Sea of Faith Christchurch Group

On Friday 27 August, David will introduce us to the book “The Ascent of Money” by Niall Ferguson. He writes:

This book talks about the  “Boom and Bust cycles” that have gone on for ever and was written after the start of the current financial “bust”, so it is very topical.

“The Ascent of Money” does not say much about religion, but it implies a lot about the reality of human behaviour despite centuries of religious belief about the essential “goodness?” of man.

The book brought home to me how many world events are triggered by financial events and considerations. For instance the American civil war was lost, not by the superior forces of the North or the moral force of its cause, but by the fact that the South ran out of credit before the North did. The South’s bonds were backed by the future sale of cotton, which for a reason totally unrelated to the war, suddenly dropped in value.

Another observation from reading the book, is that whilst moral values have existed through out time, when it comes to money, moral considerations are of little concern on the list of factors that finally decide the issue of the day.

Which raises for me the huge gap between “Sunday values” and  “Weekday values” which has been evident throughout time.

At our meeting on 13 August, Hugh Thorpe presented a number of graphics that gave us insight into the science behind global warming. Here are some of them.

Continue Reading »

Storms of my Grandchildren
The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and our last chance to save Humanity
by James Hansen. Published by Bloomsbury, 2009

The main thesis of this book is as crystal clear as it is frightening: that human activity over the last century has rapidly increased the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere to the point where we are on the verge of transforming the planet into a hothouse world, with massive species depletion, sea level rise and and a host of related changes. All threatening the whole biosystem with unstoppable global warming. The difference between Jim Hansen and other “end of the world” prophets, is that he is a leading planetary scientist who has spent a lifetime studying these trends. His predictions are based, not on a misreading of some ancient religious text, but on hard science. And it all points in the same direction. Continue Reading »

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.

At our next meeting, on Friday 13 August, Hugh Thorpe will present a brief review of James Hansen’s recently published book: “Storms of my Grandchildren, the truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity.”

Ian Crumpton will outline the objections to this argument, raising sound scientific reasons that show “global warming” is a myth propagated by those, among others,  who seek a change in the power structures of our culture.

In the middle of winter, traditional Maori celebrated Matariki.  This was the beginning of a new year; time to celebrate with a special hangi and then to begin planting kumara.

In the middle of winter, ancient Romans celebrated the winter solstice.  Venerators of sol invictus, the invincible sun, they marked the turning point when the sun ceased becoming weaker and colder, gaining in strength and showing light triumphing over darkness.

The early Christians took over such winter solstice celebrations, turning them into a celebration of the birth of their savior and applying what had been cyclical truth based on the seasons of nature to the one-off of that birth.

But what about us moderns? Are we so cocooned in our neon-lit, climate-controlled rooms that we have no sense any more of the rhythms of nature? Living in the shadow of the free market and global capitalism with its relentless competition, is there no place for the unproductive purposelessness of ritual and ceremony? Has Christmas, transposed to a different season here in New Zealand, lost its religious significance and become a time of family togetherness, excessive food consumption and commercial exploitation?

Our meeting on Friday 25 June is an opportunity to informally explore such questions.  Please feel free to bring and share any thoughts or ideas.