Sea of Faith Christchurch Group

You can find Wardah’s PowerPoint presentation to us here: http://sofchch.blogtown.co.nz/files/2010/09/The-Sufi-Tradition.pdf

David introduced us to Niall Ferguson’s book “The Ascent of Money.” In following up on this subject, I discovered that Niall Ferguson has presented a four-part TV series on the same subject.  Thanks to the American Public Broadcasting Service, you can watch this on your computer; just click on http://video.pbs.org/program/1155680272/.

I found the series easy to watch and full of insight into the rise and rise of money. What is missing for me is a critique of the monetary system – not simply complaints about the greed of particular individuals, but a critique of the system itself. Money seems to be behind war and violence. The need to pay back debt plus interest fuels the ever-increasing exploitation and degradation of the planet.  It seems that we need a spiritual or religious perspective on money, so that we make a connection between the two areas that David mentioned: the Sunday morality and the  Monday reality.

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.

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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.