大象传媒

is well worth a read.

It's not a creationist book (in case anyone was wondering), but it does draw out the moral implications of Darwinism. Pretty irrefutable stuff, and well worth a read for anyone interested in the ethical implications of a philosophy.

LSV, evolutionary theory is not a philosophy - a point stressed by Darwin himself.

My book at the moment is *still* . Beautiful but Really Hard for a wee lad like me. I've previously written about my late Spring fave, "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ" by Philip Pullman (since July was a bit rubbish, does that count as summer?). And I'm currently trying to get my 8 year-old captivated like I was (admittedly at 11) by .

[Mind you, I still have a review to write of "Should Christians Embrace Evolution, N.C. Nevin Ed. Be warned - it will not be favourable.]

:-)

At the moment I am reading "Shadow of the Silk Road" by Colin Thubron and would highly recommend it (along with all his other travel writing). It is as if he is taking you on his travels with him, he writes not just about what he sees but people that he meets on his journeys, and the stories they have to tell. "Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner" by James Hogg is a fantastic book as well.

Dear God, can we please not start yet another thread on evolution/creationism. If ever there you need a definition of pointless that's it.

I'm reading Wuthering Heights which I'm enjoying. For those who like exciting teen reads - "Time Riders" by Alex Scarrow is good. About time travel and the Nazis - Godwin's law doesn't apply. Also "Gone" by Michael Grant about a town where everyone over fifteen disappears in an instant and a Lord of the Flies scenario develops.

Rereading "Conversation with Christ: Teaching of St.Teresa of Avila About Personal Prayer" by Peter Thomas Rohrbach, now a classic introduction to meditation. And a group of us are reading St Teresa of Avila's Life by herself - part of five year preparation for the 500th anniversary of St Teresa'a birth.

mccamleyc (@ 4) -

Dear God, can we please not start yet another thread on evolution/creationism. If ever there you need a definition of pointless that's it.

Read Sewell's book, which I mentioned in #1, and you'll never dare make another comment like that, I can assure you!

Pointless this topic most definitely is not, when you understand the moral implications (and you of all people, being a Catholic, as Sewell is, would understand that).

about the book from the Catholic Herald, for your interest.

logica - didn't mean to pick on you or question your judgment - just that you know the way evolution/creationism threads can go. I'll check out that link.

Instead of reading a book about the twisted moral implications of a scientific theory, try reading about the history of the world and seeing just how religion has perverted more good intentions and resulted in far more crimes than Darwin's idea ever did or could.

I'm a science geek myself, and addicted to fiction I'm afraid, so anything from Iain M. Banks gets my thumbs up. He's got a new one out I've yet to read (Surface Detail) but I'd recommened his books if you're interested in seeing a glimpse of what life could be like if everything was run by computers.

I would give another vote for Iain M. Banks. His stuff just exudes Smart.

As for Sewell, he has had his tired old quotemines adequately refuted by several reviewers, such as Marek Kohn in the Independent or by Simon Underdown in the Guardian.

Will (@ 7) -

That sounds like a great idea. Let Mr Sewell speak for himself, and explain his position (perhaps in discussion with someone who may disagree with him?).

That would be a far better approach than relying on either my recommendation or the (typically predictable) philosophically motivated dismissal we read in post #10.

That's all I am going to say about this topic on this thread.

One very good book I recommend is, 'Who made God' by Edgar Andrews

This is a synopsis of its contents,

If you've been waiting for a really effective riposte to the 'new atheism' of Richard Dawkins and others (or even if you haven't) here it is - gently humorous, highly readable, deeply serious, razor sharp, and written by an internationally respected scientist. Who made God? dismantles the arguments and pretensions of scientific atheism and presents a robust biblical theism as a positive, and altogether more convincing, alternative.

Contents:
Sooty and the universe (Who made God?)
Yogurt, cereal and toast (Can science explain everything?)
Stringing it all together (Searching for a theory of everything)
Pouring concrete (Foundations and hypotheses)
Ferrets and fallacies (A brief critique of God, the failed hypothesis)
Defining God (What do we mean by 鈥楪od'?)
Starting with a bang (Cosmic origins)
Steam engine to the stars (Time and the hypothesis of God)
Peeling onions (law in conscience, nature and society)
Cosmic chess (The origin of the laws of nature)
Over the moon (Natural law and miracles)
Information, stupid! (The origin of life)
Life in a cake mixer (The origin of living organisms)
The tidy pachyderm (A critique of neo-Darwinianism)
The mighty mutation? (Can mutations create?)
The second shoe (Man and his mind)
Man and his Maker (Man, morality and redemption)

If Sewell performs as entertainingly as he did promoting the book it should be good laugh.
Here's the standfirst and first para:
The naturalist outraged the church, prompting a bitter debate that still sets creationists against evolutionists. Now a sinister link has emerged between his work and the recent spate of high-school killings by crazed, nihilistic teenagers
You wouldn鈥檛 know from the celebrations of Charles Darwin鈥檚 life this year that the amiable Victorian gent portrayed in those TV drama-docs pottering around the garden of his home in Kent has been fingered as a racist, an apologist for genocide, and the inspiration of a string of psychopathic killers.

Currently open around the house:

A History of Ulster by Jonathan Bardon - When you read it, you are there, history, living in print.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (Cultural Studies in the Gospels) by Kenneth Bailey - because Jesus wasn鈥檛 Western and lived before the Enlightenment and the Reformation and it just might be worth removing those spectacles.

Tess of the d鈥橴bervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor - it really is rather bewitching

I have been reading an interesting little book called 鈥楥omplaint鈥� by the British philosopher Julian Baggini, just out in paperback (Profile Books, 拢8.99). He points out that complaint, without which there would be no progress, is a secular humanist act because it is resistance against the idea, promulgated by religion, that suffering is our divinely ordained lot and that we can do no more than put up with it piously. Instead, complaint is the insistence that justice must not wait for the next life but must be attained here.

Christianity is a good example. While God is forever complaining in the Old Testament, the New Testament teaches us not to try to alter the basic injustices of life. We must render unto Caesar and accept that the poor will be with us always. Jesus didn鈥檛 lead a terrestrial rebellion to overthrow the Romans: 鈥淢y kingdom is not of this world鈥�, he testified at his trial. St Paul even encourages slaves to know their place and keep in it. The great success of Christianity, suggests Baggini, was that it made not complaining seem so natural when, to an outsider observer, a world in which millions of people live in misery should be up in arms at the deity who created them with so little apparent concern for their happiness.

Baggini mentions Jean Meslier (1664-1729), the rural French priest who wrote a secret testament, published only after his death, in which he argued against the beliefs of the church he ostensibly served (available in edited form as 鈥楽uperstition in All Ages鈥� for about 拢10 from Amazon).

In his book, Meslier says that religion is nothing but a 鈥榗astle in the air鈥� and god is only a 鈥榗himera鈥�. He hadn鈥檛 resigned partly because he didn鈥檛 want to be burned at the stake but also partly because being a priest was the only way he felt he could help his parishioners, which he did by diverting church funds to their welfare while he himself lived like a pauper.

Returning to Baggini, he says that complaint is a distinguishing feature of our species because only we can conceive of a world different from the one in which we currenly find ourselves. We are acutely conscioius of the difference between the way things are and the way they ought to be. Thus it is the motor of social and moral progress.

The problem here, and it highlights the book鈥檚 basic weakness, is that it depends what you are complaining about. Baggini does try to distinguish between a complaint based on moral grounds and an opportunistic objection on grounds of self-interest. But Hitler in all sincerity constantly complained about the stab in the back Germany allegedly received by the Jews and the Bolsheviks, and the results were genocide and total war against the Soviet Union in which millions died. Conservatives鈥� continual complaints about the power of unions led to the emasculation of workers鈥� rights in the 1980s. Indeed, Conservative complaints about the 鈥榦verbearing power of the state鈥� have now led to the daft and dangerous idea of a Big Society in which we do practically everything for ourselves.

Generally, though, I agree with Baggini that complaint can be a positive force. As Chekhov wrote: 鈥淭o make a man better, you must first show him what he is鈥�. Without criticism, without analysis of society鈥檚 weaknesses and shortcomings, there can be no progress.

As Bagginin says, 鈥渁 man who is tired of complaining is tired of life鈥�. Or, to put a biblical spin on it, 鈥渢he meek would have no world to inherit if the more petulant did not set about building one fit to last鈥�.

I'm possibly using up my quota for recommendations, but if you're not opposed to something a little more surreal than normal and enjoy classical themes twisted around a little then I'd push the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik.

The Napoleonic Wars with dragons? It's not as twee and contrived as you might imagine and it's meticulously researched. If it wasn't for the dragons, it'd rate first class for accuracy.

And if anyone *hasn't* yet read Moby Dick, I suggest they do so.

A book I could not recommend highly enough is The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. It demonstrates how equality frequently leads to the well-being of society as a whole... and, yes, this greater well-being is even observed among those at the 'top end', if one would wish to categorise in such a way.

I see there are some rebuttals of this book now in print, which I will take a look at before jumping to conclusions but for me it seemed a very strong argument and above all a fascinating read.

I am quite intrigued that many Evangelical Christians align themselves with the politics of the right, both in the US and the UK. C.S. Lewis tells us in Mere Christianity that 'the New Testament gives us a pretty clear hint of what a Christian society would be like', and that there would 'be no swank or side, no putting on airs. To that extent, a Christian society would be what we now call "leftist".'

I don't personally place any stock in the words of Lewis, but he is a well-regarded Christian apologist after all. Many get excited by his famous 'trilemma', but happily overlook bits like this.

@Natman (and Will and Helio)

I'm not sure I'd describe Banks' work as the future run by computers - he's a lot more interested in questions about how societies with different values interact than the technology. The sophistication of the AIs and the rights they have mean that in effect they are people. The technology is so advanced that it provides a playground for exploring issue of ethics, sociology, politics, etc. The real genius (of the Culture series of books at least) is in its examination of a culture that has had virtually barriers to pleasure and desire removed. Banks is a genius the way he writes about a Utopian society that is ostensibly the Good Guy, yet gets you rooting for someone to take them down.

Also it looks like Surface Detail isn't out until 7 October - you had my hopes up there!

I'm quite enjoying 1492 - The Year Our World Began by Felipe Fernandez-Armento at the moment. Provides snapshots of a world in transition from all round the world. Also been dipping into Bardon's History of Ulster and echo 2MP's recommendation. RF Foster does a pretty good job for the whole island in his Modern Ireland as well.

Consciousness Explained by Dan Dennett, Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate and the Language Instinct for those interested in minds and brains.

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin, Dawk's Ancestor's Tale and The Greatest Show on Earth for the bar room anti Evilutionists so at least they don't have to repeat the same old recycled cabbage.

Just finished Bill Bryson's At Home - a Short History of Private Life which is as warm and witty as all his stuff.

For fiction, anything by David Mitchell (not the comedian, although I like him as well), especially Cloud Atlas. Looking forward to reading his latest, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, but that will have to wait until I've cleared the backlog on my phone courtesy of Project Gutenberg - Little Dorrit, Lord Jim and the not so worthy but vastly entertaining Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom Series. Science Fiction, but not as we know it, Captain.

For SF buffs, Project Gutenberg also has lots of stuff by H Beam Piper including his gentle classic, Little Fuzzy.

Of the panel's recommendations I've only read: Red Dust Road (OKish but if you haven't already invested in it I wouldn't really bother), Maus (excellent), and Heart of Darkness (essential, as with Helio's recommendation Moby Dick, if you haven't read it you can't really consider yourself educated).

My own favourite of the Summer so far is William Dalrymple's : Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India - Don't be put off by the title, in India the 'sacred' is intimately bound-up with the very profane indeed, I can't praise it highly enough!

I'm not a great Sci-fi fan generally but Iain M Banks really is in a class of his own - unequivocal agreement with Natman and Helio here.

Finally a couple of Irish interest: Pearse Lawlor's The Burnings 1920 introduced me to a fascinating episode in recent Irish history of which I was completely unaware and which, I must confess, I found shocking on so many levels. Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture was almost as good. These are two books which illuminate an Ireland only just past but already almost totally forgotten. Worth revisting.

sure Brian

Paul even encouraged slaves to know their place and to keep it.

except for the bit where he encouraged them to take their freedom if they get the opportunity.

and the bit where he asks Philemon to take his slave back, but not as a slave...but as a brother.

and the bit where Paul sent this same one chapter letter around all the churches so they too could read his appeal to Philemon.

Yeah Brian, except for those bits, you are dead right.

OT

I tried "The Algebraist" by Iain Banks - I really tried, gave it my best shot, but it was pretty dreadful. If only Robert Heinlein or Azimov were still alive.

@ Mcc 23

I'm with you on this if little else. I staggered through Against a Dark Background without really seeing the point. The Culture Series must surely be better, I'll give them a go one of these days.

I'd add Douglas Adams and Arthur C Clarke to your two if onlys. At least Ray Bradbury's still with us.

Mccamleyc (#23),

You picked a bad one to start with to be honest. I suggest either 'Player of Games' or 'Consider Phlebas' for an introduction to his Culture setting or if you want something stand alone 'Against A Dark Background'. But be warned, that one is as dark as it claims.

Brian

I have no idea what the moderators were considering but now that your post has appeared I see nothing offensive in it.

Sounds like an interesting book but I'm wondering a couple of things.

First of all, generally, one would, of course, have to argue that religion is the promoter of both pious suffering and aggressive violent reaction if it is to be responsible for all our ills; but beyond the tongue in cheek reply, I'm interested in your comments, "Christianity is a good example. While God is forever complaining in the Old Testament, the New Testament teaches us not to try to alter the basic injustices of life. We must render unto Caesar and accept that the poor will be with us always." and the specific examples relating to "render unto Caesar" and "the poor will be with us always" and I'm wondering how, in the wider context of those accounts, you arrive at that interpretation?

@23-26

The Culture series of novels are generally stronger than the standalones. I'd go with Consider Phlebas as the best starter because it sets out what the Culture is about. Against a Dark Background is pretty dark, but then a lot of his work is. Flawed characters making difficult moral choices against a background of near omnipotent forces. How do people survive crushing events and environments? How can good choices be made at the edge of morality? How does society function and interact with other societies when it has next to no needs and is essentially hedonistic? How do you die well for a cause?

@Brian McClinton (15) and 2MP (26)

To the issue of complaint, you could add the imprecatory Psalms and Lamentations as fairly major complaints against God and the prayer of the persistent widow, strongly commended by Jesus as a New Testament example.

Jonathan

Psalms and Lamentations, indeed. And Job... and many other interactions between God and His people. It was Brian's misinterpretation (not only of the specific accounts he was referring to but also of the ministry of Jesus in general) that I was flagging up.

To be honest, I like my fiction to be just a good story. If there's a hidden depth (as you often get with Heinlein and Asimov (is it Z or S?) that's fine - but good characters, plot, movement - not 800 pages to tell a 100 page story. That's why I like young adult books so much - Garth Nix and JK Rowling - readable.

I must admit that I have given in to the hype over . I'm nearly at the end of volume three now.

There's been a lot of hype, but really these novels are not bad at all. I have a few small quibbles here and there, but on the whole they're a cracking good read (but if you want to embark on this trilogy, it would be useful to have an atlas of Sweden to hand).

Jonathan, Mark Peter:

I say, you fellows. Take up some of your issues with Julian Baggini. I was summarising HIS argument, though IN GENERAL I agree with it. I know that the Bible is contradictory, which is natural for a collection of books written by different people and over a thousand years

On the question of slavery, Mark, we have flogged that dead flesh many times. Paul IS quoted as saying: "Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again". Indeed, this is the way organised Christianity behaved for nearly 2,000 years. Hence Nietzsche's view of it as a 'slave morality'. To paraphrase Baggini, it spoke to the poor, the weak and the dispossessed, and instead of encouraging them to overcome these limitations, it taught them that being at the bottom of the pile was virtuous. They should take heart from the fact that they will inherit the earth and it will be the fat rich who will struggle to squeeze through heaven's gates.

Incidentally, did you see the report in Monday鈥檚 Guardian that a new book out in a couple of weeks claims Wilberforce was implicated in slave trading after its legal abolition?



As Baggini says, it is no surprise that a dissenting religion with a lax stance on the authority of the Bible - i.e. the Quakers - was ahead of more orthodox denominations which took longer to see the injustice of bondage (He might have added SOME Presbyterians in Ulster).

Jesus stressed VOLUNTARY aid, not resistance to oppressive power. The man with two coats should give one to a person with none, but he should not seize the excessive clothing of the wealthy in the name of redistribution.

Baggini mentions the poor record of the Catholic Church throughout its history on resistance to despicable regimes. It supported fascism in Italy and Spain and signed a concordat with the Nazi government in Germany in 1933. In Rwanda, Catholics were implicated in assisting the Hutus in the genocide of the Tutsis but, far from cvondemning them, the Pope鈥檚 only direct intervention was to appeal for a dstay of execution for those found guilty of these horrendous crimes.

Now, of course, Baggini is talking in generalities. Of course, you will find bits of the Bible that present a slightly different picture. Yes, Revelation is a rant, for example. But you will also find many other bits that reinforce his argument, and by and large it is the latter that have triumphed in organised Christianity, Islam etc.

I think that one of the basic points is this. It has been hit upon by many thinkers. Why do the mass of people, who are poor and oppressed, not rise up and cut the throats of the minority of rich people who have most of the world鈥檚 wealth and power? After all, they greatly outnumber them and could physically overpower them? La Boetie, Montaigne鈥檚 close friend who died young, gave an answer in his 鈥楧iscourse of Voluntary Servitude鈥�, written in the 1540s or early 1550s.

Every tyranny, says La Boetie, must necessarily be grounded upon general popular acceptance. The bulk of the people themselves, for whatever reason, acquiesce in their own subjection. If this were not the case, no tyranny, indeed no governmental rule, could long endure. Hence, a government does not have to be popularly elected to enjoy general public support; for general public support is in the very nature of all governments that endure, including the most oppressive of tyrannies (think of Hitler鈥檚 plebiscites). The tyrant is but one person, and could scarcely command the obedience of another person, much less of an entire country, if most of the subjects did not grant their obedience by their own consent.

So the question is: why do the mass of people consent to their own enslavement? After all, it is natural to want to be free, to feed your own family, to have the means to enjoy life etc. La Boetie put it down to indoctrination (euphemistically called education), mystification (the secular ruler allies with the church and surrounds himself with a religious aura and charisma), spectacles (circuses etc) and bribery. Marx of course said much the same thing but emphasised the crucial role of religion as 鈥榯he opium of the masses鈥�.

Baggini鈥檚 general thesis is correct. To make the world a better place, we need to complain more, criticise more, accept less and in particular challenge those authorities, secular and religious, that are obstacles to those complaints and criticisms.

Brian

"Jesus stressed VOLUNTARY aid, not resistance to oppressive power. The man with two coats should give one to a person with none, but he should not seize the excessive clothing of the wealthy in the name of redistribution."

To whom should I address my complaint about this misinterpretation? I wouldn't want to trip over an obstacle!

(Sorry, couldn't resist) :-)

And, perhaps, Brian, you might quote the Guardian quoting the author of the book regarding Wilberforce in the last two paragraphs of the article.

Peter (32):

Yes, those are Baggini's words. As I have said, Jesus is contradictory. But you know, and I know, that at one point he goes much further and tells the rich man to give ALL he has to the poor. But, Peter, this message is smothered by all the others: that you have to believe in him, that you give no thought for the morrow, that the poor are always with us, that the poor will receive their consolation in the next world, that we must 'render unto Caesar', that if the rich men don't do what he asks but continues to oppress the poor, they should turn the other cheek and accept their lot in this world, for they shall inherit the world to come etc.

Here's the point, Peter. Why, if Jesus' exhortation to the rich is such a crucial part of his message, have the vast majority of rich Christians largely ignored it for 2,000 years? In fact, why have some rich Christians even argued the opposite: that their wealth indicates that they are among God's elect?

In other words, in 2000 years of slavery, feudal oppression, capitalist exploitation, extremes of wealth and poverty, a rich world and a poor world, this message of Jesus to the rich (which has been so misinterpreted by Baggini) seems to have got completely lost on the slaveowners, feudal lords, capitalist bosses and wealthy in general - the vast majority of whom claimed and claim to be Christians. Indeed, compared to them, Baggini's 'misinterpretation' is not worth a hill of beans.

They ignore it cos they're rich. It's easy to ignore lots of things when you're rich - you can ignore the poor and your own mortality. But it all catches up in the end. Right from the start the rich were ignoring Jesus. And most of them/us still do.

You came very close to breaking Mc Camley's law there with your reference to the concordat with the Nazis but I suppose you didn't mention Pius by name.

Peter (33):

See the letter by Dr Graham Ullathorne, quoting Wilberforce himself, in today鈥檚 Guardian:

Brian

There are a number of points raised here and I don鈥檛 think it would be useful to address them all, at least not in detail. (I鈥檒l add too, that my summer reading (and responding) includes this blog!)

My first concern relates to your (or you acceptance of) the interpretations given in your previous posts, and as this is a thread about reading I think it would be useful to consider not only what we read, but how we read. This is one of the reasons I suggested a book by Kenneth Bailey. I happen to be of the opinion that our culture, and that will include both religious and non-religious, buys too easily into either a limited literalist reading of the bible, a popularist reading of it or a 鈥榩roof-texting鈥� approach. But I shall leave the interpretative detail on the issues you raised for now and move to a point of agreement.

I share your concern about rich Christians playing fast and loose with the words of Jesus and I am with you completely in agreeing that wealth is no indicator of what we might call 鈥楪od鈥檚 blessing鈥�. For too long the church (and I speak collectively at first) has sought wealth, power and control, and I have no hesitation in saying that these actions are the antithesis, not only of some of the words of Jesus, but more consequentially, of the life and *attitude* of Jesus. (I鈥檓 thinking of the Christian view that he 鈥渄id not consider equality with God something to be grasped鈥�).

However this point also moves our thinking on, for I must not only consider the institutional church of which I am part, I must also think of me, and at this point I am beginning to scratch at the issue of interpretation. Christian institutions could, and should do more, much, much more but I am reminded that I have three coats. One hangs in the shed for weeding in the rain, one, which is supposed to be waterproof, but isn鈥檛!, stays in the boot of the car incase I am 鈥榗aught short鈥�, the other I wear day to day. These coats were not particularly expensive to buy, but the point is that I could have used my money differently. At this point, don鈥檛 the words of Jesus, 鈥榠f you have two coats, give to the one who doesn鈥檛 have any鈥�, take on a new import?... *I* have responsibility towards my neighbour.

I would want to go on and suggest that these words and others not only carry impact for the one reading or hearing them, but that they also had specific impact and meaning for the first hearers. For example, the *response* by the hearers to the incident involving the young man who was told to sell all, was 鈥渢hey were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?"鈥� This bit is important because it tells us about the culture and the expectations of the day.

But beyond all that, the comments about loving enemies and giving away coats are potent. I am not a 鈥榃ilberforce鈥�, I have little influence but I can consider my life and my responsibilities in a Kingdom which shouldn鈥檛 be seeking earthly power, not because of some 鈥榩ie in the sky鈥� avoidance of justice but rather because I am freed to love others as I love myself. (if that is a freedom I can bear) And, in view of the thousands of kindnesses and graces seen and unseen everyday, I find myself biting my lip on Sundays whenever I say, 鈥淟ord, Lord.鈥� I suspect you will get the reference.

And now, as you are determined to bring a monocled view of Wilberforce to our discussion, (would you be willing to concede that at the heart of the anti-slavery movement were evangelical and revivalist christians?) I shall say that from time to time I find myself drinking coffee and eating chocolate which aren鈥檛 marked 鈥榝air trade鈥�, I shall say that if I drive too hard a bargain I am guilty of theft, I shall say that the poor are indeed with me, everyday, and even taking into consideration my more immediate responsibilities, too often I ignore them. Wilberforce did what he did in his day... he was human, and flawed like all of us... and you and I have no way of knowing what we would have done... but sure, let鈥檚 give him a poke in the eye, perhaps it will make us feel better.

Espresso?

Mccamley, paragraph 1 post 35, I quite agree.

McCamley (35):

I shall now break your law. It was Pacelli (the future Pius XII) as Cardinal Secretary of State who hastened to negotiate the treaty and who actually signed this ignominious document on behalf of the Vatican.

It gave Nazi Germany its first diplomatic triumph. It included the Church's liquidation of the democratic Catholic Centre Party and effectively legitimised Hitler's seizure of power and his destruction of democracy, which both Pius XI and Pacelli (later Pius XII) welcomed. A high point of 20th century Christianity, we might say.

@Brian McClinton (36)

The letter about the pamphlet wherein Wilberforce expresses concern for the slaves, desiring that when they are freed they be able to earn a living, rather than being set free to die?

Not books - but nearly...

I went earlier this evening to see Vincent River, I think Dave mentioned having seen part of it on another thread. You still have two chances left to see it in Belfast - do not miss it!

The play lasted about 70 minutes without interval though when it was over I really could not believe that such a stretch of time had passed. It is gripping from the very beginning and the emotional intensity builds steadily until it reaches an almost unbearable peak. The actors engross the audience to such an extent that at one point I simply could not tear my eyes just from the shape Anita's hand was making. There is a vivid fusion of language, expression, and gesture which, when it happens, makes drama live - there is such a fusion in this production, the immersion of the actors in their characters immerses the audience in the story.

I think the play ends with the characters numb and confused, the resolution is in the irresolution. This member of the audience left in a similar state and that is meant as a compliment of the highest magnitude.

Those whose reasons for disliking Rev differ from mine will certainly be challenged by this work. It is not easy but it is real. Open your hearts to both the characters (there are only two) and, while you will bleed, you may also heal.

Sorry - my maths were way out there - it actually lasted about 100 minutes not 70.

OK William and Parrhasios - you have me convinced! There's still tickets for tomorrow night if any others interested.
See ya there :-)

Sorry - now Books.........

Let us know what you think of it Eunice - I am interested to know...

Parrhasios and William : I echo both your comments - very gritty, intense, real and evocative. As you say, it's over and you wonder where the time has gone and again both actors gave excellent performances - almost disappointed when at the end you realise it is a play afterall and this hasn't just happened for real! I liked how the story unfolded and how the imagery changed with that - becoming deeper, more real, more truthful until it's all (on a certain level) out there - nuts, bolts, warts and all. Thanks for the recommendation. :-)

As for books ......well ......I hear there's a great one coming up in the next post......:-)

God Hates You. Hate Him Back' author CJ Werleman ... (Not worth the 拢16.66 price tag.)
Just finished Stieg Larrson's trilogy.... The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo etc..(Excellent)
Also just finished 'A Million Bullets' (an expose of British forces in Afghanistan by James Fergusson.(Excellent)

I have just finished Karl Marlantes' Matterhorn; it is an extraordinary work, an absorbing narrative makes it an unputdownable page-turner while the author's unerring insight leaves it intrinsically (yet, one could think, almost incidently) profound.

This is a novel set in the Vietnam war and written by a highly decorated veteran of that conflict. It is a story about war, friendship, patriotism, religion, race, ambition, purpose and purposelessness - in short a story about what it means to be human.

I started reading the book in the week I attended the funeral of someone I had known who was killed in Afghanistan - as I read I came to the chilling and sickening realisation that his killer had made a sensible if entirely reprehensible call. There can be no Western victory in Afghanistan and withdrawal will lead to the inevitable betrayal by the coalition of those cooperating with its forces. The Taliban, like the North Vietnamese, can feel, as Marlantes puts it, that they are "buying something worth the price" (of their sacrifices); we, like the Marines of whom he writes in the novel, have no such assurance and, on our eventual and inevitable withdrawal, will leave those who are now our allies to the tender mercies of those we now oppose.

The treatment of religion is real - people pray in extremis while doubting or marginalising the divine at other times. There is a wonderful interpretation by a black preacher to his white friend of the story of the ugly duckling as a parable of awakening black consciousness. He suggests that the duckling cannot grow up: "Can't grow up to be a big duck 'cause he ain't a duck. But he don't know what he supposed to grow up to." The white friend asks who might be suitable role models suggesting Cassius Clay or Martin Luther King only to receive the assured response: "Nope. I got Jesus. He's my to." To my mind that's a pretty perfect summation of the meaning of Christ.

Nonetheless you should not think that this is in any sense a Christian work nor, however, is it classically humanist: it is essentially realist. It is worth quoting the following passage because it strikes me as more immediate, more profound, more true than anything you are likely read from a philosopher:

"No, the jungle wasn't evil. It was indifferent. So, too, was the world. Evil, then, must be the negation of something man had added to the world. Ultimately, it was caring about something that made the world liable to evil. Caring. And then the caring gets torn assunder. ... It occured to Mellas that he could create the possibility of good or evil through caring. He could nullify the indifferent world. But in so doing he opened himself to the pain of watching it get blown away. His killing that day would not have been evil if the dead soldiers hadn't been loved by mothers, sisters, friends, wives. Mellas understood that in destroying the fabric that linked those people, he had participated in evil, but this evil had hurt him as well. He understood that his participation in evil was a result of being human. Being human was the best he could do. Without man there would be no evil. But there was also no good, nothing moral built over the world of fact. Humans were responsible for it all. He laughed at the cosmic joke, but he felt heartsick."

On the odd occasion when I'm feeling disposed to be rational this is more or less exactly what I think myself but I suspect there will be one or two on the blog who might mildly disagree.

(Eunice - glad you thought your visit to the play worthwhile).

Parrhasios:Sounds like a good book alright. I have been pondering the paragraph you quoted. I agree with what I see as the essence of it but would have a different take on one area.
I agree we are responsible and that we perpetuate the presence of evil - so yes, without us - no evil. ALso agree that when we partake in evil it hurts us as well as the one perceived to be receiving it.
Re caring - I would use love - but they are perhaps to some extent interchangeable. Where I differ is that I would not see the world as indifferent but filled with beauty and love as part of the expression of the divine and that we too are part of that divine expression. So to my understanding we are hard wired to love - just that the wires get cut/trampled on/twisted etc and in the absence of love - evil can reign.
I can certainly relate to the cosmic joke expression - having used it myself in a slghtly different context.
Do you agree with the author that the world is neutral or do you see it as an expression of the divine?

Eunice - I think the world is neutral. I do not believe it was created, therefore, of itself, it reflects nothing but process. We can see the Divine only in the actions of people. It might help if I clarified a point from another discussion. I am not sure if I have ever actually used the precise phrase God is love; I would have been speaking carelessly if I did. I would not normally say God is anything. I believe rather that we may encounter God in the workings of love.

God is not in nature, nor is He, naturally, in people. I would never describe myself as a humanist because essentially I have a pretty low view of humanity. I think we may open ourselves to a meeting with the Divine when we become conscious of the possibility of being more than our baseline.

I see you've been to some of William's selections at QFT - did you see Baaria? (Last showing tonight at 9:15). I'm probably not allowed to mention it because it's not a book and it's not a Crawley pick but what a treat, what a joy!

Hi Parrhasios - thanks for your comments and expansion. You'll have figured that I have a different take re God and our true nature. I can understand of course why you would have a low view of humanity given the history of man's inhumanity to man - but for me this is based on man not being aware of his true nature as love and thus living in ways that are not consistent with that. Given that we tend to become more of what we believe or know ourselves to be - using love might just work to turn that around!

Re films:I haven't seen Baaria and can't make it tonight - will just have to add it to the DVD list!

Carroll's Alice wondered what was the use of a book without pictures or conversations; not only does the book I am about to recommend contain plates of some utterly mind-blowing expressions of twentieth century art, it also permits us to evesdrop on a few fascinating contemporary contributions to perhaps the longest conversation in human history.

Writing in Cross Purposes: Shock and Contemplation in Images of the Crucifixion Sister Wendy Beckett says (wrongly) "The crucifixion is not the central teaching of the Christian Faith. The centre of the faith is the Resurrection." - she immediately concedes nonetheless that her contention is not always immediately apparent in the iconography of the Church.听

It is certainly not apparent in this exhibition catalogue which entirely reinforces my understanding of the centrality of the cross to Christian experience. It reinforces it but it also makes us question it. It requires us to confront the sometimes contradictory and conflicting understandings inherent in the potent centre of our faith but it also helps us synthesise these different insights into a stronger and more complete whole.听

Two approaches really stand out. The first notes the way in which the Christ of the cross can represent all human suffering, a potent symbol for all the oppressed. Nothing, in retrospect, should have surprised me less, but nothing, in fact, surprised me more than the realisation that many Jews, in the wake of the holocaust, felt that, not only could Jesus represent their pain and suffering, he could effectively convey it to a wider world. Thus the most powerful paintings in this exhibition are the work of Jewish artists.听

Just about the one incontrovertible thing we know about Our Lord is that he was a Jewish Rabbi executed by the Roman forces occupying His country, aided and abetted by a collaborationist, exploitative, and unrepresentative Temple hierarchy. I can only be ashamed then of why I felt surprise when I learned that a Jewish gallery was hosting an exhibition on the crucifixion, of why I initially felt uneasy that Jews would chose Jesus to express the horror of their suffering. All I can now say is that the choice is inspired.听

It is this belief that the sufferings of Christ can be generalised which permits, for example, Xola Skosana to suggest, powerfully, that Christ is HIV+. It is an important dimension to the Calvary events but it is not the only one.听

There is also, among Christians, a belief that the death of Christ had an absolutely singular quality: that it is not, as Ben Quash puts it, "a neat illustration of all and every kind of suffering. It was not a painful sickness or a sudden catastrophe, inexplicable and unpredictable. It was the end of a path freely chosen. [It was] part of that joyous, abundant flow of the divine being which is already in God". This view has probably its strongest expression in the work of my favourite painter, Stanley Spencer. I know of no-one who can so strikingly and convincingly convey the immanence of the Christ. This understanding tells us that, if Christ's death is of actual current value to us, so then our actions weigh down on His cross. Spencer tells us that we are the ones who nail Him to the tree and he shows us that we sometimes approach the task with gusto. 听 听

I must mention a few particularly touching works: Tracy Emin's The Disposition [sic] is tender, intimate, physical; Samuel Bak's Study I is profound and haunting in a way that scourges the memory; and looking at Michael Rothenstein's The Crucifixion is like reading an Eliot poem.听

This last work calls for a somewhat more searching analysis than the rather superficial commentary which is all that is provided. The puzzles, the density, the structure, the apparently incidental, all draw one though layer after layer of reference and meaning each more disturbing and more revealing than the last. It is perhaps the most profoundly sexual painting I have ever seen. At the very centre of the work is an image suggesting that what happened on Golgotha was a sodomising of God, a tender abuse by those who love Him, and a mundane chore by the indifferent and materially absorbed. The whole work is sensual, polyguous, imbued with such a crushing sadness that even the principal signifier of hope (the ingenious depiction of the Magdalen as a linga-yoni) bears the face of despair. This Christ is obviously bisexual - loved by both Mary and St John in an overtly carnal way. All of what it means to be human is in this picture, love and death, tenderness and betrayal, indifference and devotion, desire and sublimation, involvement and detatchment. If you want to know why art is valuable, why it matters, you really could not start at better place that with this painting and this exhibition.