reads.crowth.net - Latest Comments

Re: Doctor, Who’s Gary Seven?

Dan Patrick — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:48:14 -0000

Here is something else that I noticed about the Assignment: Earth episod of STOS. At the very end both Captain Kurk and Spock knew everything there was to know about Gary Seven and his escapaids with Roberta: "All we can say is your going to have a very interesting life together...". Whats up with that? I do see the similarities in the servo and sonic screwdriver. I think someone made a big fuss to NBC network exec's and a show that was in the exec's mind a big risk, the show was canceled and we were left with the big loss.

Re: My religion too

rich — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:22:24 -0000

Thanks for saying so. I really need to think of something to write a decent new entry about. Tumblr has micro-blogged my mind to bitesized thoughts, and you can't really blog a script. Thanks for taking the time to read though :)

Re: My religion too

Gill — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:16:11 -0000

I liked reading this :).

Re: With or without my muse

Iain Broome — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:45:59 -0000

Marvellous stuff, Crowth, as ever. Thanks for the support etc.

Re: My religion too

rich — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:57:23 -0000

Neutrality: I think it is possible for children to be raised to be largely neutral, yes. I think it's easy peasy lemon squeezy. Unless of course you're going to indoctrinate them, in which case they've got little or no chance. As this is approach is inherent in Christian practice, all we could ensure is the restriction of public places of worship and institutions of religious instruction to adults only.

Boundaries: Religion, as you say, "makes a positive claim to cover all of life". To everyone who isn't religious, that claim is an utterly negative one. Thus, religion should be confined to the lives of the religious, and not be allowed to spill over into the lives of the non-religious.

Revelation: You're puzzled that I say Christianity is 'founded' on revelation? Are you kidding me? How did Moses learn the Ten Commandments? God told him. How did Paul find Jesus? He appeared to him in a blinding vision. What did he have to say about it...?

But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

(Galatians 1:11-12)

Believe me, I really don't enjoy teaching the Bible to anyone, not even Christians themselves, but you left me no choice.

You say you think you have non-revelatory reasons to believe that revelatory claims are true. Please, indulge me. But consider first that if you could successfully convince me of non-revelatory reasons to believe revelatory claims, that would then beg the question as to what purpose faith serves if there are evidentially compelling reasons to accept the legitimacy of religious beliefs. Who needs faith when you've got proof? If the claims of revelation were self-evidently true, why did they have to be supernaturally revealed in the first place?

Faith: "Christianity adds God's agency as necessary in bringing a person to faith." I suppose my response would simply be that faith is in and of itself unnecessary, thereby removing the necessity for God's agency.

People who do think faith is necessary are welcome to it. They know where to go and what books to read. All I originally argued was that the religious should practise their religion in their homes and their places of worship; not in schools and not by proselytising it. I recognise the difficulties in that given that many Christians take their missionary imperative to spread the Word quite seriously, but if they carry on doing so more people like me are simply going to start objecting. Oh look, we already are.

Re: My religion too

xyg — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:23:48 -0000

I think if i might sum up the 'blank slate' thing - we agree that children inherit beliefs without reasons, and that having reasons would be preferable. I think you're saying that raising children to be largely neutral until they can decide is possible: I think it's not. (neutrality seems like a positive position to me). If such neutrality is indeed impossible, then some sort of agenda must be involved - we can expect endless disagreements here.

The 'spewing over into other areas' happens in a different sense with religion. Applied to, say, naturalism, it simply means that naturalism has gone past its own warrant (it simply doesnt do what people try to make it do). Religion, contrastingly, makes a positive claim to cover all of life, so I don't think we can draw a line around its boundaries without circularity.

I'm still puzzled that you say Christianity is 'founded' on revelation. The content of Christianity is certainly given in revelation, but we do need (and, I think, have) non-revelatory reasons to believe that this particular purported revelation is indeed what it claims to be.

You call the 'human-dependent model' "wholly dependable for so many humans": from an atheistic perspective, I completely agree. I only mentioned it because Christianity adds God's agency as necessary in bringing a person to faith, but I don't want to beg the question either way.

Finally, the 'personal aspect of faith' - I didn't mean that faith is wholly personal, just that Christianity makes universal claims, to which we must respond as individuals.

Re: My religion too

rich — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:20:40 -0000

Firstly, your numbered list of problems with my objections to what I choose to call 'indoctrination' relate to the complications which trouble me. You are not wrong, the implementation of anti-indoctrination measures would be so fraught, so contentious, that it remains far-off fantasy.

Still, responses :

1) Why would everyone end up making the same choice? People convert all the time having been raised non-religiously, or in another faith to the one they finally settle on as adults. People do decide. It's not too far from the way we are, it's the way many of us are right now.

2) I don't advocate a 'blank-slate'. I advocate an equally filled slate. Learn about all world views as a child, be permitted to enter into and practise the belief system of your choice as an adult. Many people already have this kind of experience in life. It is far from impossible.

3) If a child, having learnt about religion in general, begins to lean towards one, and begins to practise devotion in their own personal way, then fine. If that personal conviction remains strong come adulthood, they can put it into practice in communal worship when they come of age.

4) People do die. So let's be sensible and as in other spheres of life, draw the line at some point, just after the end of puberty perhaps.

None of these measures would stop individuals from forming their own religious tendencies as children. They would however be prevented from attending services of communal worship, or receiving formal religious instruction, until they reached a given age of maturity, vaguely in line with the cultural norms for other post-adolescent rites of passage.

This would be almost impossible to implement in contemporary society, and I of course am aware of the many aspects of religion in which children are currently highly involved. Even setting that aside, religious parents would continue to religiously instruct their children even if they were unable to receive formal instruction at a place of communal worship or faith school. Of course, nothing could or should be done about this. What happens in the home, happens in the home. You could only do so much.

To re-iterate, you're right, these are far-off fantasies. But not so very far off, and not for the reasons you state. They are far-off fantasies because they would be deemed to violate religious freedoms by interfering with religious practices which involve children and require that believers impart beliefs and world views to their offspring. But it is not 'impossible', it is simply implausible to believe such a policy could be implemented in this cultural climate. If we could abolish faith schools by the middle of this century, that alone would be an incredible leap forward.

In brief response to your other points. You say:

I have nothing against naturalist/humanist principles per se, in that they seem like good principles which have their domains of application. My problem is when they spill over into other areas

Similarly, my problem with religion is when it spills over into other areas. In a multi-faith, publicly secular society, the private, personal practice of religion becomes ever more important. Christianity's insistence on it being the one true path to God, and God being a universally essential ingredient in life makes some degree of conflict (as opposed to coexistence) all but inevitable.

I think you may need to clarify your views on the 'supposed science/faith conflict' for me. It is not something I see as being an issue, perhaps in the same way you may not see Christianity's central dependency on sovereign, revealed and supreme truth as being an issue. I'm unable to overlook the fact that at the end of Christianity's long road is a (revelatory and thus) 'faith-based assumption' which I see as quite distinct from all other aspects of human experience and is (as you seem to agree in your supplementary comment) "personal". In this, you seem to readily overlook the fact that the "wholly human-dependent model" is wholly dependable for so many humans. The "personal aspect of faith" is unnecessary to many and with it being personal, I'm confused by your decision to share it with me in such a discussion. It seems only to illuminate the overall argument of my original article and subsequent responses.

Re: My religion too

xyg — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:08:18 -0000

From a Christian perspective, I would also suggest that the wholly human-dependent model of:

1) gather evidence
2) evaluate
3) decide

is misleading - it ignores the personal aspect of faith, which in Christian terms, is that God must work to bring people to faith - our own effort isn't enough.

Of course this begs the question for the time being, but I thought it would be worth adding.

Re: My religion too

xyg — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:59:59 -0000

Sorry, I wasn't being very clear. I have nothing against naturalist/humanist principles per se, in that they seem like good principles which have their domains of application. My problem is when they spill over into other areas. An obvious example is supposed science/faith conflict - excepting people who have a faith, and hence a need to reconcile it with science, I think the overwhelming view of society is that the two are indeed incompatible. I don't want to judge that issue, but only to point out that whatever the outcome, the question is one of interpreting science, not of applying the scientific method. In any case I don't think the obscurity of the channels I'm looking for is a particular problem (think 'socratic fallacy').

I'm not sure how 'faith-based assumption' differs from just 'assumption' in your usage - sorry if I get the wrong end of this stick. Assuming there is a difference, I think once we get onto the revelatory content of faith, we are indeed assuming God, and perhaps also a universal need to 'get to' God. But it doesn't follow that belief in God is a matter of (blind) faith - only that the issue comes prior to any talk of revelatory content. In this sense, the distinction between religious/naturalistic claims breaks down somewhat.

I totally agree that you can't make a choice until you can make a choice. But it seems very idealistic to assume that people can remain entirely neutral 'blank slates' until they are ready to choose (and come to think of it, when are we ever completely ready? When we know everything? When we know that we know everything? Or when our faculties are somehow 'fully mature'? Who's going to draw this line?). I think we agree in that in an ideal world, children would remain entirely neutral, ripen, and then make a completely impartial decision based on the evidence. But I think there are a few considerations which make this just a far-off fantasy:

1) It looks like everyone would end up making exactly the same choice - or admitting they can't decide. This seems too far from the way we are.
2) The whole blank-slate idea is simply impossible
3) I'm not entirely comfortable ignoring the beliefs of children. Sure, they may come to change - but they seem like beliefs nonetheless.
4) People die. There's no reason to assume they'll live long enough to 'mature', or for that matter that anyone does live that long, or even can.

Re: My religion too

rich — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:35:44 -0000

I think you probably know where my response here will go. If we're talking about truth and falsity, that of course boils down to evidence. Faith, while often cited by the believer as proof in and of itself, is not compelling to the non-believer. If it does, as you say, ultimately hinge on truth or falsity, the burden of proof rests on the shoulders of the faithful.

This distinction also informs my understanding of naturalist/humanist advocacy. I do not personally think of myself as a naturalist or humanist and I'm uncertain as to the methods and channels through which you suggest society advocates these perspectives. This does not mean to say I disagree with your point, it may be the case that because a naturalist/humanist perspective is unobjectionable to my thinking, that I do not notice any bias.

However, neither naturalism nor humanism make any revelatory claims. While philosophies and religions overlap, they are quite distinctive in their claims to sovereignty over the truth. Religion makes certain assumptions, illustrated more than adequately by the first comment :

Christians believe they have a ’sure and certain hope’ of achieving eternal life through Jesus making them right with God. They also believe that there is no other way to get to God.

The faith-based assumption made here is 'God', and also the assumption that anyone wants to, or should want to, 'get to God'.

I'm still uncertain as to society's advocacy of naturalism or humanism, but even if that were the case I do not believe there is a similar parallel to be found in advocacy of such perspectives. Revelation is quite unique in that way.

When you say that it "seems unfair that society restricts ‘indoctrination’ to the ‘private/family sphere’, then criticises it when it actually happens" I am inclined to agree that it does seem unfair, yes. My concern is simply that of children being brought up not simply to know about Christianity, but to believe in it's sovereign, revelatory truth from a young age. This is a complicated area which troubles me, but my final thought on it will always be that religion should be a sphere entered into by the adult, not imposed upon the child.

Re: My religion too

xyg — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:38:39 -0000

Surely when we've boiled away the politics, the issue is simply that Christianity makes claims that are either true or false? Granted, you can't decant the feelings from the faith (and who would want to?), but it seems to me that whether evangelism is compassionate or conceited hinges ultimately on the truth or falsity of what you're preaching.

Society presently has no qualms in advocating a sort of naturalist/humanist perspective and assuming its acceptance by everyone - children included. I don't mean this in a 'you do it so we'll do it too' way- I just mean that Christians (it seems) may present the gospel to children IF ONLY to work against this bias already present in society. It seems unfair that society restricts 'indoctrination' to the 'private/family sphere', then criticises it when it actually happens. This is to say nothing of the positive reasons Christians have for sharing their faith.

I hope this is the other end of your stick, and not a different stick altogether...

Re: My religion too

rich — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:30:37 -0000

Thank you kindly for your considered response.

Of course, I did not mean to suggest that I was a Christian in the sense that you clearly are. This is why I offered the comparison (not perfect, but illustrative) of the difference between a practising Jew and a 'secular Jew'. It's the cultural baggage of Christianity which I carry and am alluding to, not actual Christian devotion.

However, at a young age, just such devotion was insisted upon me. My worship of a god I had no comprehension of was achieved through the imposed singing of hymns, the recitation of the Lord's Prayer, and indeed the absorption of the Christian holy book under the tutelage of clergy, representatives of Christian organisations, and the Christian staff of a secular state school. To you such practises may be superficial, and not representative of "what makes you Christian", but they made me more Christian than I would wish to have been made.

I tried to make only a brief mention of my baptism. I spent more time exploring my childhood exposure to Christianity, sought by Christians, like you, who wanted simply to share their experience with others (specifically, with children). You say that "becoming Christian is a choice you make yourself" and accordingly it is my wish that this being the case, the decision to explore Christianity should be left up to the adult and not required of the child.

You draw a distinction between those elements of your religion which I categorise as generally Christian, and the authenticity of being "right with God". This distinction is understandably very important to you, but irrelevant to me. Setting aside the "over-zealous "religious" Christians" whom, I concede, make life harder for the more moderate tendencies of traditionally British Christianity, your desire to 'share' is still something you might give more thought to.

To you, sharing your faith is a natural, kind, caring and compassionate thing to do. To me it is an unwelcome, selfish, arrogant and presumptuous thing to do.

You have made too much of my use of the word 'win'. There are 'over-zealous' Christians who see themselves very much in competition with other faiths, and indeed the devil with whom they identify those faiths. But I am also perturbed by the far subtler proselytising tendencies present in your own thinking. The same psychological mechanisms by which fundamentalists justify their zealotry are also present in your own far more moderate tendencies.

You say: "Imagine if you believed, truly believed, that you had found the only way to give your life meaning...", but I cannot imagine being so truly arrogant.

I am not getting the wrong end of the stick. I am hearing from you the same tired old rationalisations of Christianity's missionary imperative for proselytisation, rationalisations justified by quotations from the very same holy book I have spent my entire life having quoted at me though never once having asked to hear it. When I was a child, I had no choice. As an adult, all I would ask is that you share amongst yourselves.

Re: My religion too

Clare — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:51:49 -0000

Sorry - I didn't finish that in time. This is the real comment:

"I’m a Christian. I was baptised into the Church of England." - Illustrates a large amount of the problem with England being a 'Christian nation'. Being baptised at a young age does not make you a Christian. Having a Christian family does not make you a Christian. Going to church, reading the Bible, does not make you a Christian.

You are a Christian if you believe Jesus died so you have a way to be right with God, accept this, accept you are part of the reason Jesus had to die, admit there's no way you could achieve a right relationship with God by yourself, ask for His forgiveness and live accordingly.

Yes, many Christians were baptised as infants. Personally I don't agree with infant baptism but that's another topic entirely. Becoming a Christian is a choice you make yourself, and yes - many Christians attend church, read the Bible, have Christian families, etc etc etc. But this is secondary to the above paragraph; this is a result of being a Christian. It is not what makes you a Christian.

And this is where (thanks Henry VIII) the Church of England being so integrated into British society becomes a problem, not just for non-Christians who object to one religion taking the prominence, but for Christians, who cannot extricate other people's preconceptions about the church from the reality. 'Church' in the Biblical sense of the word (in the original Greek the word is 'ekklesia', literally 'gathering') is whenever any two or more Christians meet together in God's name. It is not Anglican, Methodist, Baptist. It is church - it is God's people meeting to encourage each other and build each other up in their faith. The laws of Britain are based on Biblical values. There are still far, far more C of E schools than Islamic, Hindu, Jewish, etc schools. But Christianity itself is not the same as government. It is not a set of rules.

The Anglican church, globally in 2008, is growing fastest in Africa, and slowest in Britain.

"The reason Christianity finds itself at the sharp end of so much criticism and ridicule is because Christians have made and still make every effort to bring their faith to the attention of all, to make it such an unavoidable part of all our lives in the hope they might win more converts."

-Christians believe they have a 'sure and certain hope' of achieving eternal life through Jesus making them right with God. They also believe that there is no other way to get to God - 'all religions lead to God' is, from a Christian viewpoint, simply not true. Imagine if you believed, truly believed, that you had found the only way to give your life meaning and to avoid the anger of the one who created you, created the universe, and now sees you ignore all that and concentrate, instead on him, on earthly things and values. Would you not want to share this with others? Jesus told his followers to spread the message of Christianity worldwide, and whilst I admit that there are many people (ahem, mainly Americans) who take it way too far, to the point where they succeed only in putting people off, many Christians are genuinely concerned for their friends and family and want only to introduce people to the God they know and have a relationship with.

The use of the phrase 'win more converts' is again an example of people getting the wrong end of the stick, due to media, films, books, the government, and over-zealous "religious" Christians. Christianity is not about 'winning' people from other religions. It's not about having more people in church than anyone else. It's not about dominating Parliament or the law of the land. It is about being forgiven, and about sharing that with other people, on a personal level, out of compassion.

No Christian can possibly 'win converts' because nothing a Christian, or for that matter anybody, does can make them right with God. God does everything for us - no Christian will get more 'treasures in heaven' than another. Whether somebody converts one person or thousands, no one Christian is any better or worse than another. All Christians are saved through the same death, on the same cross, by the same God, and there is absolutely no basis in this to stick anyone into heirarchies. 'Winning' isn't part of it.

A large part of Christianity is thankfullness - it's people's motivation to live like it matters, to obey the Bible's guidelines, to tell others about God - the Bible says "I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." And that's the important thing. It's not about indoctrination.

Re: Godless mishmoshery

rich — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:57:03 -0000

I don't think there's enough of me to go around.

Re: Godless mishmoshery

Shannon — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:04:20 -0000

It's funny that you take offense to your name decreasing in popularity. Whenever I meet another Shannon, I feel strange emotions of resentment - as if they had personally stolen my name from me.

Re: Sheffield : An Education

rich — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:52:59 -0000

Is that right? My apologies. I was going by a comment made on Sheffield Forum in 2006 :

http://www.sheffieldforum.c...

About a third of the way down the page a Mr Bridger mentions that his "wife is ex-Wisewood sixth form". I assumed he would know where his own wife went to school.

I suppose then that Wisewood would be the one school in Sheffield that didn't have a sixth form prior to the 1980s?

Thanks for the correction. When did you attend Wisewood?

Re: Sheffield : An Education

CornfedPig — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:32:08 -0000

Wisewood School never had a sixth form.

Re: InjuryTw@ts4uckU

rich — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 01:34:43 -0000

Scott, is that your hero-worship?

Re: InjuryTw@ts4uckU

a B22 Shocker — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 20:59:08 -0000

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

richard you're my hero

Re: Gadgets, vanity and anything but this

rich — Mon, 28 May 2007 17:11:24 -0000

Continuing my habit of being the only one (apart from Stu and Iain, thanks Stu and Iain) who comments on my blogs, I would like to bring your attention to this article, by one of my new favourite people, Charlie Brooker. You should read all his other articles too. And watch Screenwipe on BBC4. Or YouTube.

Re: Andy and his pastel colour queue jumper

stu — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 12:33:51 -0000

I've queued up for some things in my time. To sort my ISA out, to get a tax disc, for a go on the Pepsi Max Big One etc, but the worst queue I've ever endured was the fifteen mile long abbhorrence that greets every visitor arriving in The Greatest Nation in the Entire World.

My experience at JFK was pre 9-11, O'Hare post. But JFK was more worser by far. You stand in a queue in a concrete tunnel watching continents drift by, waiting patiently to be greeted by a fat woman behind a counter who spits down your front, calls you a limey fag, stamps your passport and tells you to fuck off but also have a nice day as well.

A horrible experience. And you've got that all to come yet. As I would say - as proved by the fact that I currently am actually in the process of saying it - it's a travesty.

I think it should be recognised that you've already proved yourself worthy of visiting The Bestest Nation in the Whole of All Known Univii when you visited their embassy, and therefore should be able to ponce through customs without any resistance whatsoever.

At the very least, if you're queuing at the airport and Sir Father Lieutenant Lord Very Reverend His Lloyd Webberwank Technicolour Dreamtwat swans past you, you should be legally entitled to deliver a stout kick to one of his tits without the bother of being wrestled to the ground by a state trooper and ending up with a stint in Chino.

Re: Gadgets, vanity and anything but this

rich — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 18:02:37 -0000

The first minute of this made me chuckle. If you've read the post you'll get why....

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Shatner Addresses The Latest Star Trek XI Rumor - 3/26/07
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