on the frontier

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.

wasted lives: the last deaths in World War 1

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

history wars

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.

the evidence for jesus

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".

two heroes - barak & john green

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.

the first australians

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.

does belief in god harm us?

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.

same as it ever was, same as it ever was

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.

stonehenge secrets to be revealed?

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.