On the afternoon of Friday the 19th of November 2010 there was an explosion in Pike River coal mine, 50km north-east of Greymouth, on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Initially I heard mixed reports about how many men were trapped inside. Two managed to crawl out, and eventually it became clear that there were twenty-nine still underground, about two and a half kilometres inside the mine. Nobody yet knows what actually triggered the explosion, but in deep coal mines there’s a lot of methane gas and coal dust, so any source of ignition is a real danger. Tests were done indicating that presence of toxic and flammable gas was still high, and there was a risk of further explosions, so no rescue team was able to be sent in for a number of days.

On Wednesday the 24th November, even as the time frame for when a rescue effort could be made was being discussed, there was a second, enormously larger explosion, certainly ruling out the possibility that these men could have survived. Twenty nine miners lost their lives. Thirteen children are now without a father.

Since then there has been a third blast, but this is more or less irrelevant as far as the fate of these men is concerned. This is a national tragedy and the thoughts and prayers of the nation – and certainly mine – are with the families of those involved.

When I say that it’s a national tragedy, I’m not just talking about the fact that it really is an awful loss for our nation (although of course it is), I’m also talking about the very public phenomenon of treating this like a tragedy. It made front pages everywhere. Outpourings of grief and support are coming from all quarters. The news broadcasts were saturated with the story – and still are. Parliament observed silence to mark the terrible event. It’s appropriate to mourn over this and to make it a tragedy that will be remembered.

I cannot begrudge those who mourn when tragedy strikes. They have a right to mourn. At the same time, it eats away at my respect for our status as a nation of humane people that as a nation we don’t bat an eyelid over the fact that on the day of the first explosion at Pike River, approximately forty-eight babies were killed. By the end of the day of the second explosion, that total had risen to about two hundred and eighty-eight. These were not accidents or workplace hazards. These were mothers who had made the choice to end the life of their unborn children rather than allow them to emerge.

Imagine a mine in New Zealand in which nearly fifty men entered every day, never to emerge alive again. Then imagine that they didn’t emerge because the mine owner made the choice that they wouldn’t. If you have a hard time trying to understand why pro-lifers make such a big deal over abortion, look at what our entire nation did when we lost twenty nine men. Last year abortion claimed over seventeen and a half thousand in New Zealand. The average was just over forty eight per day.

Yes we should mourn for those who are tragically lost – but we shouldn’t leave any out. Every single day is Pike River, and nobody mourns.

UPDATE: Shortly after posting this I became aware of Andy Moore’s excellent blog post on this same theme.

Discount Domains, the company responsible for the extended downtime of this website, blog and podcast in June and July 2010, have walked away from the issue after not providing services paid for by me in regard to this domain, and at the time of writing this entry they have been unwilling to refund me one cent or to consider compensation. They have literally chosen not to reply, so I am taking the opportunity to remind people of what took place.

Interested? Read the rest.

As happens every now and then, the blog is about to come to a screeching halt for a little while

The house that we rent has been sold and the new owners will be moving in on the 17th of December, so we need to be out before then. We haven’t found a new place yet that is suitable and which is even close to being affordable. Time is running out pretty quickly and it’s not yet clear what the next step is, but things are pretty busy at the moment with packing and trying to find a place to go. I’ll be pretty scarce at the blog until we’ve moved.

Glenn

John Dominic Crossan, the late Robert Funk, John Shelby Spong, or New Zealand’s own Lloyd Geering.  All call themselves Christians, none of them believe that God exists (except in some emotive or mythological manner), and all are adamant that Christianity should change. It should give up belief in a personal creator, in myths about miracles, in nonsense about bodily resurrections from the dead, and so on. Christianity must get with the times and become relevant, and in our day and age people just can’t believe in such silliness.

One of the goals of liberal theology is to give Christianity a modern acceptability. People can’t believe in ancient superstitions these days, we are told, but they can believe in “God” if by God we mean the goodness in the world. People can believe in the resurrection of Jesus, if by “resurrection” we mean the survival of (some of) his moral teachings in the lives of his followers, and so on.

These folks don’t want to abandon Christianity, according to them. Not at all. They want to see Christianity get real, they would tell us. They are making the Christian faith credible. Or are they?

Firstly, there’s a rather noticeable pointlessness at work here. Why do these men identify with Christianity? Given what they actually believe, why position themselves in the church? Take their belief that there is no being called God and that Jesus was a wonderful human teacher and nothing more. There already exist religions that teach this – certain forms of Buddhism, for example. What is it that actually distinguishes their view from other views by calling it Christian? Nothing, as far as I can tell.

Secondly there’s a palpable dishonesty at work here too. If you’re going to present ideas, it’s helpful to name them. But if you name them, you need to be conscious of the fact that some names are already taken, and already have meaning. Some of these names are covered by copyright (such as Coca Cola), so you wouldn’t be able to use those, but others aren’t. When you identify as a Christian theologian and say “I believe that God exists and that Jesus rose from the dead,” you’re using terminology and also theological phrases and concepts that have recognisable meaning. In a Christian context there’s an existing understanding of what those concepts are and what those terms mean. God is the being who created the Universe, and Jesus rose from the dead by coming back to life and exiting his tomb. That’s what Christians have always meant when they say those things. But how honest is it to say “I’m a Christian, God exists, and Jesus rose from the dead” when what you actually mean is “I have a healthy respect for the teachings of a man who was no saviour, I believe that there is such a thing as goodness, and Jesus’ teachings still have some relevance for today”? Surely the respectable thing to say is “Look, Christianity is false, there’s no God, but we can still gleam a thing or two from what Jesus said.”

Take John Dominic Crossan. He took exception to the fact that William Lane Craig said that he was an atheist. He insisted that he really did believe in God – provided by “God” we mean a subjective projection of believers onto the universe. Listen as Craig recalls the discussion between the two:

Thirdly, there is no evidence at all that what these people have cobbled together is a version of Christianity that has any “street cred” at all. It is not, as they had hoped, a version that has more secular respectability in the modern world. The very reverse seems to be the case. For one, modern secular minds just aren’t that easily fooled. Marylin Sewell, a retired Unitarian minister, shares much in common with the names listed at the start of this blog entry. She interviewed “new atheist” Christopher Hitchens and put to him the idea that her liberal Christianity would survive the attacks in his book.

Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is a generally fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

Sewell: Let me go someplace else. When I was in seminary, I was particularly drawn to the work of theologian Paul Tillich. He shocked people by describing the traditional God—as you might, as a matter of fact—as “an invincible tyrant.” For Tillich, God is “the ground of being.” It’s his response to, say, Freud’s belief that religion is mere wish fulfilment and comes from humans’ fear of death. What do you think of Tillich’s concept of God?

Hitchens: I would classify that under the heading of Statements That Have No Meaning—At All.

I have no doubt that for people who – for whatever reason – have an emotional or wistful connection to chapels, ecclesiastical robes and moving liturgy but who cannot stomach the perceived balderdash about inconvenient things like God, liberal (or “progressive”) Christianity is perceived as more intellectually respectable and credible. But those on the outside are a little more discerning and quite frankly aren’t this easily duped. However wrong they might be, they are not uniformly stupid. The genuinely honest and self respecting thing would be to stop receiving the church salary or pension, stop using its land, buildings and resources, admit that you reject Christianity outright and be done with it. Do something a little less duplicitous with your life. Start your own religion if you must, but face the fact that a more respectable version of religion is not what you have created.

Eugene Genovese’s reaction is perfectly understandable:

I would not presume to tell Christians how to be Christians, but I must confess that I cannot understand how Christians, without ceasing to be Christians, can retreat one inch from a belief that Jesus is the second person of a triune God, the Christ, the redeemer. If other religions offer equally valid ways to salvation and if Christianity itself may be understood solely as a code of morals and ethics, then we may as well all become Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, or, better, atheists. I intend no offense, but it takes one to know one. And when I read much protestant theology and religious history today, I have the warm feeling that I am in the company of fellow nonbelievers.

Eugene D. Genovese “Marxism, Christianity and Bias in the Study of Southern Slave Society,” in Bruce Kuklick and Darryl G. Hart (eds), Religious Advocacy and American History (Eerdmans, 1997), 90.

Thinking that you’ll appeal to secular thinkers this way is a bit like me thinking I’ll start attracting men if I become a cross dresser. I promise you: It wouldn’t work.

As you might know, although he seems to have a lot to say about how bad the arguments for God’s existence are, Richard Dawkins has always refused the open offer from William Lane Craig to have a debate on the subject. Well, I just spotted this on William Lane Craig’s Facebook page:

I am currently in Mexico to participate in a conference called Ciudad de las Ideas, which is a conference modeled on the TED conference in the US.  It features lots of high tech people, sociologists, psychologists, economists, scientists, etc.

As part of the conference they´re having a panel of six of us debate on the question ¨Does the Universe Have a Purpose?¨  Well. to my surprise, I just found out that one of the three persons on the other side is Richard Dawkins! It´s true! I met him the other night.  When he came my way, I stuck out my hand and introduced myself and said, I’m surspised to see that you’re on the panel.

He replied, And why not?

I said, ¨Well, you’ve always refused to debate me.

His tone suddenly became icy cold. I don´t consider this to be a debate with you.  The Mexicans invited me to participate, and I accepted.¨ At that, he turned away.

¨Well, I hope we have a good discussion,¨ I said.

I very much doubt it,¨ he said and walked off.

So it was a pretty chilly reception!  The debate is Saturday morning, should you think of us.  I´ll give an update after I get back.

This should be very interesting!

In my lunch breaks I’m reading through Erik Weilenberg’s book Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe. In an earlier post, “Do Moral Facts Not Require an Explanation?” I commented on Wielenberg’s claims about moral facts not requiring any explanation.

When I first got the book, I first turned to the second section, which addresses the claim that atheism provides no basis of moral fact (yeah I know, I peeked). In “Confusing the Good and the Right” I commented on on the way that the book rather obviously confuses the idea of goodness with rightness. Now that I have begun reading the book from the beginning, I note that the first section of the book (there are five sections in total) likewise proceeds on the basis of a mere confusion of terms.
Interested? Read the rest.

Hey everyone, I hope you’re enjoying the warm New Zealand weather (or if you’re in the northern hemisphere, this is a great time for a holiday!).

I’ll be away for a few days. We’re flying up to Auckland to be at my little sister’s wedding, coming home on Sunday the 7th of December. Don’t mess the place up while I’m gone!