Sea of Faith Christchurch Group

This Friday 26 September, there is no meeting, because of the national conference over the same weekend.

At our next meeting, on Friday 12 September, Yvonne Smith will talk with us about her work with young people. Yvonne is an ordained Presbyterian minister and has been chaplain at Rangi Ruru Girls’ School for the past ten years or so.

I’m really looking forward to this meeting, not just because I know Yvonne from many years back, but also because I think she will have interesting things to say about matters that are of interest to us all.

• We often hear calls that schools should be teaching values. How do you go about doing this? Isn’t it a bit hypocritical of us to expect the school to teach values, when our society lives largely by the assumption that the value of something is defined by its monetary value?
• The Education Act declared that education was to be free, compulsory, and secular. What are the effects of this act and how does a Church school fit into this scene?
• We older folk mostly grew up experiencing Sunday School, Bible Class, and Church. Many young people today grow up with almost no experience of this, while others are involved with evangelical or charismatic congregations that have little understanding of modern biblical scholarship and liberal theology. How can a chaplain deal with this divide?

We in the Sea of Faith are mostly older generation, and we pursue the questions that interest us. I’m hoping that Yvonne will be able to widen our horizons a little and help to increase our awareness of what is happening to religion and spirituality among those who are growing up.

Our next meeting, on Friday 22 August, has no pre-defined theme. It will provide an opportunity for us to discuss whatever is on our minds. Here’s a few things that have been on my mind lately.

• How have Christian theologians responded to the environmental crisis? Surely any talk of God and the world has to deal with both modern scientific challenges to traditional ideas of God as creator and also to challenge the assumptions behind unlimited growth and mastery over the natural world. I’m leading a workshop on this at Conference and have been reflecting on a few writers with whom I’m familiar (Moltmann, Matthew Fox, Drewermann, and also Theodore Roszak, who wouldn’t want to be called a theologian, but who does have deep insights into the development of European thought).
• What does the Olympics say about the modern world? You might not agree with Brian that the Chinese would be better off protecting themselves against the encroaching desert than investing millions to host this sporting spectactular, but it is a bit naive to simply get caught up in Olympic fever, without reflecting on how the Olympics are tied up with the mass media, nationalism, and the professionalisation of sport.
• After Conference, we have a number of meetings before the end of the year. What themes do we want to explore? David has expressed interest in Eckhard Tolle and his latest book. Is his ‘universal spirituality’ something that we would like to explore? The human potential movement and new age spirituality is something that the Sea of Faith hasn’t looked at very closely, as far as I’m aware. If the old religion needs re-thinking, what new pathways in spirituality are there for us?

Our next meeting on 8 August will look at Gaia theory and ask about its relevance to the environmental crisis and to religion. James Lovelock proposed the hypothesis that the earth and the biosphere function like a superorganism, regulating things so that they are favourable for life. He said that Gaia had both a scientific and a religious side.

Some questions for discussion:

• Is Gaia sound science?
• Is the earth goddess Gaia compatible with a heavenly divine Father? Can Gaia help with the ‘greening of Christianity’ or is it an incompatible alternative?
• Should we put our trust in a technological fix for environmental problems, or do we need a change in our attitude to earth?

I’m looking forward to a lively discussion that will be a good warm-up for our national conference.

Our next meeting is  on Friday 25 July. Bob Geddes will lead discussion on the topic of evolutionary theory applied to culture (memes and all that). He has submitted the following introduction and questions:

Cultural evolution is based on the same principles as genetic evolution involving Darwin`s evolutionary theorem (based on evidence from all round the world) namely
– Variation
– Selection   and
– Heredity                If these occur you MUST get evolution
Or Design out of Chaos without the aid
Of Mind.
Replicators-  Have to do with information that is copied regardless of the consequences
Our genes is one example
Also another kind observable is the process of
Information that is copied from person to person by
Imitation, information that is copied with
VARIATION and SELECTION and shows a design
process going on.
Name given to this  — MEME (a non-genetic passing
on of information by imitation.)
A meme is “selfish” information that gets copied if it
can.
 Second Replicator.     
Humans alone of earth life are both gene and meme “machines”.
Meme evolutionary necessity brought about big brain species evolution (genetic) humans only, better able to copy and transmit information, seen in the development of language etc.
Technology has brought a new type of meme- given the name “technomeme”
Third Replicator will have arrived when there are machines that are able to build copies of themselves.

Applying Universal Darwinism to the Total Universe

If there is other life in the Universe don’t think intelligence, think replicators. (Life evolving the ability to communicate beyond itself.)
Evolution necessarily a dangerous process for all life.
The Second Replicator brought danger to human life- we have made survival adaptions.
The Third Replicator Challenge
Two Options – Humans merging with technology, implants, enhancements of many kinds.
Or machines replicating themselves
Both are issues about the survival of the human race.

QUESTIONS WE MIGHT WISH TO CONSIDER
1. Are there any credible alternatives to Universal Darwinism?
2.  What interest are any alternatives of planetary life development to us?
3. Is Blackmore`s thesis of Cultural evolution as part and parcel of Darwinism and genetic evolution verifiable and scientificily accepted?
4. How real are the dangers do we think of third replicator development – technology`s threat to life on earth?
5. Will life in other places in the Universe come about by evolutionary means?