Sea of Faith Christchurch Group

By Elizabet Sahtouris. © 2000
Elizabet Sahtouris is a Greek-American scientist, author and lecturer whose field is evolutionary biology.
Reviewed by Ian Crumpton

“We used to believe that we were put here to do whatever we wanted to with our planet – that we were in charge. Now we see that we are natural creatures which evolved within a great Earthlife system. Whatever we do that is not good for life, the rest of the system will try to undo or balance in any way it can. That is why we must learn Gaia’s dance and follow its rhythms and harmonies in our own lives.” Continue Reading »

A review by Laurie Chisholm.

In June 2011, Lloyd Geering gave a series of lectures on Jung at St Andrews on the Terrace in Wellington. These lectures are available on DVD from the St Andrew’s Trust (http://satrs.standrews.org.nz). The Christchurch group of the Sea of Faith has used two of them as the basis of meetings and found them helpful. The video quality is high and the PowerPoint slides that Lloyd used to accompany his words have been nicely edited in so that you have a clear and direct view of them.

Lloyd observed that his lectures on Jung have been the best-attended of all the topics he has handled, which I regard as evidence that people have a hunger for perspectives that enrich and deepen their spirituality and for a wise understanding of what it is to be a human being.

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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 »

Ian didn’t manage to get to our second meeting on The New Atheism. Instead, he wrote a review for the national newsletter on the book “God and the New Atheism” by John Haught.

“His main thesis is that the three authors, drawing their concept of God and religion from fundamentalist and literalist religion, produce a similar kind of atheism: superficial, literal, and lacking engagement with the long-standing intellectual traditions of the Western religions.”

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