Sea of Faith Christchurch Group

Hugh has alerted us to the following youtube video, which is a good overview of mainstream geological understanding of what we have been going through:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTvFDSpmh3A

Also the following by Bronwyn Hayward on resilient citizenship:

http://resolve.sustainablelifestyles.ac.uk/news/bronwyn-hayward-talks-about-resilient-citizenship-youtube

Laurie Chisholm talked recently to the group about Lloyd Geering’s and Juliet Batten’s talks at Conference. The following is a tidied up and abbreviated version of his comments on Lloyd Geering.

For many years, I have had mixed feelings about Lloyd Geering’s message. He is, of course, a towering intellect, and has single-handedly done much to make New Zealand aware of modern thinking about religion. I well remember standing in a queue at a Presbyterian General Assembly, to record my dissent from the Assembly’s decision to distance itself from his views.  So while I have little sympathy for the position of those who have been critical of him, I generally find his views unsatisfying. The following is an attempt to articulate that dissatisfaction by focussing on Lloyd’s talk to the Sea of Faith’s national conference in 2008. Continue Reading »

Recently, TVNZ showed a programme with the above title, featuring Lloyd Geering. The following deliberately tries to provide provocative counter-theses to the title and the nine ideas that the programme presented. They were intended as a discussion starter for our meeting but were not used. Continue Reading »

On the morning of the first day, man decided to be free and good, beautiful and happy. No longer the image of a God, but a man. And because he had to believe something, he believed in freedom and happiness, in numbers and quantities, in the stock exchange and in progress, in planning and in his security.  Because he had filled the ground at his feet with rockets and nuclear warheads, for his security. Continue Reading »

Joy Cowley, the well-known children’s book author spoke 12 August at Knox Church in Christchurch on this theme. For me, it is a touching experience to discover that someone who has really made their mark in the world has a wholly other side to them: fascination with the mystics, deep insights and wisdom about the human journey, a background in the Christian tradition but a complete absence of fundamentalism and literalism. You can access the text of her talk here.

Richard Dawkins’ book “The God Delusion” hit the headlines a long time ago now and many more books aiming to show religion to be intellectually untenable have since arrived on the market. With tortoise-like slowness, I have been reflecting on the new atheism. I’d like to share my journey, indicating how various people have helped me on the way.

The God Delusion is of course a passionate attack on religion. Although I knew that the kind of religion he mainly had in mind was US Christian fundamentalism, I was wary, even rejecting, of the book. Continue Reading »

Briefly, the results of the group’s evaluation of the meeting suggestions are:

Most popular suggestions:

1. Charter of Compassion
2. My Story
3. Karen Armstrong
4. All Heretics’ Day

Interestingly, the suggestions about which we were most divided were:

1. Looking at the Bible Again for the First Time
2. The Greatest Show on Earth (Richard Dawkins’ latest book)

Further to our recent evening on Karen Armstrong’s charter of compassion, you can view the text of the charter here: http://charterforcompassion.org/ This website also gives you the opportunity to affirm the charter, adding your name to the list of those who have also done this.

Recently, I came across the following story, which I shared with the group on 5 November. I assume that it is not in any of the Buddhist scriptures, but is a free composition probably from Osho himself.

Laurie

One morning, it must have been such a beautiful morning, a man comes to Gautama Buddha and asks him, “Does God exist?” Everybody is curious to know what Buddha answers. Continue Reading »

On Friday 13 May, Dr Garth Cant will speak with us on the above topic.  He is a lecturer in Geography at Canterbury University, with interests in the Church in rural New Zealand and in Maori approaches to spirituality.

Well known US scientist Hansen has been brought to NZ by climate action organisers including Jeannette Fitzsimons, and Aoraki Greens are hosting this.
When: Friday 20 May, 5.30pm-7.30pm
Where: at the Horticultural Hall 57 Riccarton Avenue (in Hagley Park). hosted by Kennedy Graham, MP.

Ian Crumpton has reviewed his book “Storms of my Grandchildren” here.

For our meeting on 8 April, we will watch excerpts from an interview on Buddhism with Stephen Batchelor, author of the book “Buddhism Without Beliefs.”

On Friday 25 March, Bill Shepard will talk to us about Islam. He writes: “I will explain what I (and others) see to be the basic problem for Muslims in modern times and outline four kinds of responses to it, one of which includes the current “jihadis”. I will try to allow plenty of time for questions and discussion.”

Bill Shepard is a retired associate professor from the department of religious studies at Canterbury University. He is an internationally acknowledged expert on Islam and we are privileged to have him talk to our group.