miracles happen?

Believers make many claims that miracles have occurred, and non-believers claim none of them are true. No-one would defend all miracle claims, but some appear to be supported by plausible evidence (e.g. when a Catholic Church medical commission investigated a large number of cases of apparent miraculous cures at Lourdes, there was sufficient evidence in only 63 cases for the commission to claim the miracles were verified).

When discussing evidence, some atheists argue that miracles are scientifically impossible, and therefore don't require investigation, a somewhat circular argument. When I presented evidence for this apparent miracle on a forum not long ago, most of the responses from atheists proposed hypotheses clearly contradicted by the evidence. When I invited them to join me in investigating further, no-one was willing. Thus many non-believers base their response more on their pre-conceived view than on evidence - which is not very different to many believers, just opposite in their conclusion.

conclusion

It would not be fair to suggest that all unbelievers think the same, any more than all believers do. There are many fair-minded non-believers who are willing to accept the evidence of history. But it seems that many of the "new atheists" are more dogmatic, somewhat in denial of their professed creed of evidence-based reason.

I would say, in my experience, that logic and illogic can be found on both sides of the belief fence, but that the illogic among non-believers seems to be increasing, and can be found in quite educated people, whereas among believers, there seems to be a trend in the other direction, among educated believers at least. But doubtless there are places where this assessment would be entirely wrong!

reason and belief (1) - believers

2008-07-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

The relationship between faith on the one hand, and science and reason on the other, is not always easy. Here I'll look at how believers deal with the issues; in part 2 I'll examine how unbelievers go.

Religion is often seen as the enemy of science, with cases being quoted like Galileo's conclusions on astronomy being muzzled by the Catholic Church. But it also seems to be true that the Jewish, Christian and Muslim belief in a creator God and an orderly universe contributed greatly to the rise of the modern scientific method (see, for example, God's Philosophers and this discussion). Certainly it is true that, while scientific discoveries were made in many cultures, the scientific method flourished initially in Christian Europe, generally under Christian patronage.

evolutionary science

But Darwin changed all that, and Christians have historically questioned, and even opposed, the theory of evolution. The opposition has sometimes been illogical and nasty, at other times thoughtful and apparently reasonable - e.g. the more thoughtful side of Creationism, and the Intelligent Design movement. But it nevertheless seems to be based on wrong assumptions and poor science.

Much of the opposition to evolution comes from the view that if the Bible's book of Genesis is interpreted literally, it is hard to reconcile it with the findings of modern evolutionary science. But this view of Genesis is not certain. As early as the fourth century, St Augustine, recognised as one of the great thinkers in church history, warned against a literal interpretation of Genesis; CS Lewis, one of the most influential and respected Christians of the 20th century, and a very learned man on historical literature, also felt no problems in interpeting Genesis in a non-literal way.

Scientifically, it seems that the majority of Christian scientists working in related disciplines accept the broad truth of evolution - that the earth is old and that life developed from simple to complex - even if they may quibble over some details (e.g. the creation of life), and certainly believe it has been a process set up and overseen by God. For example, the majority of members of the American Scientific Affiliation (an organisation of Christian scientists) believe science points to an evolutionary process.

So it seems many Christians still see faith and science to be opposed, but there is a growing number who see faith and reason/science has being complementary to their belief. (For my conclusions, see evolution and design.)

global warming

There has been a strong scientific consensus on the reality of human-induced global warming for some time (see maybe, just maybe, we're starting to get this right and climate change continues to bite in australia). Nevertheless, many conservative people and business interests, especially in the USA, have argued the the evidence is still uncertain. Some undoubtedly fear a reduction in business profits, but for others, Christian suspicion of science, generated by evolution, seems to have spilled over into discussion of global warming.

Here it seems to be less a matter of faith vs science, and more a mistrust of science (this commentary from 2005 is typical), and a preference to believe respected Christian spokespeople, as this report shows. This indicates a poor view of science and reason by some Christians, although it seems that this unfortunate situation is changing.

reasons to believe

Some Christians mistrust human logic and believe "on faith", but most would argue there are good reasons to believe (see, for example, ibelieve). Certainly "proofs" of the existence of God, from science, human experience and history, have a long history and books about them remain popular (e.g. Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator and The Case for Christ). Whether one agrees with the case being made or not, the popularity of these and other books illustrates that reason, science and history remain important factors in the faith of many Christians.

conclusion

Christians (and other theistic believers) have an ambivalent attitude to science and reason. Some are very critical, some are very committed to logic and evidence, and an increasing number seem to be seeing with one eye of reason and one eye of faith. If one believes that science and reason are good methods to arrive at truth (albeit not necessarily the only methods, or even the best methods in some cases), then believers still have some way to go, but appear to be moving in the "right" direction.

Next: unbelievers, reason and belief.

climate change continues to bite in australia

2008-07-15T06:08:00.000-07:00

The latest information continues to confirm the predictions of climate change models.

2005 was the hottest year on record across Australia, and the five year period 2003-2007 was also the hottest on record (Annual Australian Climate Statement 2007). The worst affected areas are in the southeast where both population and agriculture are greatest.

Graph by Aust Bureau of Meteorology

Much of eastern Australia remains in drought. Recent rainfalls have been slightly above average, but over the last 5 years rainfall has been low. But the biggest problem, as predicted by climate change models, is that the patterns of rain are changing.

Some relatively unpopulated parts of northwestern Australia are receiving above average rain.
However the southeast, including the Murray Darling River basin which produces 40% of Australia's agricultural production and 70% of its irrigated agriculture, has experienced its lowest rainfall on record overall (ABARE Outlook 2008).
Streamflows in the Murray Darling remain very low, with the current drought the worst on record. 2006 had the lowest inflows on record, and while 2007/08 was "only" the sixth lowest, June 2008 was the lowest monthly flow on record (ABC News, Adelaide Now, MDBC).
The river supplied the lowest volume of water ever to irrigated agriculture in the 2007/08 year (ABARE Outlook 2008).

It seems that climate change scepticism is increasing along with the temperatures, mostly based, as far as I can see, on isolated statistics, for example, that the hottest year on record was a decade ago in 1998, and it has been cooler since. The above facts seem to present difficulties to this scepticism, at least for us here in Australia. The worldwide data has been examined by Australia's premier scientific body, the CSIRO, which has concluded:

"1998 was the warmest year on record in the last 150 years. Although the eight years since then have not been warmer than 1998, they do include the globe’s second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh warmest years on record. The planet is not cooling."

Graph by CSIRO.

But in the end, we should base our conclusions on the full worldwide data set and the best expert opinion, which is summed up in the climate models and their predictions. I outlined this evidence in maybe, just maybe, we're starting to get this right.

evidence against jesus, or for him?

2008-07-09T04:37:00.000-07:00

Evidence that Jesus did, or did not, exist, is hot news and much debated. (See a summary of the views of scholars at are the stories about jesus true?.) Now a new discovery, or at least recognition of the possible importance of an old discovery, has opened up debate again.

A metre high stone tablet with ink writing (not engraving) was found near the Dead Sea a decade ago, but was only examined by scholars a few years ago. It has been dated to the century before Jesus. Critical portions of the text are now indecipherable, or at least problematic, but scholars and others are beginning to draw conclusions anyway.

The section that is exciting some sceptical scholars has been interpreted to say: "In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.", with a reference in the next line to a "a prince of princes". The argument is that this is a reference to a Messiah who rises from the dead, with the follow-up claim that the early Christians stole their central story.

The response from other scholars has been to be more cautious (for example). The text isn't as clear as has been claimed (you can see a translation of the text at reply #3 here), and the tablet can be used to support the truth of the Jesus story as well as to dispute it. Here are three ways of looking at it:

As noted above, the sceptics argue that the stories of Jesus rising from the dead are myths, taken from a similar source as the story of the tablet.
Alternatively, scholars have long argued that much of Jesus' teachings and actions, which may seem original to us, were actually based on current Jewish culture and understanding, but modified or presented in new ways. This find would then simply confirm that the resurrection of a murdered Messiah was not foreign to Jewish thought.
One could perhaps argue that this was a genuine prophecy, though I doubt any scholar would support that idea!

The slightly disturbing thing is that in the end, everyone will pretty much feel confirmed in their previously held views. There is such an enormous gap between those who believe Jesus never existed and those who believe in him that evidence cannot close the gap. In the middle, as I mentioned in my previous post the more sober scholars believe Jesus existed, but cannot demonstrate that all the stories are true. That remains a matter of faith - or of disbelief.

perfumes, organic chemicals and other nasties

2008-07-07T00:51:00.000-07:00

When they decided to replace the carpet in our office a few years ago, we had no idea how much of an effect it would have. I am not normally affected by chemicals, but the solvents in the adhesives (I think) gave me headaches and a heavy head for days, and stank to high heaven for weeks and weeks. One of my colleagues was pregnant, and we all wondered what the chemicals might be doing to the baby, but he was OK.

We who live in so-called advanced western societies seem to be increasingly affected by chemicals - not just the well known asthma or allergies to pollens, but all sorts of odd and debilitating sensitivities to chemicals like volatile organic compounds, solvents, adhesives, petrol, perfumes and deodorisers, and food additives. Some say as many as 15% of the population have adverse health impacts from these chemicals.

Those affected can have their lives seriously curtailed, and sometimes made a real misery. Here are some effects I have observed in others:

re-carpeting an office (not the one mentioned above) left a worker so sensitised that several years later they were still unable to visit that office for very long;
application of a sealant to a concrete driveway left a neighbour with a bedroom window close to the drive unable to sleep in the bedroom for four months;
chemicals used in modern car interiors make it impossible for some people to travel in them without being adversely affected;
use of chemical air fresheners in motels and hotels make them hazardous for some visitors;
some washing powders and fabric softeners are perfumed, causing significant irritation and inability to sleep, for some;
perfumes and after-shaves can cause some people to react, and have to move out of the room.

Medical science so far understands little about these sensitivities, and "cures" are a long way off. Those of us who are not affected need to become more aware of these problems and more sensitive to the distress of others. And it is easy to help:

Do you really have to wear after-shave and perfume? Could you at least wear less, and choose a less perfumed brand?
It is easy to find "green" and non-allergenic washing powders.
If smokers don't smoke in confined spaces such as motel rooms, managers have less need to use chemical air fresheners.
It would be wonderful if the manufacturing and building industries could develop and use less intrusive and unhealthy solvents, adhesives and chemicals generally.

Read more about Fragrances and Chemical Sensitivities, Allergies to Perfumes (people's stories) and Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. Anyone have their own story to tell?

San Antonio river walk

2008-07-06T03:16:00.000-07:00

Rivers in urban areas take a hammering - they are straightened and concreted, trees are removed from their banks, pollutants from roads muddy their waters. It is very hard to retain a natural environment.

But urban rivers can at least be treated as assets for the benefit of residents and visitors. I doubt many cities have done this as well as San Antonio in Texas.

Descend a few steps from the searing heat of the streets and you enter a magical world of water, trees, and cool pathways. Cafes and bars line the banks, tourist barges glide along the water and under bridges, pathways and steps beckon you on.

we may be fat, but we still live a long time!

2008-06-29T03:38:00.000-07:00

Just over a week ago I reported that Australians are now the fattest nation, with the percentage of overweight and obese people now exceeding the percentages in the US.

But then comes another report that shows that Aussies now have the second longest life expectancy worldwide, after Japan.

Apparently our mortality rates from cancer, heart disease, stroke and injury have been dropping, more than compensating (in statistical terms) for the unhealthy effects of obesity.

The only downside to the report is that the life expectancy of indigenous Australians is a huge 17 years less.

it's time for some mondegreens!

2008-06-27T02:01:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know, mondegreens are words of songs that have been heard wrongly, but the result is better or funnier than the original. The term came from an old Scottish ballad which apparently tells how:

"They have slain the Earl O'Murray, And Lady Mondegreen." The real words are: "They have slain the Earl O'Murray, And laid him on the green."

Here are a few classic mondegreens from popular songs:

"Since she put me down there's been owls pukin' in my bed" (the Beach Boys "Help Me Rhonda") Actual lyric: "Since she put me down I've been out doing in my head."

"The girl with colitis goes by." (The Beatles "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds") Actual lyric: "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes."

"There's a bathroom on the right." (Creedence Clearwater Revival "Bad Moon Rising") Actual lyric: "There's a bad moon on the rise."

"Everybody in a wholesale frock, dance to the jailhouse rock" (Elvis "Jailhouse Rock") Actual lyric: "Everybody in the whole cell block, dance to the jailhouse rock

"The ants are my friends, they're blowing in the wind" (Bob Dylan "Blowing in the wind") Actual lyric: "The answer my friend is blowing in the wind"

"Every time you go away you take a piece of meat with you" (Paul Young "Every time you go away") Actual lyric: "Every time you go away you take a piece of me with you"

Check out more mondegreens here, here and here, and get the background at Wikipedia.

we didn't really want to win this one

2008-06-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

Australians are very competitive when it comes to sport, and most other things. But here's one world championship we didn't want.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Australia now has an estimated 26% of its adult population classed as obese, the highest rate in the world, and 1% more than the USA.

Oh the shame of it!

More seriously, the overweight epidemic is expected to cost money in increased hospital admissions for treatment for strokes and heart attacks and surgery for overloaded knees, with consequent increases in the mortality rates.

car dependence

2008-06-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this from Houston, Texas. I've only been here for two days so far, but first impressions are that the land is flat, the weather is hot - and the city is highly dependent on the car. There is very little public transport outside the city centre, the suburbs are well spread out, and getting anywhere from where we are staying in the suburbs requires a car. You see few pedestrians in the suburbs.

I don't travel overseas all that much, but last year I spent a week in the east end of London, where the population density is high, there were crowds of pedestrians, public transport has its problems but can get you anywhere pretty quickly, and there is a tax to deter cars from entering the inner city.

So I thought I'd check out how London and Houston compare to Sydney in term of car usage and population density. The classic graph for this is shown by Wikipedia:

I was pleased to see that all three cities appeared on the graph, and my observations confirmed. Houston has the lowest population density of the cities shown and by far the highest petrol consumption. It is an oil city, but you can't help feeling it will suffer the most when the oil prices rise even higher, and eventually the oil runs out. Reduced private transport will be inconvenient in London, but will make life very difficult in Sydney and almost impossible in Houston.

We need to be planning cities differently, I reckon.

out of hatred & violence - a true story

2008-06-09T05:30:00.000-07:00

Stephen Lungu was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare in Zimbabwe) in the last days of the white minority rule. His teenage mother left her arranged marriage to a much older man and abandoned Stephen, aged three, and his younger brother and sister to the reluctant care of an aunt.

For the next few years, Stephen experienced abuse and hard times in orphanages and with relatives. He began staying out at nights and drifted into life on the streets, sleeping under bridges, scavenging food from the rubbish bins of well-off whites, and stealing when he could.

Once, when Stephen was in his early teens, he met his mother again, and tried to kill her, but missed with his knife. In despair, he fled and tried to hang himself.

Stephen joined other friends to form an urban gang, the Black Shadows. They combined criminal activity, mostly robbery at knifepoint, with violence and thuggery.

By now it was the late 1950s, and the movement to achieve black majority government in Rhodesia was attractive to young blacks. Members of the Black Shadows, including Stephen, were recruited into the liberation struggle, indoctrinated and trained.

Soon he was joining in a welter of revolutionary activities - petrol bomb attacks in parks, beer gardens, churches, political meetings and even on police cars. Then, aged just 16, Stephen joined a group of a dozen heading for the local shopping centre to petrol bomb a bank. But on their way they came across a christian mission in a large circus tent.

Stephen's hatred of the white man's religion welled up and he hastily arranged a plan to spread out around the outside of the tent, and mount a coordinated petrol bomb attack.

But before they carried out the plan, the group went inside to check it all out. They were about to leave when a pretty young black girl began to speak. Intrigued, Stephen listened as the girl, from Soweto in South Africa, told of her life and her faith in Jesus. Deep inside he felt a yearning for something better than the dirty life he was living.

Then the preacher got up and talked of violence and death, sin and forgiveness, despair and hope. Stephen wanted to talk to him, and moved to the front of the tent. Then violence erupted as petrol bombs were thrown and people fled. In the midst of the violence, Stephen and the preacher talked.

Stephen could not believe his life had any hope, even with Jesus. But the preacher listened to Stephen's story with compassion, then told him his own story, of abandonment at birth, a similar sense of despair, and the hope and purpose he now knew.

This was exactly what Stephen needed, and he left the tent that night, creeping through the darkness outside where the chaos was being dispelled by the riot squad, with a new faith in Jesus and a sense of hope and peace he had never known before.

Stephen learnt to read, married and had children and became a christian evangelist. Now in his sixties, he is the head of Africa Enterprise, a large mission, reconciliation and social welfare organisation that operates throughout the continent.

Read Stephen Lungu's story in a little more detail, or read about Africa Enterprise.

exercise makes you happier, smarter, and .......

2008-06-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

Photo: Morguefile

Most of us want to be happy. Most of us want to be smart. But probably most of us don't want to exercise all that much, or else we just don't have time. I have some good news and some bad news .....

the good news .....

A new book, "SPARK: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain" by John Ratey MD, outlines a whole range of benefits of exercise:

It makes you happy - it affects the brain in a similar way to anti-depressants.
It reduces stress and ameliorates the effects of stress by purging brain toxins and building up antioxidants.
It improves our brain, increasing intelligence and improving memory.
It reduces the likelihood of responding to threatening situations aggressively.
It can help fight addictions - e.g. it reduces the desire to smoke.
And of course, exercise is good for health and fitness.

and the "bad" news ....

These beneficial outcomes require at least a 30 minute walk 5 times a week. Better is to make that an energetic walk, or to include some short intervals of sprinting. But even a little is better than none.

Read the article by Simon Usborne which was reprinted in the Sydney Morning Herald recently, or read further information on what makes people happy and do we REALLY know how to be happy.

evidence to make you think?

2008-06-07T00:37:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I posted a couple of times (here and here) on an apparent healing miracle after a cardiologist prayed for an apparently dead man. I researched the matter as thoroughly as I could, and found responses to the story fell into three distinct types:

The press generally just reported the story without comment, treating it as if it was true, but just another news story.
Believers accepted it immediately as genuine and a confirmation of their faith, and so rejoiced.
Non-believers were sceptical, if not scornful. Miracles just don't happen, and here's another example of the gullible being duped.

So I posted the story on an atheist website, to test the response. Not surprisingly, they were sceptical, if not scornful. Many offered explanations as to how a natural medical event could be so misinterpreted. Many of their suggestions were contrary to the evidence, but when I pointed this out, people just shifted ground. And when I asked if anyone wanted to work with me to try to verify or refute the story, no-one was interested.

So I wondered, atheists say their belief is evidence-based, but how much do they really base their views on evidence? How much do christians? Which comes first, the belief or the evidence? If you discount evidence before you look at it, is that "evidence-based"?

What would it take to cause you to reconsider your beliefs? Or me?

Then I found another story, about two New Zealanders, Grant Stubbs and Owen Wilson, flying in a microlight plane which ran out of fuel and the engine stopped with no clear landing place in sight. They knew that most people who crash in a microlight plane die, so while one tried to coax the plane over a ridge in hope of finding a spot to land, the other prayed. Over the hill they found a grass landing strip they didn't know existed.

Sceptics will say that the strip was there all along, they were just lucky, and prayer had nothing to do with it. And maybe they are right. I certainly wouldn't claim this as a miracle, more as a funny story. But don't tell that to Grant and Owen, because when they came to rest on the airstrip, right in front of their eyes was a sign which said "Jesus is Lord".

If it happened to you, would that be enough to make you think? Or just laugh? Or both?

rising petrol prices - the hype and the facts

2008-05-28T03:56:00.000-07:00

Photo: Morguefile

Australia is currently experiencing lively debate, and quite a lot of hype, about rising petrol costs. Petrol has approximately doubled in price in the past decade, with steep rises recently. Politicians are rushing to find ways to alleviate pressures on "working families", with the Opposition proposing to reduce fuel excise by 5c a litre.

How bad is the situation really?

the costs of running a car

NRMA (National Roads & Motorists Association) information and data (for 2007) indicate that:

the annual cost of running a car, including depreciation, fuel, consumables and maintenance can vary from about $6,000 (for a light car) to over $20,000 (for a large 4WD), and is about $14,000 for the average "family car";
there is significant variation between different vehicles in the same class - for most classes, the annual cost of the most expensive car is about double that of the most efficient;
these costs have increased about 40% in 5 years;
these costs are made up of depreciation over 5 years (49%), petrol (17%) and other costs (34%).

putting it in perspective

Quick calculations show that:

if petrol prices double from 2007 levels, the annual cost of running a car will increase about 13% or $1,800 for the average family car;
a 5c per litre reduction in fuel excise will save on average about $80 annually (0.6%);
much greater savings could be gained by delaying the purchase of a new car, buying a smaller car, or choosing a more efficient car overall (not just fuel efficiency) - for example, buying a medium sized car instead of a large sedan or a 4WD could save about $1,500 annually, purchasing a small car instead of a medium car could save about $3,000 annually, and purchasing a more efficient car in any class could save similar amounts;
as petrol prices rise, a hybrid car may pay for its increased initial cost in about 6 years.

Thus we can conclude that:

Most motorists can significantly reduce their car running costs, even with rising petrol prices, next time they purchase a car, if they choose carefully.
The fuel excise reduction is little more than political tokenism, especially since the Government is already making tax cuts that will return greater amounts to families.

While rising petrol prices are causing problems for some poorer families, the real problems are finding alternatives for petrol, and how much we'll have to change the way we live and build our cities - but that's another story!

ethics - when freedom & responsibility clash

2008-05-26T00:52:00.000-07:00

These past few days in Australia we've seen an interesting and difficult ethical issue unfold, as two different ethical values come into conflict.

artistic freedom

Bill Henson is an eminent Australian photographer. I first came across his photos of urban areas at night - everyday and not particularly "beautiful" subjects, but the use of light and dark made them extremely interesting and evocative. But when I went to an exhibition of his work a year or two ago, I found that the majority of his work were photographs of people - people in crowds, ordinary people, and studies of children and adolescents. The way the photos were lit, the repetition of the same subject in many different views, and their age, made many of the photographs slightly disturbing or edgy, and his work has sometimes been controversial.

But this week a new exhibition of Henson's work opened in Sydney, and when it was found to include photographs of nude adolescents, some of them "explicit" (as the euphemism goes), a complaint was made, police took possession of the offending photos, and were considering charges for indecency relating to under age children (although legal advice suggests prosecution would be unsuccessful).

Many people applauded the police action, but others were upset at the censorship, saying that the photographs were not pornographic, and artistic freedom allows artists to push the boundaries.

child protection

On the other hand, Australia, like many other countries, has significantly tightened child protection laws in the past decade or so. Although not always successful, some attempts have been made to limit child access to the internet, penalise creators and viewers of child pornography, and reduce risks to children in other situations by requiring those who work with children to undergo police checks, giving clear and stringent guidelines to how teachers, doctors and others deal with children in their care, and placing age limits on some activities.

All of this can be seen as inconvenient, an insult and a curtailment of civil liberties, but most people believe it is worthwhile to reduce the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.

the two values collide

In this case, child protection laws have collided with the artistic freedom.

Defenders of Henson's work say that, compared to the sexualisation of children and teenagers through mass media, especially music videos and fashion, these photographs are benign. But it seems to me there are two separate issues here.

What is the effect of these photos on viewers? I don't think many people think Henson's work is pornographic in this sense, and few would want to ban them on these grounds.
Have children been exploited? This seems to be the key question. Some art forms are created by the imagination of the artist (e.g. painting, literature), but photography and film also require a subject. Even if we would allow a similar photograph of a 20 year old, should we allow a 13 year old to model, has he or she the maturity to make the choice? Thus economist Clive Hamilton, formerly executive director of the Australia Institute think tank, said: "I think the way childhood has been sexualised so heavily, particularly over the last 10 or 15 years, has inevitably changed the way we see children in their naked form. I've argued that previously when perhaps it was a more innocent age, then artistic representations of children, as is the case with the Bill Henson exhibition, wouldn't have provided difficulty. But in an age where children have been so heavily sexualised by commercial organisations and by the wider culture and where there's so much more alarm about paedophilia then I think the presentation of a 12-year-old girl, for instance, naked to the public, really has quite a different impact and raises new concerns. And I argue that she, the girl, the model, could not possibly understand the implications of being presented naked to the world, even though the presentation is very aestheticised and that therefore she could not give informed consent."

I think it is a great pity that Henson's work has been stigmatised in this way, and if there is a way to amend the law to allow adequate child protection without catching his photographs in the net, then perhaps it should be done. But as it stands, it may be that artists and patrons need to willingly show restraint (e.g. not putting the photos on the internet) for the sake of continued protection of children. Sometimes freedom has to be curtailed for the sake of another principle. It's unclear whether this is one such time, but maybe it is.

same as it ever was, same as it ever was

2008-05-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

When Indonesia declared its independence from Holland in 1949, the Dutch insisted that West Papua not become part of Indonesia as the Papuans were Melanesian and predominantly Christian, while the Indonesians were Malay and predominantly Muslim. So the Dutch remained in the territory, preparing the people for independence.

In 1961 a West Papuan Council was elected, a flag was designed and a national anthem composed. Indonesia invaded and the United Nations intervened to prevent war. But these were also Cold War days. The Soviets had brokered an arms deal with Indonesia and so America, trumped the Soviets by brokering a comparable arms deal and secretly offering to help Indonesia secure control of West Papua.

In New York in August 1962, the US, on behalf of Indonesia, brokered an agreement with the Netherlands by which the territory's administration would be transferred to a UN temporary authority until 1 May 1963. Control of West Papua would then be handed over to Indonesia on the understanding that a plebiscite would be held before the end of 1969 allowing the Papuans to vote for or against separation from Indonesia. Thus the Indonesians had six years to win the hearts and minds of the Papuans.

On 1 May 1963, upon assuming administrative control of West Papua, Indonesia disbanded the elected West Papuan Council, burned West Papuan flags and banned the West Papuan national anthem. An era of colonisation, violent repression, exploitation, murder, racism and human rights abuses at the hands of the corrupt Indonesian military had begun. The plebiscite, an "Act of Free Choice", was totally rigged and West Papua (Irian Jaya) was formally annexed by Indonesia on 17 September 1969.

The intensity of repression has escalated dramatically since Indonesia lost control of East Timor in 1999. In addition, the Islamic revival of the past two decades has added a religious dimension to the Papuans' plight, with Islamists pursuing its full Islamisation. The Laskar Jihad has been set up in West Papua since 2000 and when the jihad in the Moluccas ended, the out-of-work jihadists flooded into West Papua. The Papuans will soon be a minority in their own land.

It is all so clearly wrong, a betrayal by the west as we move less powerful people around like pieces on a chessboard, and leave defenseless people at the mercy of rapacious invaders. Yet how can we complain about Indonesia's genocidal behaviour? After all, we did much the same to the indigenous people in both Australia and the US - and millennia before, it happened in the UK as well, several times.

"And you may ask yourself - well...how did I get here?
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was..."
Talking Heads

Yet somehow, we must do something. Read more ...

Based on info compiled by APN.

is faith the opposite of reason?

2008-05-18T03:04:00.000-07:00

You'd certainly think so if you read what modern militant atheists are saying. Take these examples ....

"Faith: Insubstantial, irrational belief..... Belief not supported by evidence or reason, but assumption alone..... Irrational belief in something despite all evidence to the contrary." (Contributors to Urban Dictionary)
"'faith', which is the irrational acceptance of things in the absence of, or even counter to, credible evidence and reason" (post on Machines Like Us)
"Faith is a non-rational belief in some proposition. A non-rational belief is one that is contrary to the sum of the evidence for that belief." The Skeptic's Dictionary
"I think that faith is, in principle, in conflict with reason" Sam Harris on beliefnet.

But is this what believers mean by faith? It doesn't seem so ....

The Oxford Dictionary defines faith as: "complete trust or confidence; strong belief in a religion". There is nothing in that to exclude reason as a basis for faith. It is true that some dictionaries say "without proof" or even "without evidence", but clearly these are secondary parts of the definition.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy makes this dual nature of faith quite clear: "Religious faith is of two kinds: evidence-sensitive and evidence-insensitive. The former views faith as closely coordinated with demonstrable truths; the latter more strictly as an act of the will of the religious believer alone."
If it were true that faith was always opposed to reason, then it would appear impossible for believers to be scientists or philosophers. But eminent philosophers Alvin Plantinga and Anthony Flew, writer CS Lewis, and scientists John Polkinghorne and Francis Collins are all both reasonable and believers. Collins says: "Faith is reason plus revelation".
The view that faith is opposed to reason also ignores the fact that philosophers have long discussed logical arguments that attempt to establish, or at least support the idea, that God exists (e.g. the cosmological argument and, the design argument).

It seems to me that believers use faith in two ways:

When considering whether to believe, or to continue to believe in the face of challenges, believers will typically consider both reason and spiritual/emotional factors. Many believers will refer to the many established arguments, from Jesus and history, personal experience, human reason & morality and the universe, although often in a rudimentary form. Having decided what seems most reasonable, even though it is not provable, believers use faith to make the jump to a commitment. The balance between reason and faith will vary, but surely almost all use both. (For my personal summary, see ibelieve.)
But having resolved the question of what they believe is true, believers will then try to live a life of day-to-day faith (=trust) in God or in Jesus (or in some other spiritual leader), not dissimilar to how, once a human relationship such as marriage is established, the people trust each other.

So for most believers, certainly thoughtful believers, faith is used alongside reason, not instead of it. The two are complementary, not competitive.

And I can't see how it is much different for atheists, or for all of us in other parts of life. Very little in life is provable (even science has varying degrees of "provability", all short of mathematical proof), and yet we all have to make choices, which we make on the best information we have. Faced with similar evidence to believers, atheists make the choice not to commit to belief, or even to actively commit to disbelief. They too make some sort of jump from uncertainty to choice.

So why do militant atheists characterise the interaction between faith and reason in such a black and white way? Well there is no doubt it makes arguing easier. Their opponents can be dismissed and scorned as irrational and delusional, and their fellow disbelievers can feel superior. Whether this is a deliberate tactic or based on genuine belief is beyond my knowing.

But I do know this attitude is a discussion killer, which is a real pity. And for me at least, it makes it much less likely I could ever become an atheist, for by this tactic they show how little they understand of my thinking, and so their arguments so often miss the mark completely. I would think the tactic also successfully insulates them from theistic arguments.

In the end, it is all a victory for non-reason.

get your priorities right!

2008-05-13T00:50:00.000-07:00

Wearing of seatbelts is compulsory for all passengers in a car in Australia.

Recently, it was reported a man was arrested for driving with a 5 year old child not belted in. However he had put a 30-pack of beer next to the child in a belt.

are some things REALLY right and wrong?

2008-05-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Stephen Pinker is an experimental psychologist at Harvard who has researched and written on language and mind, and has written a number of newspaper articles on ethics, including The Moral Instinct, published in the New York Times earlier this year.

In this article he discusses:

Whether someone who achieves a lot for the disadvantaged in the world (e.g. Bill Gates) is more admirable than someone whose personal motivation is "good" (like Mother Theresa). This is a question of utilitarian ethics vs personal ethics.
Whether it is morally justified to sacrifice one innocent person to save a number of equally innocent people. Studies show that most people think it is in some circumstances, but not in others.
Addressing the dilemma of where our moral sense comes from (see my previous blog, selfish genes?), Pinker supports the idea that it is innate, a genetic result of evolution. He describes five ethical "themes" that are found in societies around the world: avoiding harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity.
He argues that variations in ethics around the world can be explained the different emphases given to these different aspects of morality - for example, some Middle Eastern cultures place greater weight on the community/family aspects, which western people can see as threatening the fairness aspects.
He discusses how altruistic behaviour can, in the long run, result from mutual benefit - societies may find that if individuals help each other, both gain.
Finally, Pinker addresses the question of whether ethical behaviour can be considered objectively right or wrong. He mentions moral realism (the view that ethical truths are a feature of the universe just as mathematical truths are), but doesn't offer any conclusion.

I have no problems believing that the ethical behaviour sanctioned by different societies may have evolutionary origins, though I can't help feeling that many of the evolutionary explanations offered to explain different types of altruistic behaviour are mere surmise, based on the assumption that natural selection has produced the behaviours rather than any evidence.

But it seems to me that Pinker's analysis leaves the most important questions unanswered, for example:

Why should I follow an ethical injunction if it doesn't suit me?
Are some things (e.g. pedophilia, rape, murder, treachery, genocide) really wrong, or do we just feel that they are?
If a society evolves an ethic that we find repugnant - e.g. the anti-Semitism of the Nazis, terrorism, or treachery (as occurred in an Irian Jayan tribal group reported by Don Richardson in Peace Child) - does that make that ethic "right", for them at least?

It still seems to me that evolutionary psychology and sociology explain lots of things about ethics very well, except for many of the things we most deeply hold to.

no dark sarcasm in the classroom

2008-05-04T01:27:00.000-07:00

Photo: Morguefile

Dr Martin Seligman is one of the gurus of positive psychology, the study of what makes people happy, and what doesn't. Currently he's in Australia conducting research, and an article of his in the Sydney Morning Herald is illuminating.

He starts with the following points:

When surveyed, people want their children to be happy, or, as Seligman sums it up, have wellbeing. But when asked what they want their children to learn at school, their answers can be summed up as "accomplishment" - to learn discipline, to achieve. he comments that the two lists are totally different.
He then points out, what is well known, that accomplishment doesn't lead to wellbeing. After all "almost everything is better now than it was 50 years ago: there is about three times more buying power, houses are much bigger, there are many more cars, and clothes are more attractive. .... there is more education, more music, more women's rights, less racism, less pollution, fewer tyrants, more entertainment, more books, and fewer soldiers dying on the battlefield." Despite this, Australians are no happier than they used to be, and there is greater incidence of depression and suicide.
So something is wrong with our thinking, and our education.

Seligman offers evidence that happiness can be taught and learned, and that happier people perform better in life. And he is teaching it, in a program aimed at both teachers and pupils at the prestigious Geelong Grammar school. He thinks all schools should teach and apply the principles.

Studies show that we can be happier if we aim for three things:

positive emotion through pleasurable experiences,
more important is to be "engaged" or well occupied with things that interest us, especially our work, and
most important is building our lives around something that is meaningful, a cause we believe is more important than ourselves.

It is therefore no wonder that people who are generous and forgiving, people with good relationships (especially a good marriage), people happy in their work but not driven by it, people who do voluntary work, and people with a religious faith, tend to be happier than people who seek self-gratification through material wealth.

Read more about what makes people happy and do we REALLY know how to be happy? in an earlier blog.

breath

2008-05-03T05:16:00.000-07:00

Tim Winton is perhaps "Australia's favourite novelist", and he is certainly mine. His latest novel, "Breath", his first for seven years, has just been released.

The reviews are very positive. The Sydney Morning Herald's chief book reviewer says it "may prove to be the best thing Tim Winton has done." He concludes his review: "Winton explores themes that preoccupied many great writers of the past .... though ... Winton articulates his concerns in an almost unsullied Australian vernacular. His skill, control and eloquence are impressive."

I look forward to reading it.

curiouser and curiouser!

2008-05-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

Our universe is very curious at the very big scale and the very small. I have already commented on the very small - quantum physics. Now Astronomy magazine reports on two interesting observations at the cosmic scale.

black hole bounced

The General Theory of Relativity predicts that when two black holes merge within a galaxy, gravitational waves rush out of the galaxy at the speed of light. Following Newton's second law, this effectively propels the black hole in the opposite direction, sometimes fast enough to eject it from the galaxy completely.

The magazine reports that a team from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics has observed a black hole with a mass of several hundred million of our suns moving at a speed of 2650 km/sec (more than 9 million km/hr) and completely leaving the galaxy.

looking way back in time

Images of nine ultradense galaxies, 11 billion years ago. Photo: NASA (Hubble telescope)

The universe is believed to be about 14 billion years old. It has expanded fast since the start of the big bang, and earth is now an enormous distance from "the other side" of the universe. So far, in fact, that it is believed that some parts of the universe are so far away and rushing away from us so fast that light from them can never reach us. We cannot see anything that may be beyond this "event horizon".

Almost as far away are galaxies whose light has taken billions of years to reach us. We effectively see them (only in the Hubble telescope and one or two others!) as they were billions of years ago.

Scientists have recently observed several such galaxies 11 billion light years away, and thus seen as they were very early in the universe's life - after only 3 billion years. Astronomy reports that they found that these galaxies had a similar number of stars to our galaxy but are only a fraction of the size. This was unexpected, and would require them to have expanded rapidly in the time since then to look like the galaxies we are more familiar with.

Truly, the more we learn, the more curious it all gets.

gross inequality

2008-04-20T02:14:00.000-07:00

Lately our local council has been conducting "clean-ups"- special removal of household waste. And so piles of "waste" - furniture, electrical goods, some building materials, etc - appear fleetingly on footpaths outside homes awaiting pick up and disposal.

One interesting outcome is the number of people scavenging through these streetside piles of discarded items looking for items they can use - building materials, scrap metal, furniture and toys that can be repaired, etc.

It's encouraging that some of the "rubbish" is recycled and re-used, but it points up the fact that our affluent society discards what would be treasured in a poorer society. Somehow we have reached a stage where either:

we are so affluent we can afford to jettison products before their useful life ends because we want to upgrade to a more fashionable or better featured product, or
we buy poor quality products that need replacing too quickly.

It all leaves a sour taste. There is such inequality in the world that we get to spend money on less-than-necessary stuff that we'll junk all too soon, while elsewhere people starve or struggle.

Then comes news of another burden our western society is placing on poorer countries. I have read in the past how subsistence farmers can be trapped into converting to cash crops, and then fall victim to fluctuating prices, uncertain markets and rip-off practices, and end up worse off than before.

Now it is being reported that the increased interest in biofuels in rich western countries, to prop up our petrol habits, is resulting in some former food crops having greater value as fuels, thus raising the price of food. Experts are predicting that, while many farmers may benefit financially as a result, many of the world's poorest may find foods becoming priced beyond their means.

Our western society already has en environmental footprint many times what the world can bear. Here is another way we impose ourselves on the more powerless, by denying them a productive life to feed our insatiable lust for self comfort.

George W Bush once famously said that the "American way of life is not negotiable". But unless we create some miracles of energy, water and food production and usage, the only choices will be for all of us in the west to accept a lower material standard of living, or cause great hardship and suffering to those worse off than ourselves.

Not a nice message, but necessary to consider.

listen

2008-04-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

I read this in a book recently, based on a study of teenage prostitutes in San Francisco:

"When asked what they lacked at home that caused them to run away, the girls' answers came down almost universally to three words: 'Someone to listen'."

who believes what, who doesn't give a zot?

2008-04-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

Despite the efforts of some high profile atheists in the English speaking world, the majority of the world's 6 billion people (92% according to Adherents.com) still believe in God, or at least follow a religion.

The best figures available (again from Adherents.com, supported by Religious Tolerance.org and others) indicates that the beliefs with the largest number of adherents are 1. Christianity (2.1m), 2. Islam (1.2-1.5m) and 3. Hinduism (0.8-0.9m). Non religious tally about 0.8-1.1m, but half of these believe in God but don't follow a religion, and half are non-believers.

This much is fairly clear (although the exact estimates of numbers vary a little). But who is growing fastest? The best estimates seem to indicate that, of the major religions, Islam is growing faster than the world's population growth, Christianity is growing at close to the world growth rate, Hinduism is static and unbelief is slowly declining. Projecting forwards, it is estimated by some that Islam will pass Christianity as the worlds largest religion sometime in the 22nd century.

However a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, quoting historian Philip Jenkins, suggests these projections fail to account for one of the major factors in religious growth - population growth.

In his books The Next Christendom (2002) and The New Faces of Christianity (2006), Jenkins argues that population growth in the growing Christian parts of Africa, South America and Asia together with declining growth rates in many Muslim communities in the Middle East and in Europe, will change this picture.

Christians south of the equator find the agricultural, poor, sometimes oppressed and persecuted world of the Bible, with its un-modern emphasis on spirits and miracles, very familiar, and take to it more easily than sophisticated westerners often do.

Thus he concludes that the Christianity of the "south" will be remain more supernatural, traditional, yet socially radical, than the familiar Christianity of the west. And he suggests southern Christianity, already dominant numerically, will become more and more influential.

At the same time, he notes a dramatic fall in birth rates in some Islamic countries (e.g. from 6 to 2 births per woman in Iran between 1986 and 2000), and suggests this will reduce religious growth rates and lead to a modification of belief and attitudes.

aiding and a-betting

2008-04-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

Photo: Flickr

Some of Sydney's poorer families are spending huge proportions of their disposable income on gambling, a new report reveals.

In Fairfield in Sydney's southwest, the average annual household income in 2006 was $47,500. Of this, about $3,180 (6.7%) was considered to be "disposable" (i.e. available after necessities like food, rent, clothing, etc, were paid for). And of this, a huge 78% or $2,484 was spent on poker machines. I'm guessing some of the remaining was spent on other forms of gambling, such as lotteries, off-course horse race betting, etc.

Other suburbs had lower levels of gambling (30-50% of disposable incomes), though this may not indicate lower expenditure on pokies, but higher disposable incomes.

Almost a decade ago, annual expenditure on gambling was estimated at about $14bn, or $1000 per adult, and total stakes were about $100bn. Significant social problems, including compulsive and excessive gambling, depression and suicide, significant involvement of organised crime, and corruption of police and government, have been identified by Government inquiries.

So it is all big business. Little wonder that the two current operators of poker machines feel the heat when just one Australian state (Victoria) plans to open the market up to other companies and apply new forms of regulation to the gambling industry.

At present, all state, territory and the Commonwealth Governments are controlled by the Australian Labor Party, which supposedly represents the interests of "ordinary working families". Yet these same families are the hardest hit by the slow increase in gambling outlets, and the rich owners are the main beneficiaries. Governments gain enormous revenues from taxes on gambling.

I don't think many people seriously suggest restricting gambling opportunities to any great extent, but the whole thing still looks like it benefits the rich and the politicians more than the people. One can't help feeling there must be a better way to supply this service.

the high cost of pleasure

2008-04-09T05:44:00.000-07:00

A report just released shows that alcohol, tobacco and illegal drug use cost Australia $56bn in 2004/5, up more than 50% in 6 years. That's almost $3,000 for every Australian. Tobacco accounts for more than half of the costs.

The costs come from illness, premature deaths, lost productivity, crime and accidents.

Read the sorry story in the Sydney Morning Herald and news.com.au.

stonehenge secrets to be revealed?

2008-04-01T02:05:00.000-07:00

Photo: Morguefile

Stonehenge has long fascinated people. Why was it built? How was it done?

Stonehenge was built in several stages. Before 3000 BCE, earthworks and timber posts were constructed. About 2500 BCE, the first stones (the smaller bluestones, weighing about 5 tons each) were transported 380 km from Wales, probably by sea, and erected. Over the next few centuries, the bluestones were re-arranged and the massive sarsen stones were transported from 20 km away and erected.

It is generally accepted that Stonehenge had an astronomical purpose and a religious or cultic purpose - with ancient societies so dependent on weather, the two purposes may well have merged. However recently, experts have proposed another purpose - as a centre of healing (the bluestone was believed to have healing properties).

And so the first archaeological dig within Stonehenge in 40 years is commencing, with a pit being excavated to try to find bluestone chips which it is believed may have once covered the whole site, and organic material under one of the bluestones to determine an accurate date for its erection.

You can read all about the excavation, and keep up with progress, on this BBC TV site, and read background information on this English Heritage site.

the good, the bad and the ugly

2008-03-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

Religion can bring out the best, and unfortunately the worst, in people ....

the good

The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported on Catherine Hamlin and her late husband Reg, both doctors, who have given the entire working lives helping women in Ethiopia who suffer from terrible birth injuries.

Often giving birth at a very young age, and in unhealthy conditions without medical help, these girls suffer from incontinence caused by the injuries (fistulas), which makes them socially ostracised. The Hamlins performed thousands of operation to restore good health since they went to Africa in the 1960s.

Several Fistula hospitals have been built, and Catherine, now 84, is leading a campaign to train and send out Ethiopian midwives to villages all over the country. The couple's motivation came from the words of Jesus: "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Catherine says: "I do believe this is a God-given job".

the bad

The same issue of the SMH reported on a christian school in Australia which has been accused of defrauding the Government of $2M by falsifying enrolments to attract greater subsidies.

I won't give any further details because I don't want to be a gossip, and because the matter has not been resolved legally, but reportedly the principal has been sacked and the school closed.

These things just shouldn't happen. We christians need to learn that the ends never justify bad means, and that if we trust God, we should never need to cut corners.

the ugly

Christians face persecution from other religions in many places over the world:

In Sri Lanka, a Christian pastor was shot dead in February, and since then a "wave" of attacks, including burning a church down, attacks by armed mobs, stony and threats, have been made against Christians.
Violence against Christians in India is increasing, according to a UN representative; in many cases police are complicit or turning a blind eye. Hindu extremists have reacted in recent years to the conversion of former Hindus to Christianity - efforts to free the low Dalit caste from oppression have been particularly effective and resented.
In Palestine, itself suffering in the ongoing "war" between Islamic militants and Israel, Christians have been murdered abused and intimidated, leading to an exodus of Christians from the country.
Christians in Iran face imprisonment, harassment and discrimination in Iran, despite being guaranteed religious freedom in law.
A recent court ruling in Malaysia that a woman did not have the right to convert from Islam to another religion has alarmed religious minorities in that country.

We in the west need to be careful about being too judgmental about these problems - after all similar acts are in our heritage. Humility and tolerance all round would be a start!

Sources for information include Christian Solidarity Worldwide, International Christian Concern, United Nations and Amnesty International.

earth hour, 2008

2008-03-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

Last year, Sydney switched off many its lights as people joined in the first Earth Hour.

This year, cities and smaller settlements from scores of countries joined in. By all accounts it has been a great success. It's only a symbolic event, but awareness and willingness to change are the first steps.

Sydney city centre during Earth Hour. (Photo: Sydney Morning Herald)

Power generation represents one major source of carbon emissions (I've seen figures like 30%, but it would surely vary a lot), so cutting electricity usage by 5%, as was estimated in Sydney, is only token, but still symbolic.

Earth Hour at the local Anglican church - learning how to make simple changes
- when will someone invent a candle-powered data projector? : )

Of course the challenge is to turn this growing public goodwill into effective action, something our politicians often seem to struggle with. There are so many who say how large the problem is, but the economic costs of not acting will be even greater - the Stern report and other sources quoted by the European Union estimate that the cost of not acting now on climate change will be about 5-20% of global GDP, whereas the cost of acting will be less than 1% of GDP.

"All" it will take is for all of us to be willing to vote for, and continue to support, politicians who will make the painful decisions that will cost us now, to save our children and grandchildren far more. Surely we can do that much?

new generations and religious belief

2008-03-24T01:16:00.000-07:00

Some recent studies have given interesting insights into the impact of religious belief on younger Australians.

One study by the Australian Catholic and Monash universities found the following beliefs among Aussie teenagers (aged 13 to 17):

47% said they were Christians, although only 17% were active in their faith,
31% had no religious belief,
15% had new age beliefs, and
7% had other beliefs.

The same study also found that "those with serious spiritual and religious beliefs were likely to donate more money, participate more in their communities and be more concerned about their society than their non-religious counterparts."

The press release for the study says: "Noting that strong engagement with a belief system is related to good citizenship, the authors pose the question: where will young people of the future learn civic values and a commitment to the common good? Who, apart from parents, is going to pass these values on to them and lead them to participate in community service?"

A University of Queensland study has found that only 8% of young adults attend church weekly. Among young adults, "Moving away from traditional religious beliefs to trendy, self-focused religions and spirituality is not making young adults happier."

Causes of lower happiness include greater risk of poor mental health and anti-social behaviour, and higher levels of anxiety and depression. "Their focus on self-fulfillment and self-improvement and the lack of emphasis on others' wellbeing appears to have the potential to undermine a person's mental health and social relationships.”

one Flew out of the cuckoo's nest?

2008-03-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

Whatever famous people do is news. And if a famous person makes a spectacular change of direction, others take notice. So when longtime atheist and philosopher, Antony Flew, said a few years ago that he was re-considering whether there is a God, people reacted.

Flew, the son of a British clergyman, had studied at Oxford and participated in the Socratic Society, a philosophical discussion group founded by famous christian, CS Lewis. Flew embraced atheism, and had a long and distinguished career as a philosopher in several British universities, and as an author. While never as strongly anti-religion as some well known atheists today, Flew had represented atheism in debates and discussions, and was possibly the premier philosophical atheist of the English speaking world.

So when Flew spoke of his doubts about atheism, Christian friends who had been discussing these matters with him for years continued the discussion. Atheist, Richard Carrier, wrote him several letters urging him to hold the atheist line. Prominent christians and atheists (perhaps foolishly) made claims and counter claims about Flew's "real" views, and Flew himself gave somewhat enigmatic replies.

Nevertheless, for a while, it seemed that Flew had heeded Carrier's pleas, and ceased to question his disbelief, but late last year, Flew dropped a bombshell. His latest book was released (he is co-author) and it is titled "There is a God".

Christians welcomed it and atheists were shocked. Amazingly (perhaps) most of the discussion since then has not been on the merits of the case Flew presents for his change of mind, but whether he was of sound mind. Based mostly on an interview Flew gave to a New York Times reporter, atheists argued that their former spokesperson was confused, misled by christians, failing in memory and possibly senile. Accusations that the book was not Flew's writing, but someone else's released under Flew's name, were made, only to be rebutted by Flew - most of the thoughts were his, he said, and most of the words were his co-author's.

It does seem that Flew's memory and strength are failing - he admits it himself (he is now in his 80s) - but it also seems certain that he has changed his views. He has always said that he was not a dogmatic atheist, he would follow wherever the evidence led him, and that he regularly reviewed his beliefs. Many say this, but it seems he actually believes it! Whatever the merits or otherwise of his reasons, it seems arrogant and insensitive of atheists to attack his integrity rather than address his arguments.

So what are the arguments that convinced him? I haven't read the book yet, but reviews indicate the main reasons were the fact that nature (our universe) exists, that nature obeys such rational and well-ordered laws, and that human beings are so rational and purpose driven. He concludes that “the universe was brought into existence by an infinite Intelligence”.

Currently he is unwilling to believe in any established religion (he describes himself as a deist - someone who believes in a God who is not active in the world), but he says that christianity is the best candidate and is currently reviewing the evidence for it. He has included in an appendix a discussion of the resurrection of Jesus (a subject he has many times debated with christians), written by New Testament scholar NT Wright.

Cuckoos are birds which lay their eggs in other birds' nests, so they don't actually have nests of their own. Has Antony Flew finally found his true home?

Read about the book There is a God, a review of the book by a christian, the interview in the New York Times, comments by Richard Carrier and comments by another christian..

death of a great pioneer

2008-02-28T22:51:00.000-08:00

Larry Norman, pioneer christian musician, died early this week at age 61.

I was a Larry Norman fan. In the 1960s, when rock music was in one of its most innovative phases, with great artists like the Beatles, Dylan, Van Morrison, Yes, Jethro Tull, the Beach Boys, Eric Clapton, Jefferson Airplane, etc, christian music was back in the 1950s, with some wimpish gospel country sort of stuff. (I guess there was some good black gospel, but I never heard it.)

Enter Larry Norman, with some good, though not great music, but with superbly crafted words and attitude. He blazed the way for others to follow (though I'm pretty sure he would have hated the too nice, predictable, middle-of-the-road and big money thing christian music has become). He became a leader in the post-hippie Jesus movement and christian counter-culture. But in the end, his attitude probably brought him undone, as he was difficult to get on with (they say) and he alienated the christian establishment. In the past two decades, he was often badly unwell and he didn't produce much music of note.

Here's a sample of his lyrics, illustrating his blend of faith and politics (it's from "The Great American Novel" on the 1972 album "Only Visiting This Planet", but it some of it sounds eerily current):

you kill a black man at midnight just for talking to your daughter
then you make his wife your mistress and you leave her without water
and the sheet you wear upon your face is the sheet your children sleep on
at every meal you say a prayer that you don't believe but still you keep on

and your money says "in God we trust", but its against the law to pray in school
you say we beat the russians to the moon, and i say you starved your children to do it

you are far across the ocean in a war that's not your own
and while you're winning theirs you're gonna lose the one at home
do you really think the only way to bring about the peace
is to sacrifice your children and kill all your enemies

you say all men are equal, all men are brothers
then why are the rich more equal than others
don't ask me for the answers i've only got one
that a man leaves his darkness when he follows the son

Farewell Larry, I'll see you "in another land".

Read an obituary here and the notice on his website.

super-size me - and my ambulance

2008-02-19T04:08:00.000-08:00

Obesity is increasing! One not so little indication of this is that the state of New South Wales is doubling (from 3 to 6) its fleet of "mega-lift ambulances", which are designed to carry people weighing more than 180 kgs and too large to fit in a normal ambulance.

It is estimated that the economic cost of obesity to the Australian health system is about $873 million per year.

Read the Sydney Morning Herald report here.

a well documented miracle?

2008-02-16T14:36:00.000-08:00

In August last year (miracles happen?) I reported several cases of apparent healing miracles. I have done a little more checking up of one of these, and found some independent news reports.

The case concerned a Florida USA heart specialist and a man who failed to respond to emergency treatment after a massive heart attack, and was pronounced dead. But after a "voice" in his head told him to pray for the man, the heart specialist did so and the man revived.

The apparent miracle was first recorded by the International Press Association and on several christian websites, including the World Christian Doctors Network (which gave no details), and ASSIST. But when I found that some people won't accept a miracle account from a christian source, I checked out some secular accounts - the American College of Radiology, Fox News WSVN7, Florida, Fox News and Palm Beach Daily News archive.

These accounts give some extra information (although the reporting is not always clear) and include an interview with the healed man. I am trying to find further info to provide further verification.

Please let us know you've visited, and tell us what you think, by leaving a comment using the link below.

sorry

2008-02-13T04:21:00.001-08:00

I have blogged before (don't drink the water) about the poor treatment received by Australia's indigenous peoples at the hands of the European settlers (or should we call them "invaders"?) over two centuries. One of the grossest injustices was the forced removal of children from parents over the first three quarters of the 20th century.

It has been recognised for some time that reconciliation is needed, and one of the things most sought by the indigenous people was an apology from the Government - the simple word "sorry".

The Government has baulked at this for some time, but last November a new Government was elected, and today, to the joy of most indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, apologised and said "sorry". And he did it so well, sincerely, humanely and without qualification.

There are many who believe and hope that aboriginal Australians can now enter a new era as a result. It has been a good day for Australia.

Read a news report about the Prime Minister's apology.