He aint heavy, he's my brother ......

I was on the bus today. It was about half full. We pulled up to a bus stop and a man aged around 50 tried to get on.

He was thin, haggard and bent over and gripped onto a soft drink bottle containing orange liquid. He appeared intoxicated. He fumbled with his bus card which failed to activate.

As he searched his vagabond clothes for money he pleaded with the driver that he was in pain and needed to see his doctor.

I began to make plans to intervene.

To my left and forward in the bus a young handsome Pasifika boy aged about 19 shifted uneasily in his seat.

The driver, annoyed, shook his head and told the man to get off.

Before I could say anything, the young lad shouted out "I'll paid for him". He strode to the front of the bus and did just that.

In Genesis 4 there comes a question, perhaps the most question in the Bible: "Am I my brother's keeper?"

That young man clearly answered this question.

1st John puts it another way: "Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."

The song alluded to in the title of this post goes on ....

 If I'm laden at all, I'm laden with sadness. That everyone's heart isn't filled with the gladness of love for one another.

I am not sure what happened to the man. I hope he is undergoing a carefully managed detox. But I think I can guess something of his singular story.

Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you

The biggest problem in education is the identification of scores, grades etc obtained in a paper and pencil test/exam with actual skills, practices, competencies in real life contexts.

Smedley's equation: scores \=\ skills.

I was in hospital recently. I constantly came across nurses who said they were no good at maths. In fact not one said they were good at maths.

And yet they were constantly doing some pretty skilled maths at every turn. Blood pressure, temperature, medications, drips, injections, .......

OF COURSE when they said they were no good at maths, they were reflecting on their high school experience and their scores in tests and exams.

The Ministry of education is soon to try and map adults' numeracy skills in Nu Zulun.

What will they use? Paper and pencil tests! What will they find?

For most adults, the maths they do daily is invisible. It is so much a part of every day life.

I offer here today a challenge.  Can anyone find a subject, discipline, or topic that does not involve number or geometry in some way.

If you can, post it in the comments. The first person gets $100 from me. Maybe meditation, so I rule that out.

We are all in some small way mathematicians. Our world is saturated with numbers.

Those crazy hazy lazy days of summer ...

It's all happening this summer, in February, with the Stirling Half Marathon and 11k RunWalk.

What a fantastic event this is going to be! Sunday the 17th of February is the day. Mark that in your calendar.

The date is perfectly positioned to give you the incentive to get fit and stay fit over summer.

Our chief sponsor is Stirling Sports and the event is organised by the Calliope Athletic and Harrier Club.

We have just got the website up and running and in a few days the online and other entry details will be available

As of today the event is 127 days away.

So time to start training.

Now if you haven't trained for a while, or you are new to this, please start out easy and slow.

We don't want you injured before the big day!

As this is the first of this new event, I will be running on behalf of the organizers to get an insider's point of view.

And of course we will be looking for feedback from you.

Goody goody for her, goody goody for me. And I hope you're satisfied, you rascal, you ......

It is a dangerous thing for Christians to take the moral high ground.

I read, with some sadness, this article citing George Wood, the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God (AOG) in the U.S.

In fairness, I think he has a point. However this quote stood out:

“Christians have a choice in this upcoming election, whether they are going to put their moral values ahead of everything else. There’s been so much talk about the economy and that’s understandable when you are hurting financially,” Wood says.

So according to the author, Wood says that Christians ought to put their moral values ahead of everything else.

The first question I ask is "What moral values do Christians hold that many other people do not?"

Now if you are a Christian with a strict literalist view of the Bible (as inerrant and infalliable), then I can suggest a few moral values that you have to endorse or justify that many other people do not!

1. Genocide
2. Rape
3. Murder of innocent people.
4. Discrimination against disable people.
5. Infanticide.

The second question I ask: "Was it simply the intention of Jesus to bring about a elevation of our moral values and the moral values of society?"

That is not my understanding of the meaning of the Christian Gospel.

Love and marriage ... go together like a horse and carriage .....

Gay marriage has now been placed firmly on the political agenda in old Nu Zulun.

For many, gay and straight, it is a proposal whose time has come. Certainly, opinion polls place a sizable majority of Nu Zulundurs in favour.

No doubt, the main opposition will come from the religions groups who tend to use two key phrases to make their case: "Judeo-Christian heritage" and "traditional marriage".

Of course, the use of either phrase usually involves a revisionist history at best. The ideal of marriage in the current era is historically comparatively new.

Whether or not Nu Zulun has a Judeo-Christian heritage is the subject of debate. Even if we concede the country does have just a heritage, the Christian part of it bears some scrutiny.

The briefest survey of Church history leaves the the reader gobsmacked at the inhumanity wrought in the name of the founder.

This proposal for gay marriage will test whether we as a society have come of age.

I just hope that the many church leaders and ordinary thinking Christians who have sympathies for the proposal will come out of the closet and make a stand. It is in a sense a God-given opportunity.

However, I suspect the genuine fear of reprisals will deter them.

Strangely, it is no longer a time for gay people to be brave, but rather for the decent majority of Christian, religious, and non-religious Nu Zulundurs to send forth a message of love and acceptance.

Where do I begin to tell the story Of how great a love can be ....

I am reading an interesting book: Conceiving GOD: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion, by David Lewis-Williams. As Welsh as his name sounds, he comes from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.

He quotes David Hume: “In religion, reason is always post hoc.”

What does this mean? It does not mean that reason does not have a place in religion. Indeed, it is hard to have any systematic theology, dogma, doctrine or even discussion without reason having a place. However, it does mean that reason does not occupy the primary place, the starting point, the arche of religion. 

The author uses reason in the wider sense of both rationalism and scientific empiricism (or more broadly, the scientific method). Thus both deduction and induction among other things come within the orbit of reason.

Post hoc is a complex notion, but for our purposes, and in this context, it means that revelation of certain "facts" precedes reasoning based on those facts. In a sense the facts are assumed to exist prior to the reasoning process.

Thus for a Calvinist, the facts of God's sovereignty, omniscience (all knowing), omnipotence (all power) and omnipresence become the defined "properties" of God, upon which reasoning can be erected. Admittedly , in this case, one might argue that such properties are reasonable to infer about the being of God from the beginning and that a Bible is not needed to set them forth. In a sense, then they appear a little like mathematically axioms. Most Calvinist, however, do set these facts forth as unreasoned revelation.

Other fundamental starting points do require revelation before reason. For the fundamentalist Christian, there are usually the five fundamentals.  These require some reasoning based of a selection of suitable verses of scripture and an oversight of others to make them ‘appear’ coherent.

1. The inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture

2. The deity of Jesus Christ

3. The virgin birth of Christ

4. The substitutionary, atoning work of Christ on the cross

5. The physical resurrection and the personal bodily return of Christ to the earth.

The first one is open to the charge of circular reasoning. However without it, numbers 2 through 5 topple like dominoes. 

Most fundamentalist agree on one thing: These five fundamentals stand not primarly on the basis of reason. They stand on the basis of revelation.

The author, Lewis-Williams, suggests that religion has become:

"an industry in a capitalist sense. An elite group owns the resources (revealed knowledge) and the means of production (religious buildings, schools and so forth), while the public at large buys the product (salvation, peace of mind) and thus enriches the elite (witness the wealth of the Vatican and other major religious denominations)." 

To the end of the last quote we might add the wealth of the tele-evangelists and prosperity preachers.

Of course if the public are not too convinced about "buying" the product, then the consequences of not "buying" are set before them: roasting in hell forever and a day.

In this way, the church makes sure that any reasonable reasoned discussion is impossible.

The church also, sadly, places any unique, individual, ineffable experience of the divine within its strict doctrinal searchlight - its gaze of unreasonable reason.

Tip toe through the tulips with me ….

Calvinism is a mixture of logical deduction based on a very selective choice and literal interpretation of decontextualized Bible verses.

Mind you, Arminianism (the opposing camp) does exactly the same thing with a different selection of verses from the Biblical menu.

People who hold strongly to Calvinism are called Calvinists (nothing to do with being devotees of the cartoon character).

Calvinists have a reductionist approach and summarise their position with a flower – T.U.L.I.P.

I will now explain tulip and many “pew warmers” will be horrified, I hope, at the prospect and uncertainty it may hold for them. But then, that is the price of Bible literalism.

T = Total depravity. The Calvinist says that you, dear reader, are totally and utterly depraved! You are shot through with sin and evil from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. You are totally incapable of a single good and pure act (bad motives – you see). I won’t quote all the verses used – but believe me there are plenty!

U = Unconditional Election. The Calvinist says that, God sovereignly chooses who will be saved. He made the choice before creation. If you were not chosen, then you do not have a hope in hell of not going to hell. (Again, a selection of verses are given, the primary ones being Eph. 1:4-8; Rom. 9:11; Rom. 9:15, 21)

L = Limited atonement. They say that Jesus died for the elect and not for the whole world. Why waste his time on those who were not chosen beforehand by God?

I = Irresistible Grace. If you were chosen then God will draw you to Christ. You will “get saved”. Free will appears to fly out the window.

P = Perseverance of the Saints. This is also known as “once saved, always saved”. This means you can’t lose your salvation no matter how bad you are. On the other hand, if you were not chosen, you cannot get salvation no matter how good you are. Even believing in and accepting Jesus won’t save you! (Why? Because you were not chosen, and thus according to L, you’re gonna burn!)

Well, I hope this has cheered you up no end!

Were you chosen? How do you really know? I feel it you reply. Sorry, salvation by feeling saved is not an option in this Calvinist framework.

Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die ...

There is a groundswell movement in the United States of people coming out of the closet.

However, it is not the gay closet, but rather the closet of literal Bible belief or a belief in strict theism.

Many are using the “coming out” language of the gay community, to describe the process of admitting to themselves, their friends and their family that they can no longer accept an inerrant and infallible Bible.

It is easy for more fundamentalist believers to class these folk as heretics, rebels and backsliders.

However, their stories tell a different story. It is often a story of intense struggle and fear of ostracism from friends, family and, of course, church. Coming out can mean a serious threat to their social connections and even their family life.

The stories usually begin in the same way: a questioning of the literal truth of the Bible and of creationist teachings. Why is it that Genesis chapter one portrays man and woman being created after the animals; whereas Genesis two sees the animals created after the man and before the women?

Nit-picking over minor matters some will say. However, when these “minor matters” (these contradictions) multiply themselves throughout the Bible text, it is difficult to turn a blind eye no matter how much sophistry is employed to explain them away.

Another initial cause of disquiet is the portrayal of God in what is called the “Old Testament”. Literally millions are slaughtered by God or at God’s behest.  The “God so loved the world…” of John 3:16 seems strangely incompatible with what some see as tales of genocide.

Next, the Bible’s presentation of moral accountability seems anything but moral. A person can live a life of giving, self-sacrifice and love for their neighbour, but a failure to believe in Jesus will see them roast in hell for eternity.

On the other hand, a treacherous, murderous, thieving sod can make a last minute confession of faith and live in heaven forever and always.

The person coming out of the bible believing closet has heard the well-rehearsed arguments against these problems more times than they care to remember. But, there comes a day when those arguments seem hollow and threadbare.

Many simply stay and sit uncomfortably in the pew. Admitting their true beliefs is seen as too high a cost to pay.

I believe for every drop of rain that ...

I believe in God.

But ultimately that which I call God is beyond names and forms – beyond all human conceptualizations.

 All God talk is but metaphorical. All bible and church dogma is but a cage to shut out the experience of the ultimate.

God talk is necessary, but must be seen for what it is – a human invention – metaphors for the inexpressible.

I do not believe the bible is the inerrant, infallible, inspired word of God.

I do believe it is a human product – an historical record (sometimes glorious and sometimes inglorious) of peoples’ conceptualizations of God.

I am not an atheist. I admit ignorance about many things.

I am a moderate mathematician, a linguist, and a lover of general relativity and quantum physics. But I know the more I know, the more I realize I don’t know.

I have read the Bible many times. Some parts thrill me (e.g 1 Corinthians 13) and others fill me with utter disgust (Leviticus 25: 44-46).

I believe that (in my metaphorical God talk) that all people (color, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation … even fundamentalists) are welcome at God’s table.

I believe that the only things that really count are love, our common humanity, and the mystery that we choose to call God.

Smile when your heart is aching, smile even though it's breaking ....

Usually my posts are light hearted. This one isn't ... well not entirely.

Recently, I had an attack of severe depression and anxiety. This lead to feelings of utter hopelessness, and complete despair.

I was hospitalized for two and a half weeks.

Thanks to to the wonderful staff at the Taharoto Clinic and their associated organization who provide me a wonderful counselor,  and the support of so many many fantastic friends I am making a very good recovery.

I can't name everyone, so it is probably best not to start, in case I leave someone out (you know who you are and my love for you). But I must mention my Cousin Gordon who rang for an ambulance.

I must also mention the fabulous support of AUT University, who employ me.

Thanks also to JK (John Kirwin) and his campaign.

and to Charlie Chaplin (Music) and (John turner Lyrics)   SMILE Vocals M. Jackson

I share this personal account, just in case any of my readers also struggle with depression and/or anxiety.

Please, please seek help, share with a trusted friend, see your doctor if necessary and never, never, never give up or be ashamed!

There is help!