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 !

Lots of questions, assurances . but no answers

This weeks sermon - all part of the doctrinal durge on hot air .
Aware that they need a new tack for the same old same old scare over hot air, the ABC call for the highest authority - a book and an overseas expert .( so much for their respect for our own scientists)
Naturally the new bod is as "coola s acucmber" because the audience are now ( because of the incompetent media meddling of the wannabe scaries) wary of hot air talk by hot air talkers .
Lea Sales questions to the latest guru on hot air were very good, but point is - there were no real answers, because there is no real commitment to cut on the edge , (TOO much ABC head led CA's , unlike SBS , where the audience talk freely) .
Nothings changed - only more "trust us".( we chose the bloke and we think when confidence is low - read a book?? Sorry read both the book AND the journal AND the workplace )
The problem is of course bigger than the ABC . The degradation of science for science sake to science for politics sake means many of those who don't play the pipers tune are out of the loop now and in no talk mode . ( they are usually also too busy working too, unlike some roman toga tories )
Lea 's energies would be better spent addressing the cutting edge issue under this sore. the politicization(especially result focused) of science in austaralis . The low % of scientists who can cite stuff on these new gas and wind studies is quite understandable. Carries no weight with those of us who don't limit our knowledge base to the years we spent at University. That would be dumb!
the 2 augurs -

Fear Not

FEAR YES For I bring you bad tidings of great worry which shall infect the whole 774 listenership.
I worry about those who worry , and I worry about those who worry others with their worries - esp if they are unwarranted fears based on ignorance and arrogance -noise to keep us attentive to whats happening in the pulpit

Faine is at it again .This time he's worried about water.
"May has had its lowest rainfall for oh oh so long ' Brumby is coming in after 9 to solve this problem "
Next month, when it rains, it will be "landslides in the catchments" --one presumes . now there is the worry .For your information, the only time to review water restrictions ( seeing Faine doesn't know) in Victoria is in November .

Afraid of raw emotion?

Nothing threatens any healthy church like the lack of serious talk , emotional outbursts or denial . One problem for abcchurch goers seems to be denial - " we never go there" " we just don't do "churchtime" .
Sure its a place most ABC powerpersons never see themselves going to - at least wittingly: but does it stop them sitting there --listening to the high priests and chiming in with the chorus ? Of course not - we all go to church somewhere?

How do THE REAL churches in our communities get people back there each week, without it being boring? How can church be serious and emotionally enjoyable at the same time? Well, let me tell you as one who loves to go , you won't find out by watching the Tv version- you have to go to a service that has both to really know HOW it happens !!

How do they keep doing it - not with threats and serious " danger talk?( like some we know) How do you get that fine balance of serious and smiling, happy to go , and "happy to be there" congregations?

No idea? you say ? - well simply you are not introduced to those types of people on TV ( except perhaps hymns of praise on Sundays and a few whose allegiance and reasonableness is seldom known. -
"I know "--someone might say --"get some modern music and new songs for the ABC"--some NEW choruses of concern. "Dangerous talk mate" ; "What do ou mean ditch the latest scare campaign for yet another????"


Another possible threat to ABCchurch seems to be denial about the possibile goodness or otherwise of emotional stuff . As everyone in the leadership knows, if you allow too much emotion in, you can lose control : the people may not take the old message too seriously - and if we are anything - " we are serious"here at ABCchurch . If we stand for anything- we stand for seriousness.Where does emotion fit with the nee Stoics ?
Why did ABCTV refuse to let Obama tell his story on prime time, featuring instead the predictable and pedantic Mr Smith and Mr Brumby . The high priests can't handle the emotion issue? . No good for a laugh - at least not when threatened by raw emotion

Bullshit- there is a lot of it still ....out there!

"That's what you get outside" the preacher said . There is a lot of it out there influencing our young people even now" "Stop it" she said ( ABCTV qanda) "Throw all those old books in the bin" . The congregation rang out with a loud chorus of " Amen , sister" .
The service started well with a warm greeting to the unbeliever on the extreme right. But it soon deteriorated into a war of words and "I wannabe heard" claims . Even the arts critic ( marcus) couldn't seem to get beyond the politically correct paradigms that ruled from the front .

The OT reading came from the old book of FABIANISM " the only rule is that there are no rules ". This proverb pleased many ; Yes, it was clearly the solution to the aboriginal problem, just as its the solution to all problems .
The gospel reading, from the book of Childrens verse , was read clearly " We should only do as we like " ...."and the same is true of the aborigines". Self determination. A Wonderful , praiseworthy, doctrine
The problem neatly solved, the leaders of the service moved us onto how we could stop the Russians getting to port and the critical argument of the night; "You nedd to accept ; I thought of it first " ( The game created the most angst, did it not ?); who was first one to talk about carbon trading, the audience was asked to weigh in the court of petty chapel .
Really ...Who cares - You can be sure it wasn't a scientist ( there is too much rhetoric and idealism for us detail blokes to speak on that ----as science)

The unbeliever, by this time was clearly restless with the way the condemnation chorus was going; the chants were getter louder and more insistent around the same subject - lack of true faith by others . ( Maybe, just maybe , the reactionaries were not sure where they were going to from here - an apologetic for the day?) Maybe the biggest political problem in our own backyard is , as Jones put it ,the lack of narrative . Come on back to narrative then , you change for changes sake agents ! The revolutionaries, as always, turn out to be moving infront of revolving and reactionary doors.

Focusing on what the opposition are doing is also, not something a growing dynamic church does. Besides, the reality therapy of our lifetime doesn't really help the case. Marxist revolutionaries have, in the name of revolution , done more damage in the last century than the fundamentalists. Sure, Greg says , lets talk fanaticism , if you like - just be aware ....that you may infact show some of it yourself?? Do they have confession time at ABCchurch?

Finally, Bob puts his hand on the shoulder of the unbeliever.
" I'd like to pray for our beloved brother Greg here , that he might ...really, really see the light ; no longer be an unbeliever in what he too, can't see; save him from denial and scepticism about things we all know and believe to be true " .
A church meeting it was, if ever I've seen one. ABCTV QandA Thursday 14th August 2008

Skippers or Flippers - why the inequality, the hypocrisy

Prue and Charlie (ABCTV qanda) were I think quite rightly questioning whether Rudds pontifications about whale eating were a little beyond the pale . Emperors in glass houses should not throw stones .
After all, he can't really do anything about the issue, but he is making the most of sitting on what appears to be the moral high ground . Shaky stuff-speacilly when the top of the food chain takes over his home town and he is forced to kill some of them .
Most importantly for realist idealists is the question whether there is any real practical difference between cutting up our own national emblem and culling any animal at the top of the food chain . Lions do it . Are whales sacred and kangaroos not?

Is the science of meat eating,teeth, temperament and trophism no longer the guiding principle of secularists? How can they be so selective in their "science?"
Sacrificing meat to idols was a big qanda in the 1st century . why in the world should it be one now? . St Paul said the fuss about meat was not a central one so what was a big quanda then became a non issue in the West for 20 centuries ?
Maybe not any more ? . What does it mean when our leader says "we worry" about every whale, when we generally accept careful culling in our own country.
Who would have thought some secularists in 21st century would be worried about eating meat sacrificed to idols?And with the hypocrisy of such a position obviuos to everyone but the emperor himsel . Does it make sense to you?

We make our own meaning

The great high priest, Phillip Adams said it all on Sunday night ABC when he spelt out the above doctrine of meaning . Nothing new, of course, This brilliant sounding piece of doctrine means, at least for one thing , that he won't be insisting that other faiths are not able to take science facts and use them in another mix ..... as he does by calling for meaning out of soup.

ABC church, surely, is a mass of contradictions: While there is some consistency in that familiar note of fanaticism poking out awkwardledy from many of the corners the do what you feel like approach of the lead singers is sounding far too passe ; Can't quite work out how Adams epistemology works--: esp especially when he exorts us "to wonder" at what he says is "not wonderful".

What Adams doesn't seem to realise is that to talk of wonder is to talk of worship . His brilliant sounding Claytons remedy for wonder simply doesn't work -as the history and practice of ideas from Dostyevesky through Polpot , Eugenics and Hitler to the presents day medical mind study shows. If man is a mere animal, all he gets to play is mere animal . Its no fun ! There is no room for evil

While Adams would clearly would like to have his stale old anti celebration cake and eat it too with his preferred kind of icing - he only has steps to play with . You can't be "not religious" and "religious" at the same time . Paradox is part of reality mate - it used to be called dialectic - seems such talk in ABCchurch is heretical.
Adams seems to think we would all like to join a camp with boring old stepups all day .ABC church may be in charge of a few agendas but it doesn't mean the parish is not on the move or just plain fat asleep . Its a camp where everyone must focus only on the stairs - just millions of years of walking upstairs. Adams, like others with their blinkers on, would have us focus on the stairs rather than the view.
His insistence on myopia is as helpful, and as predictable, as his view of science ( or should we say science as the tree god of all knowledge)- Sound good till you come to the stairs questions and all you have is a rather wooden worldview. Still, as a agent of many truths its good to hear Phillip reflect that all WV's have their limits -his comment on the commos at age 15 . Pity he doesn't take the idea further at middle age limits. Forever the chamelion ?

When it comes to WV then ---I prefer mine . I find all his talk of the wonder of the stairs in his deterministic monistry deeply depressing. Not that as a scientist I am against recognising the stairs--its just that, unless I am mistaken, there is still some possibility that all the stairs are not the same are still very many missing and most scientists within all the branches , would probably not thank him for building bridge where there aren't any yet. Give me wondering how we could get here to such a wonderful view , over the moronic and meaningless worship of mere stairs. Every stair is , according to him, exactly the same . Some engineer- the bloke who invented that stair- what am i saying ............smack! We are in church!


As a scientist i know there are some stairs but I wouldn't be silly enough to say that each one is all down to a simple legup force. Feedback loops are just as important in the progress of any process of growth . I will reserve my judgement of the mechanics of natural selection till we know a little more about them

Personally I like to focus on 3 aspects of the same thing- I am a kind of trinitarian. My WV involves the stairs , the material the stairs are made of , as well as the view from the stairs. All part of the same unity regarding the world I find myself in - Its simply wonderful if you take enough time and thought to allow the big picture to take over. One wonderful fact, is of course, that HOWever it happened , We are here NOW to WITNESS It!