I have found myself in a real quandary this week as a result of the atrocity committed by the Islamist psychopaths who sought vengeance on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for daring to use satire to question the mediaeval beliefs of their fundamentalist Islam. I have written many essays about the core issues here […]
“What is life?” seems to me to be a very important and fundamental question. The fabulous physicist (and creator of a famous schizophrenic quantum cat) Erwin Schrodinger wrote a non-fiction book with this title. But unlike my explanation, Schrodinger was keen to show how life was dependent on a whole lot of chemical and physical […]
Religious scholars tell us that the notion of heaven or paradise is a relatively recent human idea. Heaven was largely unknown to the characters of the Old Testament. They did not seem to aspire to eternal life in a paradise with God, but in a rather early acknowledgement of Richard Dawkins and “The Selfish Gene” […]
In the early years of the Christian tradition there were two parallel approaches to faith, one was Gnostic and the other was Literalist. This phenomenon has been studied by two academics and spiritual historians Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. They draw the following contrasts between the two approaches. Literalists Literalists teach that the important thing […]
I come from a working class family. My father worked in a very basic blue-collar job. But he and my mother managed their finances well. Apart from the purchase of their house, they never borrowed money. As I recall it, my father was probably sixty years old before the house was paid off. Until late […]
I have written elsewhere that the attribute that most distinguishes human beings from other animals is their consciousness – not only can they think but they are aware of their thinking. This allows the development of what is called the “concept of mind” such that we can imagine others have the same capacity. Biologists and […]
I suspect it is hard for most of us to believe. There is a site in Jerusalem which purports to have high religious significance to both Muslims and Jews. It is variously called Al Aqsa by the Muslim population and The Temple Mount by the Jews. Whatever it is called it has recently been the […]
There is something inherent in human nature that seems to compel most of us to romanticise the past. There are two dilemmas here. To begin with the “good old days” were never as good as we imagined. We seem bound to remember the best and forget the rest! And then secondly the past is not […]
A courtier told Constantine that a mob had broken the head of his statue with stones. The emperor lifted his hands to his head, saying: “It is very surprising, but I don’t feel hurt in the least”. What a wonderful response! In the political correct atmosphere of today he most likely would have taken offense! […]
We have been recently saddened by the passing of Gough Whitlam. I thought this week I would like to share with you some thoughts about his influence and his legacy and how he impacted me personally. We all interpret the world through what I call our “worldview”. Our politics in particular are greatly influenced by […]