De ja vu

Some ABC Journos might this week get a bit worried when their own wisdom reflects the reactionary and finally island like logic of Margaret Mead this week See here quickfiz.blogspot.com


One thing many Journos refuse to believe about themselves is that they are religious. They see themselves as anything but . Does it take one to know one? There is none so blind as one who  'sees ' the problem in another, but not see it in themselves . Alternatively , maybe there is something in the water out there ?


This  perspective does not come from those journos call  "religious"  but those who study the human condition .

The old foggies at qanda want to watch out for those prepared to question

qanda tonight .

Did you notice the young geek who dared to speak heresy in church last night - couldn't close him down even with an angry boy. (" don't look at me" the blessed saint of ABC gen Y said)
The Heretic used that word Liberal, and without hestitation qualification or cynicism  - and the congregation's mouths dropped - how dare he !  The point is,  he wasn't advocating one party over another , just truth telling and proper scientific discussions - something  that ABCTV will go into history celebrating kindergarten level engagement on. 

Guilt,Original Sin, Denial and Redemption are back

Careless theologians might celebrate that , at last , the ABC has brought Guilt,Original Sin and Denial are back into  the conversation . Perhaps not so much the word "guilt ", but certainly the feeling of it. The PM qanda and Broadcasters  preach righteousness with an urgency unheard of in their youth .  The feeling is clearly that we are all sinners and carry a burden of guilt ..... it is  in the headlines and the words of our leaders ." its the right thing to do " "should "

BUT ,Like the worst kind of church  its the kind of sermon where the sinners are outside and the righteous are inside . The righteous being absolved by riding bikes and recycling rubbish. The members inside claim those outside are in denial of the truth ..... but who knows . The real truth maybe not said - denied or hidden. It could be that the insiders are higher up some righteous ladder but who would know ? Who cares and why ?

But no reason for complacency or ignoring the facts -  penance is no substitute for proper payment .  The big theological question is not how much I sin compared to how much you sin ( typical cheap grace scenario)  but whether by breathing or farting, we all sin.
The reality is if carbon dioxide is the worry they say it is , we are all in the shit as it were .Original Sin is back - with a vengeance.  and its return is  making people nervous about all sorts of things they weren't previously worried about - like eating meat and killing animals. If footprint is the issue , then we all share the blame . As for guilt ,you don't hear the word ,but you smell in in the wind .
The popularity of the carbon tax is understandable in this moral context . But is the CT a substitute tax , a token  or a proper payment or purchase or redeeming tax? One thing is clear ; there is a lot of tokenism is the temple taxes,  and not much true reconciliation- of who pays.
Whatever happened to the Liberals love , not of temple tax,  but "user pays" - much more truly liberal in philosophy , substance and sustainability.
Good theology would for clarity sake say,  clearly  that , while original sin exists , the only way to tackle sin productively is to target particular sins and pay the full cost price for each of them  ( only suspect economists advertisers and polys would say otherwise .....but they appear to have their sway)  . A CT will not pay full price - its a token tax , and worse still it doesn't target the real sinners - only big sinners will  pay ( whatever that means - biggest thing in town will be environment court) . And while maid Julia's men will rob everyone,  good people will receive a handout and .....bless the pope . ( So like dream,  its not really funny ....is it? )  do ( predictably it is going to build the god of government ) but which more prerogative and focused taxes like full taxes have been doing ( and should still do )
The real test of a good tax is whether it works to give both  effective use of taxes and yields an acceptable level of reconciliation- but without the high and irrational cost of penance .  The CT is trying to do lots of things ----including plain tokenism and irrational guilt mediation .
More people are going to church though!

At Qandary its always the same old worry warriors

Come together they did for the population sermon on ABCTV  . It wasn't exactly said , but the problem wasn't us and our use of resources , but others outside the church who were creating this huge problem of resource use.
Whatever you think of John Elliot he was right - the way to  reduced abuse of resources is still through economic growth .
Too of the high priests called Bob and Tim haven't studied  economics , so the ABC just didn't go there.
Amazing how much easier it is for the ABC to find something to debate when the pathetic prejudices of people come to light at election time . As always , Qandary started and ended in one.

The Vicars of Dismay

Jennifer Byrne was in some dismay the other day. She invited Hitchens to the lectern , only to find he's preaching heresy . The shock jocks get a real shock - now there's novelty ! Well , according to her anyway he was being heretical ;  she called him racist  .
For many switched off ABC watchers of the past , the lack of encouragement to celebrate life, in purely secular books,  is very noticable.
Hitchens , it seems to me, is honest to his worldview . Jennifer on the other hand , while she's not alone in living in the past ' is holding onto doctrines that just don't stand up to the historical evidence  - specifically - the failure of the modern women's movement to liberate women,  and its partner - secularism and reactionaries failure to inspire anyone but the Stoics .
One only has to look at the very popular but highly reactionary Vicar of Dibley ( and other very popular reality cum fantasy cum comedy  shows) to see how reactionaries, like marxists,  build their case and maintain their momentum ( shock value) by using someone else foundations .
The long term problem for the reactionary position is that doesn't have any sustainability on its own - its somewhat parasitic ( guess why the ABC are not running "The war on Everything Anymore? ) . Dawn French cannot keep up the pretence of being so available without dragging the story down. And  the dumb and stupid people in church  never alone keep one going . The constant tearing down of the foundations leaves little to keep building on .
If you think this careless tearing down of the tough stuff is not happening in the West , observe the failure of secularism to inspire women  and the unconscious way the issue of motivation is now going to be a  key Australian election issue for our culture ( education , migration, influence  and leadership)  In other words, its not just people that threaten us but the very power of their ideas  

Women should leave this church

The more I think about this picture on the wall of the church, the more it makes me sad.
The ABC have been promoting it for ages like it says something significant about good ART .Its rather symbolises the doldrums and cul de sacs in ART .
After all, the men seem to get "the fantasy "bit , while the women get "the heaps of regrets "; and our kids are still stuck in this bad dream in a bigger way than we were.
Tell me I am wrong . If its true, its a crime, and its not fiction .If its true , many men are hypocritical  and are afraid to tell the whole truth .

Too many broken hearts - too many avoidable mistakes. If there was absolution in this church,  they wouldn't have to keep playing this depresssing lament every time we go to worship .
Outside of it , Love can still change everything even when you have failed . Ask the toughest men you have ever met (eg Martin Luther King, Mandella and Ghandi)

All men are not liars, but their little brains don't need much information to present it as an excuse to get what they want (esp the new tricks like contraceptives ,drugs,danger, good times, quickfix ).
Men are not simply two faced about sex and love, they just hide some of their feelings when an nice shape comes along and... they share the same dilemma as most human beings - they don't quite know what they want and how to get it, so when 5 minutes of fun turns up they are tempted to take it.

The important BOTTOM LINE HERE is this FACT:   There isn't a male on the planet who wants to marry a women who gives herself away. If you want you or your daughters to have long relationships you need to face those facts and talk about it more openly - come out!
Whatever happened to the passion of women for their own? You don't have to be a wowser - just clear and ' yes I've changed my mind or,  no its being strong like we need to be " . I used to enjoy the passion of "The coming out show" even though I sensed it was too reactionary and not well targeted enough to drive good practice with the failed sharing practice in many marriages . Of course you can leave , and yes it will make you a better person.
So, men are not by nature the problem . The problem was the sexual freedom argument was too simple, too smart and too much suited our tendency to blame the other person; a simple excuse attractive to rebellious teenagers with more hormone than experience and good sense in their veins.
Time, I say to dig a bit deeper and sing a different chorus. Time to, in practice, structure and place of worship, recognise that men and women are different .Their genes and bodies say so . Time to recognise that we like it that way, so how do we respect each other differences and support each others strengths and weaknesses?
Time for truth and confession in church
If we care about each other, we will know that some kids have no role models in these matters, but they desperately need them . Seeing adults deal with and admit their wrong choices can really help them.
So what if women tend to BE fickle and men to tend to fail to see beyond the logic of the little brain. Women are often more emotional, men more objective . How can we , all so different, build courage and conviction for our children to grow comfortable in old age together.
 We've been watching . "THE GOOD LIFE" , that great old BBC drama, built around lifestyle choices, but whose real strength is in the way 4 very different people learn to live together and stay together to enjoy the next round of potentially life exploding tension . Pamper yourself, enjoy watching a bit of fair fighting. Afterwards,  don't just sit their in the pews  listening to long but very incomplete and same old same old excuses for a good sermon that leaves at least half the congregation without any absolution .

Schooling us in the secular

In recent times we hear the doctrine from the left that there is no room for religion. If they are right ,that just leaves The State - the place where all good lefties now go for succour? No wonder they want us to support their church. Beats tithing !
But with the bureau as your bulwark , perhaps the high ideal of rational thinking would have a more honest scent if it didn't come so strongly now at the taxpayers expense? Why can longer "ideas on their own" be the driving force of change and testing before the people? Why compromise clarity with hype, spin, succour and schooling in the dull class of mere description? Not exactly a home for survival of the fittest??

Similiarly, If Ruse is right, the left may well be wrong to try and make secular the state schools of our countries.
The point is, whatever your worldview , the historic separation of church and state, in power and office terms, seems to work practically in both areas interests. Keeping them both "honest"? Nothing worse for the west, and rational led debate, than mixing such grand metaphors????

The new left wants to assert in some innovative new wave of singularly brilliant category control,but just like the emperors of old, that the only gods are man gods .
Everything good, or perhaps nothing good, will come from going beyond our ultimate faith in ourselves . We made this country it is ours . We must trust ourselves . "We are secular to the core-infact we were meant to be secular to the core"- we are being told .
Standing back , The core of a school is the ideas they present and how convincing those ideas are.

yet we have the credibility of the new left on education NOW completely at stake over their misplaced concreteness in education policy; confusing buildings with building; The education revolution has focused on structure and buildings ; the students on SBS ( maybe SBS could be religious diversity station?) reminded all Australia recently that that sort of talk and priority is unconvincing. If the shell is the substance , abcchurch leaders are clearly missing something. MCluhan wouldn't be confused - neither should any rational person about the dangers of letting the media run the religious campaigns.

The left want to assert the secular nature of education, and they have spent a lot of money to try and make it more so. Trouble is, even their own are not sending their children to secular schools.
So much for the power of ideas, and its place in modern fabian education?

The left once lived on the indipendant means of its own supporters and their ideas . I wonder how long it would survive today if the left didn't have the taxpayers support to tell us what's important, what to do , where to be and where to go to-and NOW to learn.
Maybe there is only one way to learn - do what you are told ? Do what the State says is important !